Where did all the monasteries go?
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No one knows how many monasteries there were in Europe in 1500, the dawn of the “Early Modern” period, about 35 years before rulers started their centuries-long campaign of suppressions. Estimates place it easily in the neighbourhood of tens of thousands, if you include hermitages, daughter houses and all the multitude of mendicant “places”. Europe, as we know, was literally built by monks, and by the end of the 15th century western Christendom was carpeted with monastic holdings.
Where did they all go?
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