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More, Morton, and the Politics of Accommodation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 January 2014

J. C. Davis
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Extract

In the private conversation of close friends this academic philosophy is not without its charm, but in the council of kings, where great matters are debated with great authority, there is no room for these notions …. But there is another philosophy, more practical for statesmen, which knows its stage, adapts itself to the play in hand, and performs its role neatly and appropriately. This is the philosophy which you must employ.

This trimmer's prescription, with its blast of the breath of experience over the unguarded optimism of theory, is crucial to an understanding of More's Utopia and an appreciation of its unity. Was Thomas More seriously recommending the accommodational approach to politics here put forward by the fictional “More” in Book I of the Utopia, and what was the relationship between this approach and the ideal state described in Book II?

The various answers given to these questions can be seen as hinges on which the various interpretations of the Utopia have turned. The accommodational argument stands at the crux of the debate on counsel, which takes up almost the whole of Book I. Upon the interpretation of this debate can depend the view taken of More's intention in depicting the fictional society of Utopia, and involved in this interpretation is the knotty problem of whether the real More's opinions are voiced by Hythlodaeus or by the fictional “More.”

An examination of the two approaches most frequently adopted will reveal the importance of the problem. The first approach is that which sees the real More's views as expressed by the fictional “More” of the Utopia.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of British Studies , Volume 9 , Issue 2 , May 1970 , pp. 27 - 49
Copyright
Copyright © North American Conference of British Studies 1970

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References

1. More, St. Thomas, Utopia, ed. Edward Surtz, S.J., and Hexter, J. H. [Yale Edition of the Complete Works of St. Thomas More, IV] (New Haven and London, 1965), p. 99Google Scholar (hereafter cited as Yale Utopia). For a severe criticism of the English text, see Skinner, Quentin, “More's Utopia,” Past and Present, No. 38 (1967), 153–68Google Scholar. See also reviews by Miller, Clarence H., Moreana, IX (1966), 57–64CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Trapp, J. B., Renaissance News, XIX (1966), 373–75CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2. The link between the identification of the fictional “More” as the real More's mouthpiece and the Catholic interpretation was first suggested by Baumann, Frederick L., “Sir Thomas More: A Review Article,” J.M.H., IV (1932), 610Google Scholar. For examples of this identification by exponents of the Catholic interpretation, see Chambers, R. W., Thomas More (London, 1963), pp. 147–48Google Scholaret passim; Routh, E. M. G., Sir Thomas More and His Friends (New York, 1934, 1963)Google Scholar, ch. viii; Hollis, Christopher, St. Thomas More (London, 1961), pp. 70–76Google Scholar; Duhamel, P. A., “The Medievalism of More's Utopia” Studies in Philology, LII (1955), 99–126Google Scholar.

3. Allen, J. W., A History of Political Thought in the Sixteenth Century (London, 1928), p. 156Google Scholar. Cf. Lewis, C. S., English Literature in the Sixteenth Century (Oxford, 1954), pp. 167–71Google Scholar; Child, Harold, “Some English Utopias,” Transactions of the Royal Society of Literature, third series, XII (1933), 33–34Google Scholar.

4. See, e.g., Beer, M., A History of British Socialism (London, 1919), p. 36Google Scholar: “On the whole it may be said that Raphael represents the most uncompromising aspects of communism; he also dominates the stage. Peter Giles defends the present order, but there seems to be so little in favour of it that his part is very subordinate. More is critical, seeing both the shortcomings of the existing society and the difficulties of integral communism; he is not a communist but a social reformer, favouring a gradual amelioration of society and the application of all that is practicable in communism.” On occasion Edward Surtz has appeared to hold a view similar to this. He has argued that Utopia was a “document” of reform, not a programme, and that More can be identified with the moderate approach of ’More.” Surtz, Edward, “Interpretations of Utopia,” Catholic History Review, XXXVIII (1952), 169–70Google Scholar. For a view combining the joke and moderate reform theories, see Donner, H. W., Introduction to Utopia (Uppsala, 1945), pp. 56, 73-74, 78, 83Google Scholar.

