This issue came up in 2012 when a review of Mantel's Bring Up the Bodies mentioned Mantel's presentation of More: "In Mantel’s version, More is no saint, as he almost certainly was not in real life: he’s fussily pious, stiff-necked and unnaturally fond of torturing heretics." (Note that Thomas More does not appear as a character in Bring Up the Bodies because he was executed in the pages of Wolf Hall.) The Guardian article sums up Mantel's More thusly: "Mantel’s portrait, however, is of a torturer of heretics with a penchant for self-punishment and a misogynist to boot."
If these two summaries of Mantel's More are accurate, her portrait is entirely untrustworthy. I won't repeat the discussion of Thomas More and torture, which has been done over and over again, but it is ridiculous to say that Thomas More was a) fussily pious and stiff-necked, b) with a penchant for self-punishment, and c) a misogynist to boot.
a) One man who hated fussy piety and stiff-necked religiosity was Desiderius Erasmas, and he loved Thomas More:
and from his written portrait of Thomas More
In human affairs there is nothing from which he does not extract enjoyment, even from things that are most serious. If he converses with the learned and judicious, he delights in their talent; if with the ignorant and foolish, he enjoys their stupidity. He is not even offended by professional jesters. With a wonderful dexterity he accommodates himself to every disposition. As a rule, in talking with women, even with his own wife, he is full of jokes and banter.
No one is less led by the opinions of the crowd, yet no one departs less from common sense. One of his great delights is to consider the forms, the habits, and the instincts of different kinds of animals. There is hardly a species of bird that he does not keep in his house, and rare animals such as monkeys, foxes, ferrets, weasels and the like. If he meets with anything foreign, or in any way remarkable, he eagerly buys it, so that his house is full of such things, and at every turn they attract the eye of visitors, and his own pleasure is renewed whenever he sees others pleased.
Thomas More was not fussily pious and stiff-necked--Erasmus would not have been his friend if he had been and More would have certainly been the target, not in on the joke, of The Praise of Folly.
b) Yes, Thomas More wore a hair shirt, fasted, used the discipline, and otherwise practiced self-denial. These are all common to saints who do rather extraordinary penance--but More kept those matters secret and did not flaunt or advertise them. Thomas Cromwell should not have known about it--there is that famous story about Thomas More's hair shirt peaking up under his outer garments and him stuffing it back out of sight, but otherwise, it was unknown. He gave his hair shirt to this daughter Meg just before his execution, meaning that he wore it in the Tower of London while he was preparing for death, natural or judicial, but did not want it revealed when he was taken for execution. Mantel's Cromwell perverts More's private penitential practices--and for a 21st century public that made the "50 shades" books best sellers, it's just too twisted that it now judges Thomas More as some sort of sado-masochist (torturing both heretics and himself).
c) Thomas More was not a misogynist if that word has its usual meaning. Does a misogynist educate his daughters as well as his son and rejoice in one daughter's academic accomplishments? The relationship between Thomas More and his daughter Meg, depicted in John Guy's A Daughter's Love, puts the lie to Mantel's misogynistic More. More married the eldest Colt sister in spite of being in love with one of the younger--he thought of her feelings above his own. A misogynist does not do that. There is also the story of his father-in-law reminding his daughter Jane, that More could by rights punish her in ways other than teaching her to read and write, again demonstrating that More was unusual for his time in how he treated women.
Why does Mantel pile on Thomas More so much? Is it because he is Catholic hero and saint? Aren't all of us, past and present, an inconsistent mixture of goodness and sinfulness? No one is perfect, not even Thomas Cromwell, yet Mantel's Cromwell seems to have all the postmodern virtues and Thomas More all the medieval vices (in the modern view). For Mantel to create such a caricature of Thomas More, especially in historical fiction where it has so much reach and influence, is both bad history and bad art.
I'm working on some interviews, presentations, and articles during the US broadcasts of the series on PBS in April/May; it's a good opportunity to explain what the Church means when she canonizes a saint and talk about the history of the English Reformation!
I'm working on some interviews, presentations, and articles during the US broadcasts of the series on PBS in April/May; it's a good opportunity to explain what the Church means when she canonizes a saint and talk about the history of the English Reformation!
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