Here is the audio, video, and transcript. Here is a summary of the episode:
Joanne Paul is a historian at the University of Sussex, author, and Tudor YouTuber. He tells Tyler that he is drawn to the 16th century because it sits between the middle ages and the modern, and because its ways are not taken is a way to ask if our world was meant to be this way. His biography Thomas More: Life takes its title from that spirit, refusing to reduce More to martyr or monster.
Tyler and Joanne discuss how More influenced Erasmus, what he should do Utopiawhy fear drove More’s persecution of heretics, how Holbein’s portraits of More and Cromwell differ, what movie images are wrong about More, how his assassination was viewed at the time, how the Tudor era paved the way for Shakespeare and the scientific revolution, the dramatic social movements of the time, how the City of London ruled the Crown and Canada. and what drew him to British history, what he thinks lies beneath Britain’s current instability, the subject of his next book, and much more.
Quote:
COWEN: As you point out in the book, and you know very well, he oversaw the persecution of heretics. He was not responsible for the abuse. He did not like wives when he wrote about women. Was he just a bad person? Is that a fair picture of More, or should I praise him? He took a stand on the principle, and he died, but what was the principle, really? To protect Catholicism, which at that time was an instrument of persecution?
PAUL: As a historian, I consider one of my principles to be not trying to put people in a good or bad box.
COWEN: I am not a historian. Can I just love him?
PAUL: No, I think you should be interested in this argument. I think you should be interested in the complexity of the human experience. I think we have to ask questions about why someone who is apparently very educated, apparently very intelligent, very secular in many ways, has these beliefs that we should rightly discard. With Thomas More, I think he comes to these beliefs from a place of fear. I think that’s something we have to be aware of. He was afraid of what he would consider a Lutheran heresy. He feared how it would lead to the downfall of his community, and he was convinced by those people who believed it was.
I think there are important lessons for us today, how we can be sure that a group will lead to the collapse of our society, that fear can lead to that hatred and indeed that violence. I think that’s an important lesson. If we just say, oh, he was bad, then I don’t think we understand how someone like Thomas More could be that confident. Regarding his role in counter-rebellion, yes, he encouraged the persecution of heretics. He thought it was right that they should be burned at the stake. I think that sometimes his role in that has become stronger, and I think we just need to understand what it was in historical reality.
He imprisoned the traitors. He asked them questions. We don’t know if he abused them. That was something he was accused of at the time. He said he didn’t. I don’t know if we’ll ever find evidence either way on that. There are three cases that he presided over as King Chancellor of those who were burned at the stake. I’m just saying that because I see on social media and others people are presenting me with the suggestion that hundreds of Thomas More should be burned personally. I just think we have to understand what we are actually talking about.
Also:
COWEN: What precursors to the scientific revolution do you see, other than education? That comes in the 17th century. Is there more emphasis on counting or measuring or accounting? What are the roots of the Tudor period?
PAUL: Much of that comes from the Renaissance, as indeed humanity does. There is this re-introduction of many ancient texts, to advocate reading these ancient texts, especially Greek texts and learning Greek. Much of it comes from an association with Greek mathematics and science. Another thing, and this is something that I really emphasize when I teach the scientific revolution with my students, is that we have to remember that the scientific revolution is not this great victory of science over religion or mysticism or what have you, that these two things are very similar between the 16th and 17th centuries.
The scientific method, for example, comes from alchemy, which we might think of as the science of magic. The scientific method of investigation comes from this desire to find the philosopher’s stone. Someone like John Dee is a polymath, and this occultist, Francis Bacon, has his own interest in this kind of mystical aspect. The growth and interest in what we might think of as mystical writings, many of which relate to Judaism, as well as Greek writings, combine to create, I think, what looks like the foundations of a scientific revolution.
A good episode with many interesting points. I also enjoyed Joanne’s recent book Thomas More: A Life.