5. See, e.g., Coles, Paul, “The Interpretation of More's Utopia,” Hibbert Journal, LVI (1958), 365–70Google Scholar.

6. E.g., Kautsky, Karl, Thomas More and His Utopia, tr. Stenning, H. J. (New York, 1959), pp. 130–39Google Scholaret passim; Morton, A. L., The English Utopia (London, 1952), pp. 45–47Google Scholar; Ames, Russell, Citizen Thomas More and His Utopia (Princeton, 1949), p. 37Google Scholaret passim.

7. E.g., Carmichael, Montgomery, “The Utopia: Its Doctrine of the Common Life,” Dublin Review, No. 383 (1932), 173–87Google Scholar. Surtz has sometimes come close to this view too, holding that while “Hythloday represents More's ideal views, he himself voices his practical judgements in his own person”; that as an ideal he realized it was impracticable until all men became perfect Christians. Surtz, Edward, “Thomas More and Communism,” P.M.L.A., LXIV (1949), 549–64Google Scholar.

8. For J. H. Hexter's interpretation of the Utopia see the following: Yale Utopia, Introduction; More's Utopia: The Biography of an Idea (2nd ed.; New York, 1965)Google Scholar; “Thomas More: On the Margins of Modernity,” J.B.S., I (1961), 20–37Google Scholar; “The Loom of Language and the Fabric of Imperatives: The Case of Il Principe and Utopia,” A.H.R., LXIX (1964), 945–68Google Scholar.

Despite my criticism, my debt to Hexter's work will, I think, be obvious. Any student of the Utopia is, of course, in the debt of Surtz.

9. Hexter, , Biography of an Idea, p. 114Google Scholar: “If in the Discourse section of Utopia Hythloday expresses More's opinions, in the Dialogue section he represents More's person.”

10. Hexter, , “Thomas More,” J.B.S., I (1961), 28Google Scholar. Hexter here very effectively attacks the idea that Utopia was in any sense frivolous.

11. Hexter, , Biography of an Idea, p. 57Google Scholar; Yale Utopia, pp. lxiv-lxxx.

12. Hexter, , Biography of an Idea, p. 29Google Scholar; see also Yale Utopia, p. xxii.

13. Hexter, , Biography of an Idea, pp. 131-32, 136–38Google Scholar.

14. Ibid., pp. 95, 122-23. Elsewhere Hexter does suggest that public law was one of the means by which society was to be made good: “the route from corruption to decency in Utopia runs by way of common action through the agency of public law.” Hexter, , “Thomas More,” J.B.S., I (1961), 31–37Google Scholar, esp. 35. But since there is no discussion of how the necessary legislation is to be achieved, the problem of means is not resolved.

15. Yale Utopia, p. xxii.

16. Hexter, , Biography of an Idea, pp. 18-23, 28Google Scholar; Yale Utopia, p. xxii.

17. R. S. Sylvester implies that in Utopia More endorsed accommodational politics, advising “the wise sort of counsellor” to “shift with the wind.” More, St. Thomas, The History of King Richard III, ed. Sylvester, Richard S. [Yale Edition of the Complete Works of St. Thomas More, II] (New Haven and London, 1963), p. civGoogle Scholar (hereafter cited as Yale Richard III). Hexter holds that More as a Christian humanist firmly rejected the accommodational approach. Yale Utopia, pp. lxxxiv, lxxxvii, xcii. Surtz, on occasions, seems to hold the view that More rejected accommodation. Ibid., pp. cxxviii, cxli, cxlvii, civ. On other occasions he sees More as deliberately making Hythlodaeus overstate his case in order that moderate, reformist solutions should appeal to the reader. Ibid., pp. ocli-cxliii.

