Utopia for Tudor England: What Thomas More’s Vision Teaches the Tudor World

In 1516, Thomas More published Utopia, a fictional depiction of an ideal commonwealth on a remote island. Ostensibly a travel narrative, it held a mirror up to 16th-century Europe—especially Tudor England—highlighting inequality, injustice, and religious hypocrisy. But Utopia wasn’t just wishful thinking or fanciful escapism. It was carefully crafted satire, using a utopian society to question the political, legal, religious, and social structures of More’s time. Though he sided with Catholics and later died opposing Henry VIII’s divorce and schism, More offered profound insights into Tudor England’s ills and how reform might heal them.

A Mirror to Tudor England’s Vices

In Book I, the traveler Raphael Hythloday skewers contemporary England:

He observes rampant poverty and crime tied to the enclosures—English landlords converting communal farmland to sheep pasture, displacing the poor. He charges, “you create thieves, and then punish them for stealing”

He critiques capital punishment, intellectual arrogance, and the crown’s rush to war. Raphael offers that true reform must address root causes—not just symptoms.

These indictments struck hard. Tudor England grappled with rising inequality, famine, and unregulated governance. Raphael’s narrative was more than fiction—it was a satirical diagnosis. shutdown123