Salve, Maria!

Dear brothers,

I am looking for good biographies of Saint Thomas More.

I would be grateful if someone could recommend a well-docuмented and trustworthy publication.

I have not actually read any biographies of the saint, but I do own a book of letters he wrote while awaiting execution.  It is edited by a modern jesuit but it is quite good (that is, the original letters appear preserved in their integrity quite well, and the notes accompanying the letters are copious). You might pick up a copy of The Last Letters of Thomas More as a supplement to whichever biography you choose. It is a highly intimate experience, to read the thoughts and priorities of one awaiting execution.

St. Thomas is remarkable in part because, due to the volume of his letters (more exist than just the volume I am referring to), we arguably know more about his interior disposition and psychological/emotional/personal life than any other saint.  I hope you find a good biography!

Salve, Maria!

Thank you, Mithrandylan, for recommending me his last letters. I found the following version: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1164478206/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1164478206&linkCode=as2&tag=httpwwwchanco-20  Did you know that one? This version includes an introduction by Cardinal Gasquet.

1stly, thank you for the recommendation, SeanJohnson. The biography by E. E. Reynolds looks interesting. I have two points of concern:
1) whether it is possible to talk about this topic in only 400 pages;
2) the same author wrote a biography of St. John Fisher called "St. John Fisher: Reformer, Humanist, Martyr." The subtitle sounds strange to me. Link: https://www.bookdepository.com/St-John-Fisher-E-E-Reynolds/9781953746399?ref=grid-view&qid=1611081832199&sr=1-13

Hello Diego-

I haven’t read Reynolds’s book on St. John Fischer (though I intend to), so I can’t really say.

But where he references St. Thomas More as a “humanist,” he means “renaissance humanism,” as opposed to contemporary humanism or conciliar humanism.

The former stressed a revival of antiquity (Greek, Hebrew, the arts, poetry, etc., and insofar as this movement impinged upon theology, it intended to return to the sources, but not in the same way conciliar humanism did: As an excuse to nullify scholastic and Tridentine theology, in order to redevelop theology in a new direction), while contemporary humanism implies the glorification of man at the expense of God (hence secular humanism).

But one could see how humanism, even of the renaissance variety (good, in and of itself), if it gained a predominance over ones love of theology, could poison it, and some other famous humanists like Erasmus (a friend of St. Thomas More) lost their bearings.

One needs to approach humanism in the same way one would approach Newman’s development of doctrine: Is it merely making the implicit explicit (yes!), or is it what the conciliarists have made of it (dogmatic evolution into contradiction and corruption).

Humanism can be hijacked in the same way.

But that St. Thomas More was a humanist (and one of the greatest) will not be denied by any pre-conciliar biographers or historians.

I just get a bit resistant when some like James Monti seem (to me) to insist a bit too much on the humanist aspect, because to me, what made St. Thomas a Saint were not his considerable intellectual and academic accomplishments, but his moral courage in standing for a principle.

With Reynolds, I did not get the impression that the humanist aspects of St. Thomas’s life took precedence over the moral and spiritual elements, and for that reason I recommended it.