The predominant academic opinion is that the extensive care taken to provide for monks and nuns

from the suppressed houses to transfer to continuing houses if they wished, demonstrates that
monastic reform was still, at least in the mind of the King, the guiding principle; but that further large-
scale action against substandard richer monasteries was always envisaged. By definition, the
selection of poorer houses for dissolution in the First Act minimised the potential release of funds to
other purposes; and once pensions had been committed to former superiors, cash rewards paid to
those wishing to leave the religious life, and appropriate funding allocated for refounded houses
receiving transferred monks and nuns, it is unlikely that there was much if any profit at this stage
other than from the fines levied on exempted houses. Nevertheless, there was during most of 1537
(possibly conditioned by concern not to re-ignite rebellious impulses) a distinct standstill in official
action towards any further round of dissolutions. Episcopal visitations were renewed, monasteries
adapted their internal discipline in accordance with Cromwell's injunctions, and many houses
undertook overdue programmes of repair and reconstruction.