English lawyer, social philosopher, author, and politician
1478 CE
to 1535 CE
Sir Thomas More (pronounced /ˈmɔr/; February 7, 1478 – July 6, 1535), also Saint Thomas More, is an English lawyer, social philosopher, author, and statesman.
He is also recognized as a saint within the Catholic Church and in the Anglican Communion.
During his life he gains a reputation as a leading Renaissance humanist, an opponent of the Protestant Reformation, of Martin Luther and of William Tyndale.
For three years toward the end of his life he is Lord Chancellor.
More coins the word "utopia" - a name he gives to the ideal, imaginary island nation whose political system he describes in Utopia, published in 1516.
He is an important counselor to Henry VIII of England.
In 1535 More is tried and executed for treason by beheading for denying that the king is the Supreme Head of the Church of England, a status the king had been given by a compliant parliament through the Act of Supremacy of 1534.
More had been in prison in the Tower of London since 1534 for his refusal to take the oath required by the First Succession Act, because the act disparaged the power of the Pope and Henry’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon.
More is beatified by the Catholic Church in 1886 and canonized, with John Fisher, in 1935.
In 1980, he is added to the Church of England's calendar of saints.
