Book Review: "The Fame of Blessed Thomas More" (1929)

Almost six years after the speeches in this book were delivered, Saint John Fisher and Saint Thomas More were canonized in Rome on May 19, 1935. The occasion of the speeches and the publication of them was the presentation of an exhibit of paintings, manuscripts, relics, and other materials related to Thomas More in Chelsea, where he had lived. It's also important to note that the year 1929 marked the 100th anniversary of the Catholic Emancipation Act, which was commemorated in this collection, Catholic Emancipation, 1829 to 1929: Essays by Various Writers with an Introduction by His Eminence Cardinal Bourne, which I reviewed in 2021.

Just to give you some context: Lillie Langtry, who might have been Edward VII then the Prince of Wales's mistress, died in 1929; Jean Simmons and Audrey Hepburn were born in 1929. George V, Edward VII's second son (1865-1936) was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Emperor of India; Ramsey MacDonald led a Labor government starting in June; and on October 18, the London Stock Exchange experienced a "sharp fall" after Black Friday in the USA. On December 15, Pope Pius XI beatified 136 Martyrs of England and Wales (29 of which were canonized in 1970; Chesterton attended that 1929 beatification and wrote about in The Resurrection of Rome).

Reading this book requires an adjustment on the part of the reader because "Blessed" Thomas More's fame seemed more secure in 1929. Now we're still dealing with the images (on screen especially) of Saint Thomas More from Hilary Mantel's trilogy, based on what Travis Curtright contends are G.R. Elton's outdated and disproved views of Thomas Cromwell and Thomas More:

Because the plot of Wolf Hall relies on Elton’s characterizations of Cromwell and More, Mantel writes as if the last thirty years of research in the Tudor period never happened. Though many prominent historians of the period—such as John Guy, Brendan Bradshaw, and Eamon Duffy—have refuted Elton’s claims about More already, George Logan most recently assembled a team of international scholars to reassess More’s life, writings, and political actions in The Cambridge Companion to Thomas More (2011). These scholars put to rest the most inflammatory claims of Elton and his school. Instead, Logan’s team finds More to be a superlative humanist scholar and, as the chapter on statesmanship claims, the historical record reveals “a statesman of conscience” and one of “extraordinary insight and foresight.”

When reading, for example, R.W. Chamber's essay on "Sir Thomas More's Fame Among His Countrymen", we're made aware of how much has been accomplished since 1929 in the publication of Thomas More's works: the translations of his Latin works, the Yale University editions, the work of the Amici Thomae Mori societies, etc.  A new edition of More's works was forthcoming at the time from Eyre and Spottiswoode: The English Works of Thomas More, editors W.E. Campbell*, A.W. Reed, R. W. Chambers, and W.A.G. Doyle-Davidson, 2 volumes (London: Eyre and Spottiswoode Limited, 1931)

Contents and comments:

Introductory Essay: "Sir Thomas More's Fame Among His Countrymen" by R.W. Chambers (not part of the presentations made at the exhibition)

Chambers (1874-1942), was a friend of J.R.R. Tolkien and wrote Man's Unconquerable Mind, The Place of Thomas More in English Literature and History, and Thomas More.

"The Charge of Religious Intolerance" by Ronald Knox

In dealing with this accusation, Knox contrasts Cranmer with More: when Cranmer questioned Joan Bocher during the reign of Edward VI, they were comparing their private judgment as Joan was an Anabaptist. Cranmer brought her to the stake and even John Rogers thought burning at the stake appropriate for one found guilty of heresy. Knox argues that More was questioning--never with torture--those accused of violating heresy laws for the sake of the Common Good and the Church's "continuous tradition" (p. 52) He notes that Bocher, who pointed out that in 1546 Anne Askew had been found guilty of heresy for denying Transubstantiation, which by that time (1550) Cranmer also denied, saw "that complete toleration was the logical corollary of private judgment, and Cranmer did not." (p. 54)

"The Witness to Abstract Truth" by Hilaire Belloc

I think Belloc misses the mark slightly by not acknowledging that by upholding Papal Primacy More was upholding the Unity of the Church: that More knew once the Church in England was schismatic, the doctrines and Sacraments of the Catholic Church would fall away.

"A Turning Point in History" by G.K. Chesterton

The briefest and and best. Contains the famous line that Thomas More was "important today, but he is not as important now as he will be in 100 years from today.”

"A Great Lord Chancellor" by Lord Justice Russell

Russell (1867-1946), Frank Russell, Baron Russell of Killown, was Lord of Appeal in Ordinary, Lord Justice of Appeal, and Justice of the High Court (overlapping positions): he was a Catholic and argued for lifting the restriction on Catholics from including Masses for their Souls in their Wills in Parliament. That restriction was lifted in 1926.

He testifies that More was great Lord Chancellor because he heard and decided cases impartially and expeditiously; that he did not, unlike Wolsey before him, become wealthy through his office; not even his sons-in-law received any special treatment!

