In France, the religious houses suppressed by the laws of February 13,
1790, and August 18, 1792, amounted (without reckoning various minor
establishments) to 820 abbeys of men and 255 of women, with aggregate
revenues of 95,000,000 livres.
The Thirty Years' War in Germany wrought much mischief to the
monasteries. On the death of Maria Theresa, in 1780, Joseph II., her
son, dissolved the Mendicant Orders and suppressed the greater number of
monasteries and convents in his dominions.
Although Pope Alexander VII. secured the suppression of many small
cloisters in Italy, he was in favor of a still wider abolition on
account of the superfluity of religious institutes, and the general
degeneration of the monks. Various minor suppressions had taken place in
Italy, but it was not until the unification of the kingdom that the
religious houses were declared national property. The total number of
monasteries suppressed in Italy, down to 1882, was 2,255, involving an
enormous displacement of property and dispersion of inmates.
The fall of the religious houses in Spain dates from the law of June 21,
1835, which suppressed nine hundred monasteries at a blow. The remainder
were dissolved on October 11th, in the same year.
No European country had so many religious houses in proportion to its
population and area as Portugal. In 1834 the number suppressed
exceeded 500.