Not Too Big To Fail: Henry VIII and the Dissolution of the Monasteries

On Wednesday, June 18th, Dr. Karl Gunther visited the Christian Study Center to give this lecture.

In 1530, monasteries were some of the wealthiest and most prestigious institutions in England. A decade later, they were gone and in many cases literally dismantled. In his talk, Dr. Gunther will consider the causes and consequences of this dramatic historical episode and help us think about our own moment of collapsing confidence in institutions, including public and private universities.

Lecturer Bio

Dr. Karl Gunther is a historian of the English Reformation and Associate Professor of Humanities within the Hamilton School for Classical and Civic Education at the University of Florida. He earned his B.A. in Philosophy and History from Wheaton College (IL) and his M.A. and Ph.D. in History from Northwestern University. Gunther’s first book, Reformation Unbound: Protestant Visions of Reform in England, 1525-1590 (Cambridge University Press, 2014) was a finalist for the Royal Historical Society’s Whitfield Prize and the Runner-up for the American Society of Church History’s Brewer Prize. He has published articles in Past & Present, The Journal of Ecclesiastical History, Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte, Reformation, History Compass, and in volumes on Freedom of Speech, 1550-1850 (2020) and Early Modern Literature and England’s Long Reformation (2021). He was elected a fellow of the Royal Historical Society in 2015 and served as President of the Southern Conference on British Studies from 2015-2017. Before joining the Hamilton School in 2023, he was an Associate Professor of History at the University of Miami, where he taught for fifteen years, serving as the department’s Director of Undergraduate Studies, the co-convener of the UM Medieval and Early Modern Studies Research Group, and the chair of the UM Faculty Senate’s Student Affairs Committee.

Gunther is currently in the final stages of completing his second book, entitled Wrong! Responding to Error in the English Reformation.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit christianstudycenter.substack.com