A man of the Renaissance, Thomas More, born in London in 1477, was the friend of Erasmus. A jurist, he was also a great writer, in Latin as well as in English. The father of large family, he was a pioneer for women's access to culture. A magistrate, Member of Parliament and Diplomat, he became the Chancellor of the Realm in 1524
Imprisoned for his opposition to the schism which resulted from King Henry VIII's divorce, he was beheaded in 1535.
His work is rich and plentiful. If he is particularly well known as the author of Utopia, a book which started a new literary genre and which bequeathed to all languages a word that has become indispensable to socio-political thought, he is also a historian and a poet, a theologian and a mystic.
With Thomas More we live through the decades straddling the 15th and 16th centuries. He is present in the history of his time, in the history of states and in that of ideas, in the history of England and in that of Europe, in the history of the Church. Nobody better represents a time when the crisis of European consciousness reached its paroxysm.
Having himself entered history, both through his works and through the testimony of his life and death, he deserves, at this beginning of the 21st century, when Europe is being rebuilt and when the Church is in search of unity, the title given to him by his friend Erasmus: A man for all seasons.
The Church made a saint of him and the E.N.A. the "godfather" of one of its yearly intake of students: he stands as a valuable model for the "season of history" that we are presently going through.
( Text taken from the 4th cover page of the book written by Father Germain Marc'hadour: Thomas More - A Man for All Seasons published by Edition Ouvrières - Coll. Mémoire d'Hommes / Mémoire de Foi) |