18. Ibid., p. 55 (my italics).

19. Hexter has seen this passage as the first of two “breakpoints” by means of which the debate on counsel may be detached from the main body of the Utopia. See Hexter, , Biography of an Idea, pp. 18–21Google Scholar; Yale Utopia, pp. xix-xxi. His argumeat rests on the assumption of More's clumsiness and haste. Since More was, on the whole, careful about detail, particularly in the inclusion of the more up-to-date contemporary references (cf. Hexter, , Biography of an Idea, pp. 162–63Google Scholar), the assumption of that degree of both haste and carelessness is difficult to accept. The error, if such it be, also had to escape the eyes of Erasmus.

In the Biography of an Idea version of his argument, Hexter gave his argument greater weight by ending a paragraph in the middle of one of More's sentences. Hexter's version: “Now at this time I am determined to rehearse only what he told us of the manners, customs, laws and ordinances of the Utopians.” More's version: “Nunc ea tantum referre animus est, quae de moribus atque institutis narrabat Vtopiensium, praemisso tamen eo sermone, quo uelut tractu quodam ad eius mentionem reipublicae deuentum est.” In his introduction to the Yale Utopia, Hexter has the sentence complete but keeps the two parts resolutely separate.

20. Yale Utopia, p. 55.

21. Ibid., p. 57.

22. Ibid. On this material disinterestedness as symbolic of the philosopher, see Surtz's comment, Ibid., p. 309.

23. Ibid., p. 57; d. Hexter, ibid., p. lxxxv.

24. Ibid., pp. 75-79.

25. See the lawyer's response, ibid., p. 81. On Morton's response see below, p. 47.

26. Yale Utopia, p. 87.

27. Ibid., pp. 87-89, 91-97.

28. Ibid., pp. 89-91.

29. More pushes the point home by an audacious and unflattering comparison of kings with muleteers: “no one would care to engage a muleteer whom he had to share with someone else.” Ibid., p. 91.

30. Ibid., p. 97.

31. See, e.g., the use of Atlantis in Bacon's, FrancisNew Atlantis, in Ideal Commonwealths, ed. Morley, K. (London, 1885), pp. 185–87Google Scholar; Helena, St. in Francis Godwin's The Man in the Moone (1629)Google Scholar, ed. McColley, Grant, in Smith College Studies in Modern Languages, XIX (1937), 14–18Google Scholar.

32. Yale Utopia, p. 97.

33. Ibid., p. 57.

34. Ibid., p. 99.

35. Ibid., pp. 99-101.

36. Hexter, , Biography of an Idea, pp. 131–32Google Scholar.

37. Yale Utopia, p. 101.

38. Ibid.

39. Ibid., p. 103.

40. Ibid. Cf. this with Cardinal Wolsey's version recounted by More and his daughter, Margaret Roper to Alice Alington, Aug. 1534, in Rogers, Elizabeth Frances (ed.), The Correspondence of Sir Thomas More (Princeton, 1947), pp. 518–19Google Scholar. Wolsey used the tale in urging English involvement in European diplomatic and military affairs. In his version, when the rain cleared and the wise men went outside, the fools turned on them to avoid listening to their wisdom.

41. Hexter, , Biography of an Idea, p. 22Google Scholar.

42. Yale Utopia, p. 103.

43. Ibid., p. 105. For Plato as Hythlodaeus's favourite author, see Ibid., p. 87.

44. Ibid., pp. 103-05 (my italics).

45. More even implies that reforming legislation can make the situation worse in some respects. Ibid., pp. 105-07.

46. Ibid., p. 105.

47. Ibid., p. 109 (my italics).

48. Ibid., pp. 113, 117, 121, 127.

49. Ibid., pp. 127-29, 135.

50. Ibid., p. 147.

51. Ibid., pp. 113-23, 131-33, 185, 191-93.

52. Ibid., p. 181.

53. Ibid., pp. 181 (marginal note), 181-85, 217-19.

54. Ibid., p. 237.

55. For other examples of More's preoccupation with the problem of individual integrity in politics, and his treatment of it in fictional form, see the tale of “good Cumpany,” in Rogers, , Correspondence of More, pp. 521–23Google Scholar; and the story of the virgin and the law, in Roper, William, The Lyfe of Sir Thomas Moore, Knighte, ed. Hitchcock, Elsie Vaughan [E.E.T.S., original series, No. 197] (London, 1935), pp. 57–59Google Scholar.

