Dissolution: photographs by Hope Greene
www.hopegreene.com
hope@hopegreene.com
815.876.6653

All Prints are selenium toned silver gelatin prints printed in editions of 21.
Images are available sized 15”x15” and 11”x11”
15”x15” framed $230, unframed $85
11”x11” framed $160, unframed $58

25% of the purchase price of works bought through the gallery during the Art Quarterly exhibition benefits the Crystal Cork and its support of local arts.

In honor of the monks and nuns who provided charity to England’s poor and ill until their alms funds were seized by the Crown, 5% of the purchase price of each work will benefit relief and development efforts in Haiti.

Please contact me to order.

History of the Dissolution of the Monasteries

In 1536-41 Henry VIII of England ordered that the monastic houses of England, Wales and Ireland be closed, their assets seized by the Crown, and the former monks and nuns be dispersed or in some cases, executed.

The religious houses represented a threat to the King's great plan to assume ultimate power over all aspects of his country's rule—as they were very wealthy, powerful and utterly dedicated to the foreign rule of Rome, the seat of the Catholic Church. At that time in history, the Roman Catholic Church held immense power over all aspects of the lives of both common people and royalty, from birth to death. The catalyst for Henry's decision to separate from the Roman Church was the Pope's inability, for political reasons, to grant Henry an annulment of his first marriage to Catherine of Aragon who had not been able to provide the king a male heir. Allowing such a vital issue as the succession to be dictated by a foreign power was not acceptable to King Henry. Using the momentum of an already existing religious reforming movement dedicated among other things to disseminating the Bible to the English people in their own language, Henry raised a storm of nationalism that swept the Roman Church off his island, leaving an English Church with himself as the Supreme Head, husband to a new young wife and the possessor of millions of acres and millions of pounds taken from the religious houses of England, Ireland and Wales.