Profile Major Works Resources

Sir Thomas More, 1478-1535

Famed English humanist philosopher, lawyer and politician.   Oxford-educated Thomas More was a good friend of Erasmus of Rotterdam and collaborated on the general humanist project to revamp Catholic learning and theology in the light of the classical rationalism revived by the Renaissance, while simultaneously fighting the schismatic tendencies of the radical Reformation. 

In 1516, More published his most famous work, Utopia (literally "no place"), a description of an imaginary communistic society.  Private property is condemned and absent in Utopia, thus More's work can be seen as a prelude to early socialist literature.

Thomas More served as personal counselor to King Henry VIII from 1517 and, after the fall of Cardinal Wolsey, More was appointed Lord Chancellor in late 1529 (the first time a non-cleric held that position).  During which he distinguished himself as a proponent of the English alliance with the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V and a vigorous persecutor of the Lutheran heresy.  While More was notionally in charge of securing the king's divorce from Catherine of Aragon (Charles V's niece), he disliked the tactic of placing pressure on the church's privileges in England and eventually resigned in 1532.  In 1535, More refused to swear an oath to the Act of Succession breaking the English church from the Roman Catholic Church.  He was arrested for treason and subsequently beheaded.  The Catholic Church has since canonized Thomas More as a saint.

 

  

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Major Works of Sir Thomas More

  • Transl., The Life of John Picus, Earl of Myrandola, (Giovanni Pico della Mirandola), 1510 [tms pdf]
  • De Optimo Reipublicae Statu deque Nova Insula Utopia , 1516 [1518 ed, biel, 1555 ed] [English trans. On the Best State of a Republic and on the New Island of Utopia,  1685 ed, 1743 ed,1852  ed, 1902 ed, gut]
  • The Tragicall Historie of the life and reigne of Richard the Third, 1518 [1641 fasc., text) [1834 ed]
  • Epistola ad Germanum Brixium, 1520
  • Quattuor Novissima, 1522 (The Four Last Things)
  • Responsio ad Lutherum, 1523
  • Dialogue concerning Heresies, 1529
  • Confutation of Tyndale’s Answers, 1531-33.
  • Apologie of Syr Thomas More, Knyghte, made by him, Anno 1533, after he had geuen over to the office of the Lord Chancellor 1533
  • The Debellation of Salem and Bizance, 1533
  • The Answer to the First Part of the Poisoned Booke, whych a namelesse Heretike hath named the Supper of the Lords, 1533
  • Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation, 1534 [gut]
  • Supplycacion of Soulys, 1534
  • De Tristitia Christi, 1535, (The Sadness of Christ)
  • The Workes of Sir Thomas More Knyght, sometyme Lorde Chauncellour of England: wrytten by him in the Englysh tongue, 1557 [bk]

     

 
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Resources on Sir Thomas More

 
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