56. See, e.g., Hollis, , St. Thomas More, p. 4Google Scholar; Ames, , Citizen More and His Utopia, pp. 36–38Google Scholar; Sylvester, , Yale Richard III, pp. lxvii, ciiGoogle Scholar; Routh, , Sir Thomas More and His Friends, pp. 4–5Google Scholar; Ro: Ba:, The Life of Syr Thomas More, sometymes Lord Chancelleour of England, ed. Hitchcock, Elsie Vaughan and Hallett, Mgr. P. E. [E.E.T.S., original series, No. 222] (London, 1950), p. 278Google Scholar (editors' note); Chambers, , Thomas More, p. 56Google Scholar; Surtz, , Yale Utopia, pp. cxliv, 314Google Scholar. For the life of Morton see D.N.B.; Woodhouse, R. I., The Life of John Morton Archbishop of Canterbury (London, 1895)Google Scholar; Emden, A. B., A Biographical Register of the University of Oxford to A.D. 1500 (Oxford, 1957–1959), II, 1318–20Google Scholar.

57. Yale Utopia, pp. 59-61.

58. Ibid., p. 81.

59. Ibid., pp. 81-85.

60. Ibid., pp. 83-85.

61. Ibid., pp. 57-59.

62. Ibid., p. 85 (my italics).

63. Yale Richard III, pp. 47, 49, 90-93.

64. Ibid., pp. 1-lxv.

65. Mackie, J. D., The Early Tudors (Oxford, 1952), p. 258Google Scholar; cf. Sylvester, , Yale Richard III, pp. 109–11Google Scholar; Hollis, , St. Thomas More, pp. 47–54Google Scholar. See also Myers, A. R., “Richard III and Historical Tradition,” History, LIII (1968), 183–84Google Scholar.

66. Yale Richard III, pp. 4, 6.

67. Ibid., p. 8.

68. Ibid., p. 90.

69. Ibid., p. 17-19, 28-33, 69-80.

70. Ibid., p. 43.

71. Ibid.. pp. 89-90.

72. Ibid.. p. 52.

73. Ibid.. p. 23.

74. Ibid., pp. 25, 34-41. Cardinal Bourchier had previously insisted upon the absolute right of sanctuary. Ibid., pp. 27-28. For More's confusion in designating Bourchier as archbishop of York, see Ibid., p. 194.

75. Ibid., p. 42.

76. Ibid., pp. 90-91.

77. Ibid., pp. 87-90.

78. Ibid., pp. 91-92. Compare this with the accommodational prescription from Book I of the Utopia in the English of 1551 from Ralph Robinson's translation: “you must with a crafty wile and a subtell trayne studye and endeavoure youre selfe, as much as in you lyethe, to handle the matter wyttelye and handsomelye for the purpose, and that which you cannot turn to good, so order it that it be not verye badde.” Sir Thomas More's Utopia translated into English by Raphe Robynson (London, 1898), p. 47Google Scholar.

79. Yale Richard III, p. 91.

80. Ibid., p. 93.

81. Cooper, J. P., “Henry VII's Last Years Reconsidered,” Historical Journal, II (1959), 106–12Google Scholar.

82. Yale Utopia, p. 81.

83. Ibid., p. 73 (my italics). On More's insistence on service to God preceding service to the state, see Rogers, , Correspondence of More, pp. 524, 557Google Scholar.

84. Hexter, , Yale Utopia, pp. lxiv–cvGoogle Scholar.

85. Ibid., p. 101.

86. On Utopia as the holy community, see William Budé to Thomas Lupset, ibid., pp. 5-13.

87. David M. Bevington has also reached the conclusion that the debate on state service was deliberately inconclusive, but he arrived by a different path. Bevington, David M., “The Dialogue in Utopia: Two Sides to the Question,” Studies in Philology, LVIII (1961), 496–509Google Scholar