By: A.B. Timothy
Discourses of Raphael Hythloday, Of the Best State of a Commonwealth (Cont.)
We continue reading the introduction on the sixth page of my copy, beginning with the words, “As he told us of many things that were amiss in those new- discovered countries…”
This section, given from the mouth of Raphael Hythloday (a man we know to be a fiction and thus his words may be rightly attributed to Thomas More), is a dialogue on questions about Hythloday’s credibility and reasoning. Both Thomas More, himself a character in the story, and his friend, Peter Giles, question the good philosopher on his lack of public service. After Hythloday tells them all there is to be told about the “Utopians” and their state, “from which patterns might be taken for correcting the errors of these nations among whom we live…”, More asks Hythloday why he has not taken this knowledge to a king so he might be hired as an advisor of sorts, or be given riches. Hythloday explains that he has already given away everything he had gathered as a younger man, so he would not have to deal with dividing his fortune among his friends as older men often must do. Hythloday goes on to explain that he has his reasons for not going to a king. He says that they are all too concerned with warring and taking more territory for their nation that they would not be, and are not, interested in bettering the governance they practice over the lands they already own. On top of this, Hythloday is not interested in playing politics with these princes nor the councilors who serve on their courts. Some would be jealous of his new ideas, and others would try to get on his good side. The politics of it all bore him, and he would rather spend his remaining time how he sees fit.
My takeaway is this: Thomas More lived in a time when fiction required a great deal of believability before people were willing to indulge in it and engage with the ideas it presented. Today, we only must worry about believable characters when writing our fiction. Whereas, in those days, they must make the whole fiction as plausible as possible. This dialogue, it seems then, is an answer to those ministers, lords, kings, and parliamentarians who, when reading the story, would ask, “Well, why have I never heard of this ‘Hythloday’ character?” Thomas is anticipating this question by essentially asking it himself, allowing his readers to continue to suspend their disbelief. He will get into greater detail in this next paragraph, where Hythloday goes over his fictional time in England that, conveniently enough, occurred during the First Cornish Rebellion.
This next dialogue, which lasts ten pages, explores Hythloday’s relationship with John Morton, Archbishop of Canterbury, Cardinal, and Chancellor of England. Hythloday is at dinner with the Chancellor and some of his friends when they are discussing the execution of thieves, boasting that “there were sometimes twenty on one gibbet!” (A gibbet is a place where they displayed criminals they had hanged.) Hythloday (More’s thoughts) rips into the men. All this death was nothing to boast about. It was not only unjust that they killed them for something as petty as theft, but also that they had gotten to the point where they felt they must steal. Hythloday goes on to describe how rough the people of England have it. Many veterans, having lost limbs in the Cornish Rebellion and in other conflicts fought with France, have been forced into poverty from their lack of ability to work. He then goes on a several-page-long side tangent talking about the morality of keeping a standing army, before returning to the root of the thievery problem.
This aside about standing soldiers kept by lords to enforce their borders and capture criminals comments on what becomes of these soldiers. Many of them are hard men from the aforementioned wars and thus are preferred by the lords of the land to protect their assets. This is good because it keeps them from thievery (and veterans often make very good thieves). But it is not good because only the best of the best get chosen to be these guards, leaving the rest of the veterans to fall into the ways of thieving poverty. These men aren’t even good to keep around as a standing army, as they get dull and soft during their time away from war. When they get soft and effeminate, they fall, often times to crime, just to get a thrill. These standing armies have also been a bad thing in the past, he mentions Rome, Carthage, and Syria, as examples of what having standing armies that grow soft can do to a nation. Then he turns back to poverty.
Hythloday argues that it is landlords who have been buying up villages just to knock them down, force their inhabitants into the cities, and build pastures for their massive flocks of sheep. There is rampant inflation, and these poor villagers, who did not have much money to begin with, found that their money lasted an even shorter time in the city. Ultimately, Hythloday recommends a return to the Rural lifestyle and the forced sale of many of these massive and unnecessary land plots, back to the people so they can live in an independent but ultimately more secure way. This will alleviate much of the thievery problem and help the citizens of their nation. A win-win that will end much of the unjust killing of criminals who, Hythloday claims, these very men created by their policies.
Again, More is relaying his critiques of his own homeland, it seems, through a fictional surrogate in Hythloday. Some of these arguments appear to be progressive and almost socialist in places. This section is the first time we see one of Hythloday’s ideas, which is clearly influenced by his time in Utopia (No-Place). More is laying out an idealized vision for his home of England, how much of this More himself sees as feasible is yet to be seen.
Conclusion
I ended my reading on page 20 of the work as a whole, meaning I read 14 pages today. I am about 33% of the way through this section of discourses from Hythloday, after which, we will be getting into the vision of Utopia itself. If you want to read along, I would highly encourage it. I covered the first 6 pages of the work in my post yesterday. Go check those out and read along with a free PDF of the book from the internet. If this intrigues you and you feel inspired to go read some old literature, consider subscribing to my WordPress so you get emails whenever I post a new part of this series or any other I am currently working on. Or my Newsletter to get updates every week on Saturday.
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