"A Catholic of the Renaissance" by Henry Browne, SJ

Browne (1853-1941) was a classical scholar; much interested in the Cause of the English Martyrs of England and Wales, he worked for the growth of Catholicism in England.

His essay contrasts the relative corruption of the hierarchy in England before the Reformation with the enduring devotion and practice of the Catholic Faith after Henry's break from the Church and the subsequent changes in doctrine and practice. There must have been, he avers, great devotion, in spite of bad examples, to the Church's practice in England for so many priests and laity to have remained true through decades and decades of persecution and prosecution. Thomas More is an example of that devotion.

"The Glory of Chelsea" by Reginald Blunt

Blunt, CBE, was the founder of the Chelsea Society (1927). 

He comments that he is not a Catholic, so does not concern himself with religious issues, but that he admires Thomas More as a good farmer, neighbor, and family man. He cites, in particular, when there was a fire on his farm and More was very concerned that the fire had harmed his neighbors. He wrote to Alice from Court, where he was detained on the King's business, to make sure they were taken care of, with supplies from his farm's store as needed.

"A National Bulwark against Tyranny" by Bede Jarrett, OP

Jarrett (1881-1934) was a historian and author; founder of Blackfriars Priory in Oxford (1921) and author of S. Antonino and Medieval Economics, Life of St. Dominic, and The English Dominicans, among many other works.

Why was it so necessary for Henry VIII to pursue the compliance of Thomas More and John Fisher? Why was Henry VIII afraid of More's silence? Jarrett suggests it was not because of political reasons; it was because of the national and international standing of More and Fisher as good, holy, and learned men, known far and wide as scholars. They were among the leaders of the Renaissance in England and like Colet, Linacre, Grocyn, and Lilly, they were devout Catholics. "He really was the head of the whole cultural society then existing in England" (p. 129). Remember that More had upheld the study of Greek and Latin pagan classics: he "shared to the full the Renaissance spirit" (ibid). Not to have More on his side--Henry could not abide that and had to get him out of the way--thus the particularly aimed Act of Attainder against him. It's Jarrett's judgment that More was "forced into prominence" (p. 131) even more through Henry's efforts, and that "his greatness came from the moment really that he went to prison" (p. 134), because before More had not sought such prominence and greatness, even as he worked to support his king and his Church and be the King's servant and God's first.

Both Jarrett and Knox present cogent arguments and impressed me the most.

Appendix I: Catalogue of the More Memorial Exhibition

Appendix II: A Short Bibliography of Books Relating to the Martyr (Compiled by *W.E. Campbell)

One of the reasons the book was published was to support the building fund for the Beaufort Street Convent, where the Sisters of the Adoration Reparatrice at that time maintained "ceaseless adoration by day and by night in reparation for the national crime of the Blessed Martyr's execution." The convent was founded in 1898, but the Sisters left the convent in 1975 and now it's the site of Allen Hall.

It's good of Cluny to make this rarity available again, just four years before we see how Chesterton's prediction comes true in 2029. Please note that I purchased the book.

Another Dominican Master: St. Antonino of Florence

From Dom Bede Jarrett, O.P.'s 1914 monograph, S. Antonino and Medieval Economics:

There is another shrine which the devout lover of S. Antonino finds perhaps more appropriate and more touching — his cell in S. Marco. Here within these walls, how much of that character was built up which has made him revered in Florence, as the most blessed of her Bishops for over a thousand years! We look round with affection and love to think how much it meant, when in those far-off days (which somehow here seem not quite so distant) the vigorous Prior wrought out so many plans for the well-being of his brethren and the city. In it are gathered now his vestments, the death-mask, some manuscripts (which it requires a persistent visitor to get hold of) in his execrable hand- writing, and an old portrait. . . . 

But in this "narrow cell" that S. Antonino had chosen for himself, Fra Angelico has painted a fresco. Its design was no doubt thought out by the friends in counsel; and the Prior must have stood and watched while the artist-friar in prayer worked out with his bright colouring the mystery that both deemed the most appropriate. It represents the descent of Christ to the departed in Limbo. The figure of the Crucified Saviour, who has not yet burst through the portals of the tomb, stands in soft mellow light at the entrance of a rocky cave. In front and to the right stretch the long line of figures whose eyes gaze in rapt ineffable adoration on the face that lit up for them the gloom alike of life and of death. Thronging together, their hands uplifted in wonder, their knees half-bowed in worship, they stand for thousands and tens of thousands out of many nations and centuries and beliefs. Gathered from Earth's wide-stretching garden, they are the first blossoms that Christ shall offer to His Father; and over them all broods a hushed, yet living, silence. They are the spirits of the just made perfect, the first-fruits of the Lamb, the eldest-born of all the Dead. How they had waited in patience shut up within their prison, while through timeless aeons they looked out for the Messias! Tired were they and weary, expectant of release, yet knowing not day nor hour when the fulness of time should come. In silence and in hope was their only and utter strength. So Christ would have them remain until He should come. 

