Thomas More’s 1515 text Utopia (fully titled On the Best State of a Commonwealth and on the New Island of Utopia) has become one of the foremost works of the Renaissance, celebrated both as a radical work of political philosophy and as an impressive literary feat on its own merit. A dialogue in two books, Utopia sees the well-travelled Raphael Hythloday describe in minute detail the fictional island of Utopia – its culture and governmental institutions, and its happy citizens, who are “so well governed with so few laws.”[1] With all property held in common supposed yielding harmony and satisfaction, Hythloday holds up the Utopian system as the ideal society – such that the name ‘Utopia’ has come to denote the societal perfection. However, despite its current status and influence, Utopia was considered to be problematic to the humanist movement upon publication. Responses from More’s fellow humanists were lukewarm: Guillaume Budé, for example, was unsure if it should be read literally or allegorically.[2] Even More’s close friend Desiderius Erasmus was not forthcoming – his commendation of the work came uncharacteristically late (only published in 1518), and offered the wistful reflection that More would have been better pursuing scholarship exclusively, rather than a disruptive legal career.[3] Perhaps because of such responses, Utopia was only ever read by a minority of European humanists, leading many to the conclusion that Utopia was not meant to elucidate but rather to critique humanist principles by analogy, showing their potential to corrupt. Before any meaningful statement can be made in reference to this problem, it is necessary to survey the many historiographical contributions to this debate, upon which much of this analysis shall rest.
Central to the scholarship on More is the issue of how seriously one should take Utopia as a model for society. Was it merely a constructed literary conceit, or, in the style of Plato’s Republic, is it a serious suggestion for the transformation of Europe? In other words, is Utopia an idyll or an ideal? Foundational contributions to this debate came from J. H. Hexter, who saw Utopia as More’s vision of the perfect Christian commonwealth, a thesis developed most influentially by Quentin Skinner, who argued that this conception of a Christian ideal aimed to take northern humanist principles to their logical conclusion, creating an image of what humanism in action looked like.[4] A convincing alternative to this position came from Dermot Fenlon, who saw Utopia not as a radical defence of humanist ideals, but rather as a warning that humanism may be misguided.[5] G. R. Elton similarly considered Utopia a scathing satire on Christian humanism.[6] More recent work has attempted to situate More within the longer-term history of political thought, interpreting his attack on property rights and his vision of communal ownership as a forerunner to Marx and the Christian socialist tradition.[7] However, in order to explore the subversive nature of Utopia in any meaningful way, the text must necessarily be read within its immediate context – that of Christian Europe and the Northern Renaissance, rather than that of 19th- or 20th-century political theory.[8] Therefore, this essay shall proceed by taking account of precisely what humanism was and how it manifested in More’s text, before examining how More dealt with several core humanist issues relative to other humanist writers across the continent. This analysis will allow for a deal of development upon the positions of Skinner and Hexter, concluding that the aim of Utopia was not to subvert but to adapt humanism into a more pragmatic model; thus, it was a different kind of humanism, not a subversive critique.
What were the principles of ‘Renaissance humanism’, and where were they realised in Utopia? It should be noted that More’s status as a humanist is rarely questioned: his interests and commitments align with those of other humanist thinkers across the continent.[9] Many of the most famous humanists were concerned with reforming individuals and society, challenging corrupt or hypocritical institutions, and promoting a certain kind of Christian spirituality focused on virtuous deeds rather than ritualistic practices. Parallels on all of these fronts can be drawn. For example, where Roger Ascham’s Schoolmaster and Erasmus’ Education of a Christian Prince advocate principled classical education as a means to ensure societal harmony, More portrays the Utopians as a people who “delight in education,” access to which is “provided to every child.”[10] Similarly,Utopia depicts an idealised system of ecclesiastical power in which a strict moral code governs those at the top of the hierarchy, suggesting More’s shared concern with Erasmus’ satire on church hypocrisy in the Praise of Folly and (more directly) in John Colet’s famous sermon on the moral virtues of priests.[11] The simplicity of the philosophia Christi is replicated in Utopian religion, which adheres to Christian morality, but not to the sterile ritual observances.[12] Even in terms of form and style, there is much to identify Utopia as a humanist work. More uses another’s voice (that of Hythloday) to discuss the merits of the Utopian system, as was common in many contemporary humanist works.[13] Indeed, the cryptic pun within the island’s name itself contains echoes of Erasmian wit: “Utopia” can be translated as “nowhere”. The Renaissance humanist thinkers were thus primarily concerned with education and Christian virtue on the individual level, and its relationship to major societal reform; ostensibly at least, Utopia shares in these values.
