When I said "remote", I meant in a social rather than a physical sense. Monasteries, like most of medieval society, was very socially stratified. There was the Lord Abbot at the top, who lived very well judging by the houses I've seen, there were the monks, the lay brothers, and the peasants who toiled for them. Large parts of the monastery were off-limits unless you were in the correct part of the hierarchy - for the ordinary folk for sure it was not "their" monastery.
I understand that you have to be careful bringing modern assumptions to the medieval scene, but modern thought processes and analysis are perfectly fair. After all, if we thought like medieval people now we would be clammering for an end to these twisted experiments in democracy and hygiene! :) With the benefit of hindsight and a detached view we might even be better able to understand what was going on than the people at the time.
You seem to be saying that the Monastery was no better than any other large landowner of the time. That may be true, but do we applaud it because of that? My answer is that therefore the whole system needed to be swept away - as was indeed happening. The great landholders were in decline, had been for some time. The new power was the rising mercantile classes - the bourgeoise in London, as you pointed out. To make any progress, the old order has to be dismantled. In that sense, the dissolution of the monasteries was a bit like the Highland clearances. It was unpleasant and very traumatic for the people who were still clinging to the old way of doing things, but it had to be done. I know that's harsh, because a lot of people suffered a great deal, but come on - would you want to hold onto a feudal organisation of society for ever more?
Of course I realise that there were many monasteries and some were much better run than others. Some were very decent and tried to live up to their calling, but more were no better than any other rapacious landowner. But it's a religious house. More should be expected of it than that. If it is the same as secular society, what us is it to God?
Basically what you're saying here is that the entire system was bad and deserved to be smashed (does that include all "stratification"? Uh-oh.) But how is it a good thing that the King decides to smash only the Church and not his nobility and gentry (or the merchants in London?) This is theft pure and simple, theft from people that the King saw as his political opponents (he sent Thomas Cromwell around to collect 'evidence' to justify his actions, and Cromwell the dutiful servant obliged with 'evidence'. Given Cromwell's overall conduct, I am a bit suspicious - but of course in the end none of it did him any good.)
"They had it coming" is no explanation when it's clear that everybody "had it coming" but only the Church got it.
This was a serious injustice to the clerics who were administering their property according to the laws and rules applicable to everybody at the time. It was a serious injustice (and often terminal) to all the people who depended on them -- who were abandoned by Henry and only belatedly dealt with by the Poor Laws (which were largely ineffectual til revised by Elizabeth anyhow).
Evil is evil is evil, and justifying it by saying that the old order had to go is wrong.
‘After all, if we thought like medieval people now we would be clammering for an end to these twisted experiments in democracy and hygiene! :)’
Actually that seems to be exactly what the radical forces in the West seem to be doing these days.