And S. Antonino, looking on this as he worked and laboured and wrote, learnt the lesson of life as taught by his friend Fra Angelico. Here, brimful of meaning, which yet would never tire or make afraid, was a splendid sermon by the most eloquent of Friar Preachers. 

He looked and learned that patience in weariness, patience in waiting, patience in an incomplete state of being is the most precious virtue to have attained, so that ''through patience we might have hope." 

I went to Eighth Day Books last week in search of a used book by Etienne Gilson titled The Church Speaks to the Modern World: The Social Teachings of Pope Leo XIII (Warren is searching for a copy for me) and instead found a lovely little red book about economics! Dom Bede Jarrett, O.P. wrote a little trilogy on economics in the Middle Ages and I plan to read the other two works: Medieval Socialism and Social Theories of the Middle Ages, which will require another trip to Eighth Day Books!

The volume I purchased is volume 3 in the "Catholic Library" published in both England and the U.S.A.. The book came with the insert from the U.S. publisher, B. Herder of St. Louis, MO., in 1914 asking the receiving Editor to provide "as extensive a notice as possible" and to "favor me [the Publisher] with two marked copies of your paper containing notice."

Although the book refers to the saint and Medieval Economics in the title, Jarrett dedicates one chapter out of ten to "His Social Ideals". Jarrett provides a summary of St. Antonino's Summa Moralis on economic themes: Production, Distribution, and Consumption. The saint, who was Archbishop of Florence when Cosimo de Medici was resident in the Dominican convent of San Marco (which contains the great frescoes of Fra Angelico as referenced and illustrated above), writes about the moral aspects of commerce. He begins with the statement that riches are good and poverty is bad; riches are good because they allow a man to care for his family in relative security and comfort, provide for the common good, and give alms to the poor to alleviate their want. No one in a just state should be destitute of food, shelter, and clothing, but everyone must work according to their ability to support themselves and their families. Wealth also provides for the opportunity for prayer and meditation: riches are a means to good things, not an end. While good may be obtained through voluntary poverty (like that practiced by religious), poverty is not a good in and of itself.

St. Antonino did not expect or even suggest the even distribution of wealth, noting that inequality is part of Nature and while he joined in the universal condemnation of usury and was opposed to monopolies or cartels, he acknowledged that businessmen could and should make a profit, even on their invested capital, as it represents their industry and effort, not as money making money on itself. He condemns extravagance or conspicuous consumption: "For it is a sad thing to see, side by side, extravagance and penury, to see horses and mules gaily caparisoned while the poor perish from hunger; or in a plague-stricken city when the sick lie naked, cold, and foodless to find men and women dressed with vain and gaudy ornaments (II. 4, 4, vi. p. 581; II. 4, 5, ii. p. 591)" (p. 76). St. Antonino discusses the principles of just prices, just reward for labour, and just production and distribution of goods.

Jarrett sums up the saint's work on economics:

These ideals of Florence set out in four volumes of S. Antonino's Summa Moralis, put into complete activity in the Greater and Lesser Guilds, and lined in stone along the graceful facade of Or San Michele are commercial, it is true, but clean and religious and noble. They sum up a chivalrous and knightly aspect of mercantile adventure. They spell out the splendid Chronicles of the Romance of Trade.

In the chapter preceding this review of economic theory, Jarrett details the holy archbishop's efforts to provide for the poor through charitable foundations and almsgiving, stating:

Yet was his charity ever true, rooted in faith and glowing with trustfulness in the inherent goodness of redeemed humanity. It was synonymous with justice for it rested on fellowship and its piers were driven deep down into that human nature whereby all we mortals are akin. Charity for him was love and God was love.

St. Antonino of Florence's feast (May 10) is no longer included on the Roman Calendar but EWTN provides this biography of the saint from Rev.Alban Butler.

Dom Bede Jarrett (1881-1934), according to this site, was born as

Cyril Jarrett, who received the name Bede when, at age 17, he entered the Dominican order in England. The Dominicans sent him to study at Oxford and at Louvain, where he received his degree in theology. Ordained in 1904, Fr. Jarrett was stationed at St. Dominic's Priory in London. At 33, he was named Prior there and, just two years later, was elected Provincial — an office he held the rest of his life. While serving as Provincial, Fr. Jarrett wrote numerous scholarly books, as well as a lively, popular biography of St. Dominic.

Fr. Jarrett's demanding schedule of preaching and lecture engagements in England and abroad soon brought him to the attention of Catholics in the pew. He inspired them with his profound grasp of human nature and his eloquent explanations of the wise and loving ways of God. That same eloquence and Catholic understanding permeates the meditations he penned for this book.

In his own life time he held a recognised position as the greatest preacher in Catholic England. The Times of London noted in his obituary that "he has been called the best Roman Catholic preacher in this country, and he was perhaps the most popular English preacher in the United States, his sermons being marked by their intellectual quality, their appositeness to the times and their incisiveness". He is the author of Classic Catholic Meditations, Life of St. Dominic, The abiding presence of the Holy Ghost in the soul, and Mediaeval Socialism.