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Utopia and European Humanism: the Function of the Prefatory Letters and Verses

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2019

Peter R. Allen
Peter R. Allen*
Affiliation:
Toronto
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Extract

The letters and verses written for the early editions of Utopia by Sir Thomas More and his fellow humanists have had remarkably little influence on More's critics and in later editions have been reprinted (if at all) more as literary curiosities than as significant contributions to our understanding of the work. Yet the very extent and range of this appended material would suggest that it was meant to play an important rôle. The first edition, printed by Thierry Martens at Louvain in 1516, includes a Utopian quatrain 'translated’ by Peter Giles, the Hexastichon Anemolii or ‘shortc meter of Utopia', verses by Gerhard Noviomagus, Cornelius Grapheus, and John Paludanus, and the letters of Giles to Jerome Busleiden, Busleiden to More, Paludanus to Giles, and More to Giles.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in the Renaissance , Volume 10 , 1963 , pp. 91 - 107
Copyright
Copyright © Renaissance Society of America 1963

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References

1 Giles identifies himself as the author in his letter to Busleiden; cf. The Utopia of Sir Thomas More, ed. J. H. Lupton (Oxford, 1895), p. xcviii—hereafter cited as Lupton.

2 The verses of Noviomagus and Grapheus, though not mentioned in Gibson, R. W., St. Thomas More: a Preliminary Bibliography of his Works and of Moreana to the Year 1750 (New Haven, 1961), p. 5 Google Scholar, do appear in the first edition, as Lupton notes, p. lxvi.

3 The only other edition of Utopia in More's lifetime, published by Giunta at Florence in 1519, has no new material; cf. Gibson, op. cit., p. 114.

4 This essay was first written for a graduate course given by Professor R. J. Schoeck, of St. Michael's College, University of Toronto, who not only suggested the subject but has given me constant advice in my work on it.

5 Information on Tunstall from Opus Epistolamm Des. Erasmi Roterodatni, ed. P. S. Allen (Oxford, 1906-1958), 1, 438—hereafter cited as Allen, Epis.; cf. also D.N.B. s.v. 'Tunstall or Tonstall, Cuthbert'; Lupton, p. 22; The Correspondence of Sir Thomas More, ed. E. F. Rogers (Princeton, 1947), p. 16—hereafter cited as Rogers.

6 Cf. Allen, P. S., Erasmus: Lectures and Wayfaring Sketches (Oxford, 1934), pp. 162-163Google Scholar —hereafter cited as Allen, Erasmus. For a detailed account see Henry de Vocht, History of the Foundation and the Rise of the Collegium Trilingue Lovaniense, 1517-1550 (Louvain, 1951-1955, Humanistica Lovaniensia x-xm).

7 Biographie nationale, publiee par VAcademie Royale des Sciences, des Lettres et des Beaux- Arts de Belgique (Brussels, 1866+) s.v. ‘Busleiden, Jérôme'—hereafter cited as Biog. Nat.

8 Information on Busleiden (Busleyden, Buslidius) mainly from Henry de Vocht, Jerome de Busleyden, Founder of the Louvain ‘Collegium Trilingue': his Life and Writings, Edited for the First Time in Their Entirety from the Original Manuscript (Turnhout, 1950, Humanistica Lovaniensia ix); cf. also Biog. Nat. s.v. ‘Busleiden, Jerome'; Allen, Epis., 1, 434; Allen, Erasmus, pp. 156-160; Rogers, pp. 81-82; Lupton, pp. xcv-xcvi.

9 Allen, Epis., letter 332 (II, 67-68).

10 I have here accepted the account of Henry de Vocht in Literae virorum eruditorum ad Franciscum Craneveldium, 1522-1528: a Collection of Original Letters Edited from the Manuscripts . . . (Louvain, 1928, Humanistica Lovaniensia 1), p. 438—hereafter cited as De Vocht, Crancvelt. Other sources do not mention the earlier position and give 1510 for his appointment as town clerk.

11 Information on Giles (Gilles, Gielis, Gillis, Gillius, Aegidius, Egidius) from Rogers, pp. 76-77; Allen, Epis., I, 413; De Vocht, Crancvelt, pp. 438-440; Lupton, pp. 1-2; Biog. Nat. s.v. ‘Gillis, Pierre'; James Hutton, The Greek Anthology in France and in the Latin Writers ofthe Netherlands to the Year 1800 (Ithaca, 1946), pp. 217-218.

12 According to Biog. Nat. s.v. ‘Paludanus, Jean', he secured Paludanus’ letter.

13 In identifying Paludanus as Van der Broeck (p. lxvi) Lupton has confused him with one of the several Vanden Broecks mentioned in Biog. Nat., all of whom had the Latin name of Paludanus, and one of whom was also called John and also taught at Louvain at about the same time.

14 Information on Paludanus from Allen, Epis., 1, 398; De Vocht, Cranevelt, p. 2; Lupton, p. lxvi; Biog. Nat. s.v. ‘Paludanus, Jean'.