Even before he begins constructing Utopian society, More provides hints in his writing about humanists themselves. Though he does not reference any thinkers by name, by mentioning those philosophers who had the ear of princes and kings, it is safe to assume More had in mind the humanists employed in courts around Europe. The dialogue reconstructs a central debate on Plato’s notion of ‘philosopher-kings’, with Hythloday arguing it philosophers as advisors would be futile, since “unless kings become philosophical themselves” they would be too “infected with false values from boyhood” to even understand or accept the philosophers’ advice.[14] The fictional ‘More’ retorts that “you must not abandon the commonwealth” simply because it is difficult to “pluck up bad ideas by the root” through persuasion.[15] This debate – between the Hythloday’s apathy and More’s constructive pessimism – can help to frame our interpretation of the text, for it contains both a rejection of mainstream humanism and a recommitment to humanist ideals. While he recognised the obvious limitations of influencing from the top-down (limitations which Hythloday considers insurmountable), ‘More’ remains convinced that humanists had a duty to try, as some mild reforms would undoubtedly still be better than none at all. Skinner related this to More’s professional life: whilst composing the text in 1515, he was in the process of accepting a post in Henry VIII’s court, where he could wield at least some degree of influence over political affairs. This defence of an active, “Ciceronian humanism,” as Skinner calls it, is a means by which More justifies (perhaps both to himself and others) his move into the world of court politics.[16] Furthermore, the discussion in Book I on the humanist philosopher’s role crucially reveals More’s approach to be that of a realist, who sees the limited scope for radical change in the real world and accepts necessary compromise. More’s realism must inform how we analyse the text going forward.
How, then, did Utopia deal with Christianity? Although Utopians are not formally Christians, they are deeply religious, with some apparently more pagan (worshipping, among other things, the sun and the moon), but “the vast majority, and those by far the wiser ones” pray to something akin to a Christian God and follow moral codes similar to Biblical teachings.[17] That the Utopians are so open to Hythloday’s proposal of conversion demonstrates the compatibility of Utopian rationality with Christian morality. Crucially, however, in the absence of a priest, the Utopians have no access to many of the sacraments.[18] This resonates with the humanist critique of “the sterility and formalism of the contemporary church” so central to the work of Erasmus: while the Utopians do not follow the rigorous performative demonstrations of faith, they are still good Christians because of their virtuous deeds.[19] However, we should be careful of reading an unconditional vindication of the philosophia Christi. As many scholars have since pointed out, this seemingly perfect religious culture contains many contradictions which More may have intended as a rebuke rather than anendorsement. For example, while apparently a free society, Utopia still permits enslavement and forced labour; despite its apparent social liberalism and tolerance, premarital sex, seduction and adultery are “punished with the strictest form of slavery”; and, perhaps most glaringly, Utopians’ claims of pacifism are undermined by its use of mercenaries to fight on their behalf.[20] Therefore, the notion that Christian morality had been the foundation for the ideal humanist society is presented as an illusion. More could thus be seen as subverting the core principles of humanism to expose its fundamental problems. However, cogent as this analysis may be, to simply dismiss Utopia’s religious concerns as a subversive critique of humanism is perhaps to oversimplify the author’s more multifaceted purpose. It is not inconceivable that the realist More was simply illustrating how humanist ideals of virtue over ritual would play out when implemented in practice. This by necessity means demonstrating the areas which, in More’s view, the principles of humanism would fail to live up fully to those of Christianity. If thus interpreted, More intended Utopia to be the purest expression of humanist principles as they would function in real life, not a subversion of them for the purposes of academic disputation.
Perhaps the most fundamental idea – both to humanism and to More’s Utopia – is the central concern for reform. Here, there appears to be a gap even more glaring between More and his fellow humanists. The foundational assumption of many other humanist writings is that individual reform was prior to societal reform, not the other way round. This notion frames works like Erasmus’ Christian Prince, which takes as given the trickle-down effect of a good ruler to their populace; such an assumption, Hankins has argued, permeates a great deal of humanist thought during this period.[21] Utopia, however, suggests otherwise – that individuals can only be reformed once the societal institutions which shape so much of their lives are transformed. In one heavily-analysed passage of Book I, Hythloday admonishes the barbaric treatment of the working poor which forced them to break the law to survive: in a populist rhetorical flourish, he asks, “what else is this, I ask, but first making them thieves and then punishing them for it?”[22] More’s preference for a systemic approach to understanding individual moral failings meant he advocated different and more radical solutions. Where other humanists simply thought better leaders would change their societies for the better, More shows a society securing humanist principles through communist ownership of resources, suggesting economic transformation was preferrable.[23] While Budé defended the system of private property and hereditary nobility on the grounds that hierarchy and “pre-eminence” were the foundation of stable societies, More, on the other hand, attacked this entrenched inequality of wealth and asymmetry of power.[24] But is this necessarily a subversion? To suggest so is again to ignore the purpose of Utopia in More’s own mind, which was to show how humanist reforms would manifest in the real world. With other humanists, he shared the same end-goal of a society freed from the rigid demands of medieval institutions; where he diverged was in the means towardthese ends. For the very reasons laid out in Book I, enlightened rulers well-versed in classical learning would not be enough. In this way, Utopia did not subvert humanist principles: it was intended to illustrate the lengths necessary to see them realised.
