Utopia

Contents

1. The Author’s Epistle to Peter Giles 10 min 6

   More sends the finished Utopia to his Antwerp friend Peter Giles, apologising for a year’s delay caused by his work as a London lawyer and his duties at home. Keeping up the fiction that he has only recorded Raphael Hythloday’s report, he asks Giles to settle a dispute with his pupil John Clement about the width of a bridge, and to find out where in the New World Utopia lies, since a pious cleric hopes to go there as bishop. He ends by mocking the critics who greet every new book with contempt.

2. I The Discourses of Raphael Hythloday, of the Best State of a Commonwealth 1 h 21 min 28

   On an embassy to Flanders in 1515, More meets the Portuguese traveller Raphael Hythloday through Peter Giles. Urged to serve a king, Hythloday recalls a dinner at Cardinal Morton’s table, where he argued that hanging thieves is unjust and useless when idle retainers, war and enclosure (sheep that “devour men”) leave the poor no living but theft. Courtiers, he says, prefer flattery, conquest and fiscal tricks to honest counsel. More pleads for a pliable philosophy of the possible; Hythloday replies that no state can be just while property and money rule, and agrees to describe Utopia.

3. II.1 The Island of Utopia 7 min 4

   Raphael begins his description of Utopia. The crescent-shaped island, once a peninsula called Abraxa, was conquered by Utopus, who had a channel dug to cut it off from the mainland. It has fifty-four cities with identical laws, each sending three senators yearly to the capital, Amaurot. No city wants more land, since the people think of themselves as tenants rather than landlords. Townspeople take turns living on large farm households for two years, so that everyone learns agriculture. The country sends food to the towns and receives what it lacks without any exchange, and surplus produce is given to neighbours.

4. II.2 Of Their Towns, Particularly of Amaurot 6 min 2

   Raphael describes Amaurot, where he lived five years, as a model for all the cities. It stands on a hill above the tidal river Anider, crossed by a stone bridge, and draws fresh water through pipes from a fortified spring. The town is walled and laid out in uniform streets of three-storey houses with large gardens behind, which the streets compete to keep well. Since there is no property, doors are never locked and anyone may enter any house; houses are reassigned by lot every ten years. Records going back 1,760 years show how the houses grew from mud-walled huts.

5. II.3 Of Their Magistrates 3 min 2

   Every thirty families elect a Syphogrant (Philarch) each year, and every ten Syphogrants answer to a Tranibore (Archphilarch). The two hundred Syphogrants elect the Prince by secret ballot from four candidates named by the people; he holds office for life unless suspected of aiming at tyranny. The Tranibors meet with the Prince every third day. Matters of state must be debated on three separate days, important questions go back to the households, and no proposal is debated on the day it is raised. Discussing public affairs anywhere outside the council or the popular assembly is punished by death.

6. II.4 Of Their Trades, and Manner of Life 12 min 4

   Every Utopian, man or woman, learns agriculture and one other trade, usually the family's. Clothing is plain and uniform. The Syphogrants make sure no one is idle, but work lasts only six hours a day, with eight hours of sleep and free time spent mostly in reading and public lectures. Raphael explains why six hours suffice: elsewhere women, priests, nobles and their retainers, and beggars do little, and much labour goes into useless luxuries because everything is measured by money. In Utopia all work at useful things, houses are maintained, and clothes last, so hours are cut whenever public work is lacking.

7. II.5 Of Their Traffic 12 min 3

   Households of related men under the eldest are kept between ten and sixteen adults, and cities to six thousand households; children are moved between families as needed. Surplus population founds colonies on the mainland, and natives who refuse to join are driven from land they leave unused. Families take what they need from common storehouses without payment, since plenty removes the fear of want. Slaves do the butchering outside the walls. Each town has four large hospitals. Meals are taken in common halls, with the old honoured, women cooking in turn, and children served last; dinners begin with a short moral reading.

8. II.6 Of the Travelling of the Utopians 49 min 7

   Travel requires a passport, and leaving one's district without leave is punished, ultimately by slavery. There are no taverns, and everyone lives in full view. The island shares out its produce like one family, exports the surplus and accumulates gold and credit, which it uses only to hire soldiers. Gold is made into chamber-pots and slaves' chains, as the overdressed Anemolian ambassadors discover. Raphael then expounds the Utopians' learning and their ethics: pleasure, rightly understood and grounded in religion, is the end of life, and health and the pleasures of the mind are the highest. Finally the Utopians eagerly learn Greek and printing from Raphael's party.

9. II.7 Of Their Slaves, and of Their Marriages 20 min 6

   Slaves are convicted criminals, foreigners condemned to death abroad, and voluntary poor workers from neighbouring countries. The incurably sick in great pain are encouraged, not forced, to choose death. Marriage comes at eighteen and twenty-two; bride and groom see each other naked beforehand; divorce is allowed for adultery and, with the senate's leave, by mutual consent. Most crimes are punished by slavery. Utopia has few laws and no lawyers, lends magistrates to neighbouring peoples, and makes no treaties, since leagues are broken everywhere; Raphael ironically contrasts the faithfulness of Christian princes and popes. Human fellowship, the Utopians hold, binds better than words.

10. II.8 Of Their Military Discipline 22 min 3

    The Utopians despise war and its glory but train men and women in arms. They fight to defend themselves or friends, to free peoples from tyranny, and to avenge merchants wronged under colour of law. They prefer victories won by cunning: bounties on the enemy prince, bribery, and stirring up rivals. Their treasure pays mercenaries, chiefly the savage Zapolets, whose deaths they count no loss. When their own citizens fight, families stand together and fight to the end. They spare crops and the unarmed, take no spoil for themselves, and make the defeated pay in lands yielding over 700,000 ducats a year.

11. II.9 Of the Religions of the Utopians 41 min 12

    Utopians hold many religions but most worship one supreme God, called Mithras. Many accepted Christianity, attracted by its community of goods. Utopus's ancient law allows any religion and persuasion without violence; a zealous convert is banished for sedition, and those who deny immortality are tolerated but barred from office. Priests are few, elected and honoured; temples, worship and festivals are described. Raphael closes by declaring Utopia the only true commonwealth and all others a conspiracy of the rich, sustained by money and pride. More replies that much seemed absurd to him, especially living without money, yet many things he wishes rather than hopes to see adopted.