Science  People  Locations  Timeline
Index: A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Home > Thomas More


 Contents
Thomas More ( February 7, 1478July 6, 1535) was briefly Lord Chancellor of England under King Henry VIII and had a European reputation as a humanist author. His most famous work is Utopia (circa 1516) in which he created an imaginary island-kingdom in which some modern scholars have seen an idealized opposite of More's contemporary Europe and in which other modern scholars have seen a wicked satire of the same Europe. One of the features of More's works is that they often use a trope of either an assumed authorial voice (as in the Dialogue of Comfort , ostensibly a conversation between an uncle and nephew) or are highly stylised or both. This, together with a lack of clear direction from More as to his own views - for reasons which will become obvious - means that it is possible to argue practically any view of any of his works.

More was born in London, England. He was attached to Henry's court by 1520 and knighted in 1521. His career as a lawyerA lawyer or attorney at law is a person licensed by the state to advise clients in legal matters and represent them in courts of law and other legal agencies. Most countries today require professional law advisors in their judicial systems. Lawyers have m is celebrated despite the fact that no evidence of any case he undertook survives. As a scholar he was initially a humanist in the most commonly accepted sense of the phrase. He was great friends with Desiderius Erasmus who dedicated his In Praise of Folly to More — the word "folly" is moria in GreekThe Greek language ( /Elini'k{/) is an Indo-European language which has existed from around the 14th century BC in the Cretan inscriptions called Linear B. Mycenaean Greek of this period is distinguished from later Classical or Ancient Greek of the 8th ce. Later relations between the two became strained as More was committed to religious orthodoxySeparate articles treat Eastern Orthodox Christianity and Orthodox Judaism. For the book written by G. Chesterton see Orthodoxy (book). The word orthodoxy from the Greek ortho ('right', 'correct') and dox ('thought', 'teaching'), is typically used to refe while Erasmus sought to test what he saw as entrenched fallacies of CatholicThis article considers Catholicism in the broadest ecclesiastical sense. See Catholicism (disambiguation) for alternative meanings Catholicism has two main ecclesiastical meanings, described in Webster's Dictionary as: a) "the whole orthodox Christian chu doctrine. More was the author of several lengthy — and at times vicious — treatises attacking religious 'reformers' as diverse as William TyndaleWilliam Tyndale (sometimes spelt Tindale (ca. 1484 October 6, 1536) was a 16th century priest and scholar who translated the Bible into an early form of Modern English. Although numerous partial and complete English translations had been made from the 7th, Christopher St. German , Martin Luther and indeed anyone else who happened to question any area of church doctrine whether it be spiritual (as in the ability of the clergy to remit sin) or temporal, as in the primacy of canon law over common law.

His Chancellorship (1529-32) was distinguished by very little except his persistent pursuit of heretics and their works. The great paradox of More's life being that a man who is regarded today as a libertarian and freethinker was at the same time (as being arguably both) an advocate of rigid religious authority.



Read more »

Non User