However, an honest account of Utopia’s relationship to humanism must apply certain caveats to its conceptual framework. Firstly, one should be cautious of assuming Utopia to be Thomas More’s ideal society. There is a great deal on the island which More would have abhorred: the permissibility of euthanasia, for example, would not have aligned with his devout Catholicism.[25] Furthermore, the way in which we define “humanist principles” must be carefully nuanced, as (quite clearly) not all humanists agreed. As Hankins suggested, it may be more useful to think of humanism not as “a system of thought, but a climate of thought,” within which debates on all issues were encouraged.[26] A climate of thought is, however, harder to precisely articulate than a system: without core tenets based widespread agreement, it is harder to know exactly what counts as “subversion”, complicating our understanding of Utopia’s link with humanism. In place of something more concrete, this analysis of Utopia may be most clearly expressed in the terms of John Guy:
“Erasmus was the most scintillating classical scholar in Europe, but his humanism is less complex than More’s… The difference between Erasmus and More is that Erasmus was a scholar and More wanted to put his humanism into practice.”[27]
This notion of multiple ‘humanisms’ rather than a singular coherent doctrine provides a solid conceptual grounding on which to evaluate Utopia. Within the qualifications already outlined, it can be plausibly argued that More’s text was not intended as a subversion of the principles of Renaissance humanism; it has nonetheless been perceived as such because of humanism’s plurality as an intellectual movement. The question of whether Utopia bolstered or undermined humanism’s core tenets is therefore misguided: the text represented one of many variants of the humanist tendency of thought.
In conclusion, Thomas More’s Utopia is a text which defies neat categorisation; any serious attempt to understand it requires a careful assessment of the intellectual climate which produced it and the individual idiosyncrasies of the author’s own ideas compared to those of his fellow humanists. That the text has been so variously interpreted is a consequence both of the uncertainty over More’s own sincerity, as well as of the incoherence of humanism as an intellectual movement, which could not be characterised as a rigorous school of thought. What can be definitively said is that Utopia is a text profoundly concerned with certain philosophical themes characteristic of Renaissance humanism, and intended to spell out how these concerns may be met with genuine solutions for the benefit of the commonwealth. Understood thus, Utopia can be seen as an attempt not to subvert or undermine, but to put into practical terms humanist principles, so that they may be realised in the societies of contemporary Europe, rather than simply in closed academic discussions.
Mark Connolly has just completed his 3rd year of an MA in Medieval and Modern History at the University of St. Andrews.
Notes: [1] Thomas More, Utopia, ed. and trans. George M. Logan and Robert M. Adams (Cambridge, 2002), p. 37. [2] Guillaume Budé, letter to Thomas Lipset, in Thomas More, Utopia, ed. and trans. George M. Logan, Robert M. Adams and Clarence H. Miller (Cambridge, 1995), pp. 7-19. [3] Erasmus, in John Guy, Thomas More (London, 2000), pp. 91-92. [4] J. H. Hexter, ‘Introduction’, The Complete Works of Thomas More: Volume 4 (New Haven, 1963), pp. xv-cxxiv and Quentin Skinner, ‘Sir Thomas More’s Utopia and the Language of Renaissance Humanism’, Anthony Pagden (ed.), The Languages of Political Theory in Early-Modern Europe (Cambridge, 1987), pp. 123-157. [5] D. B. Fenlon, ‘England and Europe: Utopia and its Aftermath’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 25 (1975), pp. 115-135. [6] G. R. Elton, Reform and Reformation: England: 1509-1558 (London, 1997) [7] Frank E. Manuel, Utopian Thought in the Western World (Cambridge, 1979), pp. 697-716. [8] Brendan Bradshaw, ‘More on Utopia’, The Historical Journal 24:1 (1981), pp. 1-27. [9] James Hankins, ‘Humanism and the origins of modern political thought’, Jill Kraye (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Renaissance Humanism (Cambridge, 1996), p. 137. [10] Roger Ascham, The Schoolmaster, ed. Lawrence V. Ryan (Ithaca, 1967); Desiderius Erasmus, The Education of a Christian Prince, ed. and trans. Lester K. Born (New York, 1965); John Guy, Thomas More (London, 2000), p. 87. [11] Erasmus, Praise of Folly (London 1993); John Colet, A sermon of conforming and reforming: made to the Church in London (Cambridge, 1661) [12] More, Utopia, p. 93. [13] Clare Carroll, ‘Humanism and English literature in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries’, Jill Kraye (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Renaissance Humanism (Cambridge, 1996), pp. 250-251. [14] More, Utopia, p. 28. [15] Ibid., p. 35. [16] Skinner, ‘Utopia and Renaissance Humanism’, pp. 134-135. [17] More, Utopia, p. 93. [18] Ibid., p. 94. [19] Bradshaw, ‘More on Utopia’, p. 3. [20] More, Utopia, pp.77-80, 88-89 [21] Hankins, ‘Humanism and political thought’, p. 119. [22] More, Utopia, p. 20. [23] Ibid., pp. 103-106. [24] Guillaume Budé, Education of a Christian Prince in Quentin Skinner, The Foundations of Modern Political Thought (Cambridge, 1978), p. 240. [25] More, Utopia, pp. 78-79. [26] Hankins, ‘Humanism and political thought’, p. 118. [27] Guy, Thomas More, p. 213.
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