 When taxes once payable to Rome were transferred to the Crown , Cromwell saw the need to assess the taxable value of the Church 's extensive holdings as they stood in 1535 . The result was an extensive compendium , the Valor Ecclesiasticus . In September of the same year , Cromwell commissioned a more general visitation of religious institutions , to be undertaken by four appointee visitors . The visitation focussed almost exclusively on the country 's religious houses , with largely negative conclusions . In addition to reporting back to Cromwell , the visitors made the lives of the monks more difficult by enforcing strict behavioural standards . The result was to encourage self @-@ dissolution . In any case , the evidence gathered by Cromwell led swiftly to the beginning of the state @-@ enforced dissolution of the monasteries with all religious houses worth less than £ 200 vested by statute in the crown in January 1536 . After a short pause , surviving religious houses were transferred one by one to the Crown and onto new owners , and the dissolution confirmed by a further statute in 1539 . By January 1540 no such houses remained : some 800 had been dissolved . The process had been efficient , with minimal resistance , and brought the crown some £ 90 @,@ 000 a year . The extent to which the dissolution of all houses was planned from the start is debated by historians ; there is some evidence that major houses were originally intended only to be reformed . Cromwell 's actions transferred a fifth of England 's landed wealth to new hands . The programme was designed primarily to create a landed gentry beholden to the crown , which would use the lands much more efficiently . Although little opposition to the supremacy could be found in England 's religious houses , they had links to the international church and were an obstacle to further religious reform . 
