The Forgotten Welfare State: How the Dissolution of Monasteries Devastated the Poor and Sick

Before Henry VIII, if you were sick, old, or starving in England, there was a place you could go. Monasteries ran almshouses, hospitals, free lodging for travelers, even schools for poor kids, all as a normal, unglamorous part of just existing. Then in about a decade, almost all of it was gone.

In this episode I dig into the side of the Dissolution of the Monasteries that usually gets skipped over in favor of Henry and Anne Boleyn and the break with Rome, what actually happened to the people who relied on that system, how long it took England to build anything to replace it (spoiler: over sixty years), and why the gap in between is a story worth sitting with.

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