Thomas Stevens Abbot

Abbot

The word abbot, meaning father, is a title given to the head of a monastery in various traditions, including Christianity. The office may also be given as an honorary title to a clergyman who is not actually the head of a monastery...

 of Netley Abbey

Netley Abbey

Netley Abbey is a ruined late medieval monastery in the village of Netley near Southampton in Hampshire, England. The abbey was founded in 1239 as a house for Roman Catholic monks of the austere Cistercian order. Despite being a royal abbey, Netley was never rich, produced no influential scholars...

 and Beaulieu Abbey

Beaulieu Abbey

Beaulieu Abbey, , was a Cistercian abbey located in Hampshire, England. It was founded in 1203-1204 by King John and peopled by 30 monks sent from the abbey of Cîteaux in France, the mother house of the Cistercian order...

; (b. probably. c. 1490) (died 1550) was an English renaissance

Renaissance

The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...

 clergyman and Cistercian monk

Monk

A monk is a person who practices religious asceticism, living either alone or with any number of monks, while always maintaining some degree of physical separation from those not sharing the same purpose...

. As abbot of Netley and Beaulieu he had the right to a seat in the House of Lords

House of Lords

The House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster....

.

Little is known of Thomas' early life, but at some time in the late fifteenth or early sixteenth century he became a monk at the small and poor Cistercian monastery of Netley Abbey

Netley Abbey

Netley Abbey is a ruined late medieval monastery in the village of Netley near Southampton in Hampshire, England. The abbey was founded in 1239 as a house for Roman Catholic monks of the austere Cistercian order. Despite being a royal abbey, Netley was never rich, produced no influential scholars...

 in Hampshire

Hampshire

Hampshire is a county on the southern coast of England in the United Kingdom. The county town of Hampshire is Winchester, a historic cathedral city that was once the capital of England. Hampshire is notable for housing the original birthplaces of the Royal Navy, British Army, and Royal Air Force...

. There he took holy orders

Holy Orders

The term Holy Orders is used by many Christian churches to refer to ordination or to those individuals ordained for a special role or ministry....

 and rose through the ranks so that by 1529 he was elected abbot of Netley, succeeding John Corne.

Abbot

Thomas was evidently a skilled administrator and agriculturalist. Under his stewardship his often financially troubled abbey remained solvent (a difficult task given the small endowment and the vast cost of providing hospitality to travellers by land and sea and the king’s sailors) and he was able to build up a farm surplus worth more than £100, a huge sum for the time and not far off the annual net income of the abbey, and to pay down the debts.
He also maintained high standards of religious life at the abbey, and he and his seven monks gained good reports to the king from the local gentry and were much respected in the neighbourhood. Thomas was trusted by the government too, as is shown by his being given custody of two Franciscan

Franciscan

Most Franciscans are members of Roman Catholic religious orders founded by Saint Francis of Assisi. Besides Roman Catholic communities, there are also Old Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran, ecumenical and Non-denominational Franciscan communities....

 friar

Friar

A friar is a member of one of the mendicant orders.-Friars and monks:...

s, who presumably had offended the king by opposing his religious policies.

These policies were soon to have a dramatic effect on Thomas’ own life. In 1535 Netley's income was assessed in the Valor Ecclesiasticus

Valor Ecclesiasticus

The Valor Ecclesiasticus was a survey of the finances of the church in England, Wales and English controlled parts of Ireland made in 1535 on the orders of Henry VIII....

, Henry VIII

Henry VIII of England

Henry VIII was King of England from 21 April 1509 until his death. He was Lord, and later King, of Ireland, as well as continuing the nominal claim by the English monarchs to the Kingdom of France...

's great survey of church finances, at £160 gross, £100 net, which meant the following year that it came under the terms of the first Suppression Act, Henry's initial move in the Dissolution of the Monasteries

Dissolution of the Monasteries

The Dissolution of the Monasteries, sometimes referred to as the Suppression of the Monasteries, was the set of administrative and legal processes between 1536 and 1541 by which Henry VIII disbanded monasteries, priories, convents and friaries in England, Wales and Ireland; appropriated their...

, which closed all monasteries with incomes of less than £200 per year. Abbot Thomas and his seven monks were forced to surrender their house to the king in 1536.

This was not the end of Thomas' career as an abbot: shortly before the closure of his abbey King Henry appointed him abbot of Beaulieu Abbey

Beaulieu Abbey

Beaulieu Abbey, , was a Cistercian abbey located in Hampshire, England. It was founded in 1203-1204 by King John and peopled by 30 monks sent from the abbey of Cîteaux in France, the mother house of the Cistercian order...

