Hacker News Reader

Yes, not surprising that Henry VIII found the idea of dissolving them and taking all their stuff so attractive :)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissolution_of_the_monasteries

Those abbeys and monasteries would've (as part of their endowments) owned large chunks of the agricultural land outside the city as well. I wonder what a modern map, showing all land parcels owned or controlled by an entity with a City address, might look like?

Fun fact: Trinity College of the University of Cambridge has a 999-year lease on the land that the O2 Arena sits on [1][2].

[1]: https://www.theguardian.com/education/2018/may/29/oxford-and...

[2]: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2009/oct/09/trinity-col...

Not entirely the same but related: https://whoownsengland.org/2017/04/17/the-thirty-landowners-...

Well at the time you were looked at differently if you didn't show up at the mass. For a comparable neighborhood size they were much more easily filled at the time they are currently.