Sir Thomas More was born in London in 1478, and died on Tower Hill in 1535,
along with Bishop John Fisher of Rochester. In 1935 he was canonized, along with
Fisher, as a martyr for the Catholic faith. Feast Day, June 22. Introductory
Note [Harvard Classics] The accompanying intimate account of the life of Sir
Thomas More by his son-in-law, William Roper, renders a biographical sketch
unnecessary. While More was a young law student in Lincoln's Inn, he is known to
have delivered in the church of St. Lawrence a course of lectures on Saint
Augustine's "City of God"; and some have supposed that it was this
that suggested to him the composition of the "Utopia." The book itself
was begun in Antwerp in 1515, when More was in Flanders engaged in negotiations
on behalf of the English wool merchants, and results of his observations among
the towns of the Low Countries are evident in some of the details of his
imaginary state. The framework seems to have been suggested by an incident
related in the narrative of the fourth voyage of Amerigo Vespucci, in whose
company Raphael Hythloday is represented as having sailed. In the elaborating of
his model society, More drew on Plato's "Republic" and on Saint
Augustine for a number of important features. But the work as a whole is the
outcome of the author's own political thinking and observation; though it is not
to be supposed that he believed in all the institutions and customs which he
describes. In ordinary intercourse, More was fond of a jest, and many, we are
told, found it hard to know when he spoke seriously. Much of this whimsical
humor is implicit in the "Utopia"; and while it contains elements in
which he had a firm belief, it is more than probable that much of it was in the
highest degree tentative, and some of it consciously paradoxical. In spite of
this uncertainty as to More's attitude, the influence of the book, both in
imaginative literature and in social theory, has been considerable; and it is
the ancestor of a long line of ideal commonwealths. Modern reformers are still
finding in its pages suggestions for the society of the future. The Life Of Sir
Thomas More In hoc signo vinces. ["In this sign, you will conquer"]
Forasmuch as Sir Thomas More, Knight sometime Lord Chancellor of England, a man
of singular virtue and of a clear unspotted conscience, (as witnesseth Erasmus),
more pure and white than the whitest snow, and of such an angelical wit, as
England, he saith, never had the like before, nor never shall again,
universally, as well in the laws of our Realm (a study in effect able to occupy
the whole life of a man) as in all other sciences, right well studied, was in
his days accounted a man worthy famous memory; I William Roper (though most
unworthy) his son-in-law by marriage of his eldest daughter, knowing no one man
that of him and of his doings understood so much as myself for that I was
continually resident in his house by the space of sixteen years and more,
thought it therefore my part to set forth such matters touching his life as I
could at this present call to remembrance. Among which very many notable things
not meet to have been forgotten, through negligence and long continuance of
time, are slipped out of my mind. Yet to the intent the same shall not all
utterly perish, I have at the desire of divers worshipful friends of mine,
though very far from the grace and worthiness of them, nevertheless as far forth
as my mean wit, memory and learning would serve me, declared so much thereof as
in my poor judgment seemed worthy to be remembered.