Utopia by St. Thomas More, Part 2

This is the second post in a series on St. Thomas More’s Utopia.  

You can find the first post here.

In trying to understand Utopia I felt I needed to understand Thomas More’s life, and so I put together a time line of his life in bullet form.  I could not find such a timeline on the internet.  Various sites, such as Wikipedia, summarize his life, but none of the websites seemed to include everything.  I don’t think anyone site I came across was truly comprehensive.  This is not comprehensive either.  I left some more minor details out in an effort to not create clutter.  These are what I see as the major details of his life, and below it I add More’s major literary works in a time line.  Between these two timelines, I think we can put Utopia into his biographical perspective.  More on that below.

 

Thomas More Timeline

 

1478 Born in London to Sir John and Agnes More

1490 Placed under tutelage of Cardinal John Morton

1492 Oxford to study law

1494 Admitted to Lincoln Inn Law Society

1496 Enters Law School

1501 Admitted to Bar as “Utter Barister”

1503 Falls into King Henry VII’s disfavor

1504 First entered Parliament

1504 Marries Joan Colt, who bears him four children

1509 King Henry VII dies

1509 Rises to prominence as a lawyer

1509 Represented London merchants in Antwerp

1510-8 Served as Under Sheriff of London

1511 Wife Joan dies in childbirth

1514 Becomes Master of Regants

1515 Appointed to delegation to revise Anglo-Flemish commercial treaty

1517 Resolves Evil Day Mob riot in London

1518 Resigns from City government to work for King Henry VIII

1521 Knighted

1521 Made Under-Treasurer of Exchequer

1523 Becomes Speaker of the House of Commons

1525 Becomes Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster

1529 Becomes Lord Chancellor

1532 Resigns Lord Chancellor

1535 Executed

 

Major Literary Works:

1513-18 History of Richard III

1516 Utopia (Latin)

1523 Response to Luther

1528 Dialogue Concerning Heresies

1529 Supplication of Souls

1531 Confutation of Tyndale

 The landmarks of his life which I think are pertinent to his writing of Utopia are these: (1) Childhood spent among the vowed religious.  (2) At the age of twenty-six and three years after entering the bar he enters parliament, right around the time he falls in the disfavor of King Henry VII.  (3) More marries Joan Colt that same year.  (4) At the age of 31, he represents London merchants in Antwerp, ostensibly the setting for the Utopia discourse.  (5) He publishes Utopia seven years later, More being 38 years old, and one can presume he was writing it at some point in the intervening years.   (6) His wife dies giving childbirth two years after representing London at Antwerp, and five years before publishing Utopia, More being 33.  So at the time of the publishing of Utopia, More is a mature man, experienced marriage, political success and disfavor, the birth of four children, and the tragedy of his wife’s death.