Thomas More by John GuyReview by: Jared WicksThe Sixteenth Century Journal, Vol. 32, No. 3 (Autumn, 2001), pp. 781-782Published by: The Sixteenth Century JournalStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2671514 .

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Book Reviews 781

we do away with attribution altogether and treat authorship purely as a social function? In this way, the book is a victim of its own success: it turned this reader into a radical editor, skeptical about attributions and devoted to material contexts. I believe that this unusual book has set a new agenda for future editions of Renaissance poets, and how we should read them. Sujata Iyengar. . . .... University of Georgia

Thomas More. John Guy. London: Arnold, 2000. xviii + 251 pp. /j40. ISBN 0340731399. John Guy is known in the Thomas More guild for the archival research that underlay

his TVe Public Career of Sir Thomttas Mllore (1980). His new work, published in the US by Ox- ford University Press, is in the series Reputations, which charts the shifting historical un- derstanding of prominent individuals as fresh evidence appears and interpretations are reshaped by shifting ideological assumptions. As a longtime reader in the Public Records Office and coeditor of volume 10 of More's Complete Works, Guy does bring new evi- dence to light. As a thoughtful student of the biographies from Roper and Harpsfield to Marius and Ackroyd, he masterfully charts the impact of ideological assumptions over 450 years of interpreting the ever fascinating figure of More.

The record of interpretation shows how More has served as "a man for all purposes," but these purposes have been repeatedly promoted by conjectures going beyond the war- rant of historical evidence. Guy's examination of nine major aspects of More's life and ca- reer yields the disconcerting conclusion that a modern historical biography, aiming to resolve the issues by confirmed documentation, is in fact impossible. The biographer's problem begins with More himself, whose later letters and writings, such as Tlhe Apology of 1533, aimed to set the record straight, but along lines drawn by More himself.

Was More a "failed monk" who realized he could not live celibately? Guy holds that sexuality has distracted interpreters from a more important issue of More's discernment during his residence in the guest-house of the London Carthusians. Rather than sexual self-control, the debate was more likely over the value of contemplative study, leading to the enunciation of absolute principles of thought and action (with Grocyn, Colet, and Erasmus), and the contrasting ideal of action for the common good in public life (from Cicero, as More later espoused in book 1 of Utopia).

Was More a "reluctant courtier," as the Elizabethan Catholic Thomas Stapleton maintained? More's acuity repeatedly nuanced his views and shaded his decisions with a sense of good in paths and positions not followed. But whatever distaste he may have felt about serving at court contrasts with his ample preparation for royal service in work be- fore 1518, including cases that naturally led to notice from above of More as an extraor- dinary talent.

John Guy is illuminating on More's domestic life, portrayed idyllically by Erasmus, who however never visited Chelsea, but judged a sham by Elton because of More's 1mi- sogynism. Both sides, in the absence of documentation, engage in guesswork that clouds their vision. Guy's chapter on Utopia is an exemplary study in history-of-interpretation from the first English translation in 1551 down to insightful readings by Quentin Skinner and Brendan Bradshaw.

An inevitable crux of interpretation of More is his alleged transformation from the liberal author of Utopia into the Lord Chancellor so relentless, even furious, in the prose- cution of heretics. In restating the issue, Guy's first revision comes from Utopia itself,

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782 Sixteenth CenturyJournal XXXII/3 (2001)

which depicts a thoroughly regulated society laying firm constraints on personal freedom of thought and action. Another element to include is More's work from 1521 overseeing Henry VIII's anti-Lutheran campaign. Antiheretical laws had been on the books since the early fifteenth century and More was in time duty-bound to enforce them. More did "harden," but in this he was not alone. The law requiring the burning of heretics was hard. Beyond Henry's commission, Bishop Tunstal added specific responsibilities in 1528 to block the entry of Protestant books into the diocese of London. More, ever dutiful, ful- filled his task uncompromisingly. The development, as Guy notes, conforms to that of other Catholics who took time to consider the ramifications of Luther's appeal to the bib- lical text against the tradition of faith, doctrine, and church structures.

In a late defense laid before Thomas Cromwell, More relates that his own views on papal primacy were not clear before 1521 when he studied HenryVIII's Defense of tie Seven Sacranests against Luther. Guy notes the irony that Henry was the one who stimulated More's clarification on the Roman primacy. Nonetheless, to the end, More saw the pa- pacy in a symbiotic relation to the church's general councils, which articulated the con- sensus of belief transmitted from the Apostles in the whole corps of Christendom. To the end, it was this consensus by which More's conscience was bound in refusing assent to the acts of the Reformation parliament. But John Guy does not note that Henry's Defeiise, in its "slender" treatment of the primacy, as urged by More, also suggested the very prin- ciple that loomed largest in More's vision of the church. For Henry's short chapter on the papacy argues that since history knows of no usurpation of authority by the popes, their power must be from time immemorial and so presumed legitimate. An authority of such longevity should, by the consensus of all, not be contested. Irony may be even deeper than one first suspects.

A final interpretive issue is More's "silence" over the king's divorce and parliamen- tary restrictions on the church. Guy brings evidence that in 1530 More was arguing against the divorce in Privy Council. Upon resigning from the Chancellorship in May 1532, More may have intended to keep silent, but in less than a year he was in the lists with two works against Christopher St. German, the theoretician of royal supremacy. Henry had reason to eliminate More.

John Guy's new work should become a landmark in More studies. Upper-division and graduate students of history will gain much by study of the issues raised and then ex- tending their study of them in More's letters and works. Jared Wicks, S.J. ............ .. ... .. .. .. .. .. . Gregorian University

History in Practice. Ludlmilla Jordanova. London: Arnold, 2000. xvi + 224 pp. $15.95. ISBN 0340663324. After a couple of decades of inactivity, save in the rather esoteric pages of History and

Theory (isolated gems like Peter Novick's That Noble Dread notwithstanding), mainstream historiography has made a healthy comeback in the past five years or so. By "mainstream" I mean simply writing about the practice of history, past or present, done by practicing scholars with an interest in historiography, rather than by modern intellectual historians, who have legitimate but rather different concerns. There have been a number of reference books, at least two encyclopedias of historical writing, and Michael Bentley's impressive Cotiipauioim to Historiography (1997), its editor's own lengthy chapter now separately re- printed as Moderni. Historiograpliy:A Introdutctioit. For those of us who have been teaching the subject regularly for a few years, mastering all this provides both a challenge and a

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