Opening of the book
Utopia
by Thomas More
Contents
INTRODUCTION
DISCOURSES OF RAPHAEL HYTHLODAY, OF THE BEST STATE OF
A COMMONWEALTH
OF THEIR TOWNS, PARTICULARLY OF AMAUROT
OF THEIR MAGISTRATES
OF THEIR TRADES, AND MANNER OF LIFE
OF THEIR TRAFFIC
OF THE TRAVELLING OF THE UTOPIANS
OF THEIR SLAVES, AND OF THEIR MARRIAGES
OF THEIR MILITARY DISCIPLINE
OF THE RELIGIONS OF THE UTOPIANS
UTOPIA
INTRODUCTION
Sir Thomas More, son of Sir John More, a justice of the King’s
Bench, was born in 1478, in Milk Street, in the city of London. After his earlier education at St. Anthony’s School, in Threadneedle Street, he was placed, as a boy, in the household of Cardinal John Morton,
Archbishop of Canterbury and Lord Chancellor. It was not unusual for persons of wealth or influence and sons of good families to be so established together in a relation of patron and client. The youth wore his patron’s livery, and added to his state. The patron used, afterwards, his wealth or influence in helping his young client forward in the world. Cardinal Morton had been in earlier days that Bishop of
Ely whom Richard III. sent to the Tower; was busy afterwards in hostility to Richard; and was a chief adviser of Henry VII., who in
1486 made him Archbishop of Canterbury, and nine months afterwards Lord Chancellor. Cardinal Morton—of talk at whose table there are recollections in “Utopia”—delighted in the quick wit of young Thomas More. He once said, “Whoever shall live to try it, shall see this child here waiting at table prove a notable and rare man.”
At the age of about nineteen, Thomas More was sent to Canterbury
College, Oxford, by his patron, where he learnt Greek of the first men
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