I've no real idea about the economics of the time, but as I said in another comment it was a very unequal society. A farmer could have a bad year and starve whilst the rich still demanded their tithes/taxes/whatever. The church had to be rich to build stuff like the abbey. Closing the abbeys would have disrupted the local economies for sure and I expect friends of the king profited from it.

Are we heading for similar things with the tech billionaires hoarding wealth and jobs at risk from AI? This could also bring big changes.