, a wealthy royal foundation across Southampton Water

Southampton Water

Southampton Water is a tidal estuary north of the Solent and the Isle of Wight in England. The city of Southampton lies at its most northerly point. Along its salt marsh-fringed western shores lie the New Forest villages of Hythe and "the waterside", Dibden Bay, and the Esso oil refinery at Fawley...

 which was also Netley's mother house. Thomas and six of his monks (the other desired to resign and take a job as a secular priest) crossed Southampton Water to join Beaulieu in 1536. At Beaulieu he made every effort to save his new abbey by currying favour with the government, especially Thomas Cromwell, King Henry's chief minister, who held the fates of the English clergy in his hands, as well as bribing Thomas Wriothesley, 1st Earl of Southampton

Thomas Wriothesley, 1st Earl of Southampton

Thomas Wriothesley, 1st Earl of Southampton, KG , known as The Lord Wriothesley between 1544 and 1547, was a politician of the Tudor period born in London to William Wrythe and Agnes Drayton....

, another minister who had his eyes on taking over the abbey for himself, with fine horses from the abbey stables.

Thomas had barely been abbot of Beaulieu for a year when a crisis occurred which enabled to the government to put pressure on him to surrender his monastery. In September 1537 James Manzi (or Mangii), a Florentine on the run from the government for unspecified offences that might be construed as treason, took sanctuary at the abbey. Cromwell sent agents to arrest him, but Thomas was absent when they arrived and in the meanwhile the fugitive escaped. Thomas conducted an investigation into the affair and Manzi was soon recaptured, but suspicion remained that he had been somehow involved in the escape (thus potentially incurring serious criminal charges) and Thomas was obliged to put himself at the mercy of Cromwell and Wriothesley.

By early 1538 it was clear that Beaulieu was doomed so Thomas began to make provision for his future. One of his last acts as abbot before he was finally forced to surrender was to grant the mill and parsonage of Beaulieu to a friend and give his sister a manor house belonging to the abbey, an action that was common practice among monastic superiors facing the extinction of their houses during the Dissolution as insurance against not getting a decent pension (compare the similar transactions at neighbouring Titchfield Abbey

Titchfield Abbey

Titchfield Abbey is a medieval abbey and later country house, located in the village of Titchfield near Fareham in Hampshire, England. The abbey was founded in 1222 for Premonstratensian canons, an austere order of priests...

). The king’s commissioners arrived at the gates of the abbey in March 1538 and, after negotiations, the great monastery surrendered on April 2, 1538, the deed being signed by Thomas and 20 of the monks. It is likely that Thomas did not feel very sad about having to surrender his abbey a second time; the pension of 100 marks a year he was given made him a very wealthy man, and in a letter to Thomas Wriothesley written shortly after the abbey fell he described his monks at Beaulieu as "lewd monks, which now, I thank God, I am rid of". On the other hand, he had more sympathy for the people who had taken sanctuary

Sanctuary

A sanctuary is any place of safety. They may be categorized into human and non-human .- Religious sanctuary :A religious sanctuary can be a sacred place , or a consecrated area of a church or temple around its tabernacle or altar.- Sanctuary as a sacred place :#Sanctuary as a sacred place:#:In...

 at the abbey and who lived in the abbey grounds. He pleaded with the government for their lives, with the result that they were either given protection and the right to remain living in the former abbey precinct or pardons.

Later life

Thomas continued his career in the church after the fall of Beaulieu and in February 1540 was made rector

Rector

The word rector has a number of different meanings; it is widely used to refer to an academic, religious or political administrator...

 of Bentworth in Hampshire.. In May 1548 he was also made Treasurer

Treasurer

A treasurer is the person responsible for running the treasury of an organization. The adjective for a treasurer is normally "tresorial". The adjective "treasurial" normally means pertaining to a treasury, rather than the treasurer.-Government:...

 of Salisbury Cathedral

Salisbury Cathedral

Salisbury Cathedral, formally known as the Cathedral Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary, is an Anglican cathedral in Salisbury, England, considered one of the leading examples of Early English architecture....

 and given the prebend of Calne

Calne

Calne is a town in Wiltshire, southwestern England. It is situated at the northwestern extremity of the North Wessex Downs hill range, a designated Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty....

 while retaining his rectory.

Thomas' will, which he wrote on the 9th August 1550 and its codicil, written three days later, reveals more details about Thomas' subsequent life. He had a daughter, Mary Stevens, to whom he left all his property, specifically noting his plate and an estate he had recently bought at Alton

Alton, Hampshire

Alton is a historic market town and civil parish in the East Hampshire district of the English county of Hampshire. It had a population of 16,584 at the 1991 census and is administered by East Hampshire district council. It is located on the source of the River Wey and is the highest town in...

. Mary was clearly young because he created a trust supervised by a friend, Christofer Wallison, to manage the property and help her make a suitable marriage. Mary was present at the creation of the will and agreed not to marry anyone without the consent of Christofer. At his death Thomas was a rich man, which can be seen from the large sums he was able to leave as gifts to friends and his servants, many of whom are named in the will.

Thomas must have died shortly after making his will, which was probated by the Archbishop of Canterbury

Archbishop of Canterbury

The Archbishop of Canterbury is the senior bishop and principal leader of the Church of England, the symbolic head of the worldwide Anglican Communion, and the diocesan bishop of the Diocese of Canterbury. In his role as head of the Anglican Communion, the archbishop leads the third largest group...

in London on 9 September 1550.