Sir Thomas More (7 February 1478 – 6 July 1535), posthumously known also as Saint Thomas More, was an English lawyer, author, and politician. During his lifetime he earned a reputation as a leading humanist scholar and occupied many public offices, including that of Lord Chancellor of England from 1529 to 1532. More coined the word "utopia", a name he gave to an ideal, imaginary island nation whose political system he described in a book published in 1516. He is chiefly remembered for his principled refusal to accept King Henry VIII's claim to be the supreme head of the Church of England, a decision which ended his political career and led to his execution as a traitor. More was canonized by the Roman Catholic Church in 1935.
More combined his busy political career with a rich scholarly and literary production. Between 1513 and 1518 he worked on a History of King Richard III, an unfinished piece of historiography which heavily influenced William Shakespeare's play Richard III. Both More's and Shakespeare's works are controversial among modern historians for their exceedingly unflattering portrayal of King Richard, a bias due at least in part to the authors' allegiance to the reigning Tudor dynasty, which had wrested the throne from Richard at the end of the War of the Roses.
In 1515 More wrote his most famous and controversial work, Utopia, a book in which a fictional traveler, Raphael Hythloday, describes the political arrangements of an imaginary island nation named Utopia (a play on the Greek ou-topos, meaning "no place", and eu-topos, meaning "good place"). In the book, More contrasts the contentious social life of Christian European states with the perfectly orderly and reasonable social arrangements of the non-Christian Utopia. Many commentators have pointed out that More's Utopia strongly resembles Karl Marx's later vision of the ideal communist state. More's own attitude towards the arrangements he describes in the book are the subject of much controversy. More might have chosen the literary device of describing an imaginary nation primarily as a vehicle for discussing controversial political matters freely. It is unlikely that More, a devout and conservative Christian, intended to offer the non-Christian, communist Utopia as a concrete model for political reform.
More's writing and scholarship earned him a considerable reputation as Christian humanist in continental Europe, and his friend Erasmus of Rotterdam dedicated his masterpiece, In Praise of Folly, to him (the word folly is moria in Greek). Erasmus also described More as a model man of letters in his communications with other European humanists. The humanistic project embraced by Erasmus and Thomas More sought to reexamine and revitalize Christian theology by studying the Bible and the writings of the Church Fathers in the light of classical Greek tradition in literature and philosophy.
As Henry VIII's advisor and secretary, More helped to write the Defense of the Seven Sacraments, a polemic against Protestant doctrine that earned Henry the title of "Defender of the Faith" from the Pope in 1521. After Martin Luther responded to Henry's attack, More published a Reply to Luther which was much criticized for its slanderous ad hominem attacks.