Heretofore the visitation of "exempt" monasteries had lain with the Superiors of their respective orders, except when special authority had been granted by the Pope to a Morton or a Wolsey. In other cases it had been deputed to the bishops, each in his own diocese. At the time of the recent Peter Pence Act (1534) the exempt houses had been formally subjected to the King. Cromwell now took upon himself the right of visitation, not only of the exempt monasteries, but of the others as well, suspending the jurisdiction of the bishops while his enquiries were going forward, and thus emphasising the doctrine that that jurisdiction was derived from the King. Commissioners were appointed--Legh, Leyton, Bedyl, and Ap Rice--to investigate and report upon the conduct and the finances of the various houses. In a period of about three months (Oct.-Jan.), they made their investigations and prepared their report, keeping up an active correspondence with Cromwell in the meantime. On the strength of this report, a bill was laid before Parliament and passed in February (1536), suppressing all houses with less than £200 a year, 376 in number--of which however 31 were reinstated later in the year as having been well conducted. In part, their inmates were to be redistributed among the greater houses; in part they were to be released from their vows; and in part they were to receive some compensation. [Sidenote: The evidence discussed] Now it is clear that in the time at their disposal, the commissioners could not possibly have sifted thoroughly the evidence brought before them. In many cases there was enough that was gross, palpable, obvious, to warrant condemnation at sight. But the scandalous levity and domineering insolence with which they carried out their task must have suggested to the ill-conditioned members of every community that slander and false-witness might lead to favour and profit, and were not likely to be too carefully tested: while it is easy to see how the insulting interrogatories would be angrily resented, and answers be refused, or given in the most injudicious manner, by perfectly innocent persons; while demands for inventories of valuables were met by prevarication and concealment, when the object of the commissioners was suspected of being spoliation. The letters of Leyton and Legh convey the impression that the fouler the scandals unearthed or retailed, the more enjoyment and humour they discovered in their occupation. There can be no doubt that the state of things they found was in general bad; but by their own statement it was by no means universally so; and it is also clear that they accepted adverse witness almost without examination and wilfully minimised all that was favourable. [Sidenote: The Black Book]