How much knowledge of the past was destroyed during the Dissolution of the Monasteries?

Question

Apart from the buildings themselves, what items of particular historical value were lost during Henry VIII's reign? Wikipedia's 'Dissolution of the Monasteries' makes some mention of libraries but does not say which documents of particular value were lost forever (other than manuscripts of church music). For example, were any chronicles destroyed? What can we tell from documents that are referenced in surviving manuscripts?

Also, I know that some tombs were destroyed (e.g. Thomas Becket) and some burial locations lost (e.g. at Blackfriars, those of Henry and Alphonso, children of Edward I). Were any other royal/noble burial sites destroyed or lost, especially from early Anglo-Saxon times up to the reign of Edward I?

I'm not looking for a list, more of an overview. I'm trying to get an idea of how much knowledge was lost.

Answer 1

It is difficult to say exactly how much was lost. We have some sources that enable us to say what manuscripts were held by some monasteries, for example the library at Peterborough, or that at Syon Abbey.

Many of the manuscripts ended up in private libraries, with the best often ending up in the Royal Library manuscript holding.

Wikipedia provides an incomplete list of the monasteries dissolved by Henry VIII. In many cases, a quick Google search for a particular abbey or monastery will provide a list of notable individuals known to have been buried there. A few examples would be King Edmund I and King Edmund II (Ironside) who were both interred at Glastonbury Abbey, and Richard III, whose place of burial at Grey Friars, Leicester was famously lost after the Dissolution and found again in 2012.