15 De Vocht, Cranevelt, p. 609.

16 Information on Noviomagus (Geldenhauer, Geldenhouwer) from Rogers, p. 67; Lupton, pp. viii, 320; De Vocht, Cranevelt, pp. 484, 609-612; Allen, Epis., n, 379; The Poems of Desiderius Erasmus, ed. C. Reedijk (Leiden, 1956), p. 31; Carl Ullman, Reformers before the Reformation, Principally in Germany and the Netherlands, tr. Robert Menzies (Edinburgh, 1855), I, 405-406.

17 Information on Grapheus (Graphey, Graphius, Graphaeus, Scribonius, Schreiber, de Schryver) from Ullman, op. cit., I, 397-416; Lupton, pp. viii, 322; De Vocht, Cranevelt, pp. 484-486; Allen, Epis., w, 225-226; Biog. Nat. s.v. ‘de Schryver, Corneille'.

18 Cf. Lupton, pp. lxxx-lxxxi.

19 Information on Lupset mainly from J. A. Gee, The Life and Works of Thomas Lupset: with a Critical Text of the Original Treatises and the Letters (New Haven, 1928); cf. also Allen, Epis., 1, 527-528; Lupton, p. lxxx; D.N.B. s.v. ‘Lupset, Thomas'.

20 Cf. Lupton, pp. 7-8.

21 Rogers, p. 90: ‘Si res vt vera prodita est, video ibi quaedam subabsurda. Sin ficta turn in nonnullis exactum illud Mori iudicium requiro.’ This second letter to Giles is reprinted in full in Rogers, pp. 90-92; for the translation I am indebted to Rev. E. A. Synan, of St. Michael's College, University of Toronto. No Latin is given below for quotations from the other letters and verses, except Paludanus’ letter, since I quote from the translations in Lupton, where the original is immediately available.

22 In what follows I have not distinguished between editions but rather, for the sake of brevity, have assumed that my hypothetical sixteenth-century reader has seen the second and third editions and hence has been exposed to all the appended material of Utopia. Most readers would of course see only one edition, but the difference between them in content is not great. The reader of the third edition would not miss Paludanus' letter because Erasmus', as I show below, is the equivalent in its emphasis on learning. The reader of the first edition, however, would not have the help of Bude in determining Utopia's moral purpose, and the reader of the second would have the additional ambiguity produced by More's second letter to Giles.

23 I know of no modern reprint or translation of this letter; my translation was made with the help of Prof. W. A. Dale and Dr. P. T. Rjcketts, of Victoria College, University of Toronto. I used the text in Sir Thomas More, Omnia … latina opera (Louvain: Zangrius, 1566), sigs. Aiijv-Aiiijr. The first two gatherings of this book are both signed ‘A'; the letter is in the first of the two. For the passage summarized above cf. sig. Aiijr.

24 Lupton, pp. lxxvii-lxxix.

25 Ibid., pp. lxxx-lxxxii.

26 Ibid., p. xci.

27 Ibid., pp. xcvii-xcviii.

28 Ibid., p. c.

29 Ibid., p. s.

30 K Ibid., p. 9.

31 Ibid., p. 314.

32 ™ Ibid., p. 26.

33 Rogers, p. 91.

34 Lupton, p. xciii.

35 Ibid., p. xcv.

36 More, Omnia … latina opera, sig. Aiijv: ‘… felicem Brittaniam qu£ nunc eiusmodi floreat ingenijs, vt cum ipsa possint antiquitate certare.'

37 Lupton, p. lxxviii.

38 More, Omnia … latina opera, sig. Aiijv.

39 Lupton, p. xcviii.

40 Ibid., pp. 3-5.

41 Ibid., pp. lxxxii-lxxxiii.

42 Ibid., pp. lxxxiii-lxxxvii.

43 Ibid., p . xcii.

44 Ibid., p. 313.

45 Ibid., pp. 314-316.

46 Ibid., p. 318.

47 Ibid., p. 321.

48 Ibid., p. 322.

49 More, Omnia … latina opera, sigs. Aiijv-Aiiijr: ‘Vtinam fiat vt quemadmodum illi nostram religionem accipere coeperunt: ita nos ab illis administrandae reipublicae rationem mutuemur. Id fortasse facile fieret: si Theologorum aliquot insignes & inuicti in earn insulam se conferant. Christi fidem iam suppullulate prouecturi, simulq; eius gentis mores & instituta ad nos deportaturi.'

50 Lupton, p. xcvii.

51 Ibid., p. 169: ‘O sanctam rempublicam, et uel Christianis imitandam.'

52 Ibid., pp. lxxxiii-xc.

53 Ibid., p. xciv.

54 Ibid., pp. lxxx, 320, and Paludanus’ letter; cf. More, Omnia … latina opera, sig. Aiiijr.

55 Rogers, p. 91: ‘… non fuisse fortassis abhorriturum ab ca fictione qua velutm elle circunlitum suauiuscule influeret in animos verum.'