Utopia: Book 1 Summary & Analysis

Thomas More the character sets the stage for Utopia by recounting how he was sent by King Henry VIII of England as an ambassador to the Netherlands, along with several other excellent men. Their mission is to negotiate with a Flemish commission organized by Charles, the King of Castile, concerning the English wool trade. The commissions meet once or twice without arriving at any full agreement. Consequently, the Flemish travel to Brussels for further instructions from their prince, during which time More travels to Antwerp.

While living in Antwerp, More befriends an honest, learned citizen of that city: Peter Giles. More finds Giles’s conversation both merry and pleasant, and it makes More feel less homesick to have such an entertaining new friend, even though he’s been away from his wife and children for four months at this point.

One day, while returning to his house in Antwerp after a church service, More runs into Giles, who is speaking with an old, sunburned, long-bearded, and cloaked stranger from Portugal; this man is named Raphael Hythloday. More takes him to be a mariner. Giles exclaims that he was just about to escort Hythloday to More’s lodgings for a meeting, because the old man is well-traveled and knows much about the world, especially foreign peoples and countries. However, Hythloday turns out to be not so much a mariner (though he did travel with Amerigo Vespucci) as a person in quest of knowledge, like the Greek hero Ulysses and the philosopher Plato.

More, Giles, and Hythloday go to More’s house and sit in the garden where Hythloday tells of his travels. During one voyage, he says, he received Vespucci’s permission to stay behind and explore the East for himself. After many days spent crossing scorching deserts and wilderness, Hythloday and his companions came upon well-governed people, cities, and towns. Ships gladly welcomed Hythloday and his companions aboard, and they were consequently able to visit many nearby countries. Hythloday even introduced some sailors to the use of the lodestone, a magnet used in navigation. More, however, suggests that sailors have so much confidence in the lodestone that they become reckless and expose themselves to danger.

More and Giles are especially curious about how the peoples Hythloday encountered are governed, and they ask him many questions on this point. More is also quick to point out that they don’t ask Hythloday any questions about monsters, because monsters, like Scylla from Homer’s Odyssey and cannibals, are easy to find, whereas people ruled by good and wholesome laws are not. Of all the societies Hythloday presents, however, More is “determined to rehearse only that he told us…of the Utopians” (from the Greek meaning “nowhere”).

Peter Giles is so impressed by Hythloday that he strongly encourages him to go into the service of a prince as his counselor, for the prince, the nation, and Hythloday’s own friends and family would benefit from Hythloday’s profound learning and wisdom. Hythloday counters that he has done enough for his friends and family as it is, having long ago given them most of his belongings. As such, he would not “give [himself] in bondage unto kings” on their account. Peter says he does not mean bondage at all; Hythloday could become very wealthy by serving in a king’s court. Hythloday, again, has a counter: wealth stands in opposition to his own principles and nature. He values the liberty to follow his own thoughts and pleasures too much to serve a prince.

More, for his part, encourages Hythloday to go into a prince’s service not for wealth but to contribute to the public good. Hythloday responds, first, that he does not possess the ability to fill a prince’s head with truth and virtue, because princes are more interested in chivalry, war, and conquest than good governance. Second, counselors prefer the ideas they themselves invent to all others, and therefore attempt to fault the ideas of their peers, no matter how good, which means that their best decrees “‘lie unexecuted.’”

More asks Hythloday if he’s been to England. Hythloday says he has, and he stayed there for four or five months, shortly after a Cornish rebellion—which was motivated by overtaxation—was bloodily put down in 1497. Hythloday spent much of his time in England in the company of Cardinal John Morton, whom More served as a page in boyhood and whom Hythloday describes as upright, reverent, gentle, wise, and eloquent—an excellent administrator of policy and law.

One day, while sitting at Cardinal Morton’s table, Hythloday fell into discussion with a cunning lawyer concerning English law. The lawyer praises the rigorous justice executed upon felons and especially thieves at that time, for many were hanged for their crimes and few escaped punishment. Hythloday disagrees: death is “‘too extreme and cruel a punishment for theft’,” he says. He also argues that people who resort to thievery are forced into it by having no other way of getting their living. Instead of executing thieves, he says, England should make it so that the thieves can live by honest work instead.

Hythloday claims, moreover, that he’s not just referring to people who can’t work because they’ve been maimed and lamed by fighting on behalf of their nation in the wars. He is referring to people who can’t work for more commonplace reasons. First, Hythloday says, there are a great number of idle gentlemen who live by exploitatively raising their tenants’ rent and who hire serving men to proudly show off the wealth of their estates. But these serving men never learn any craft, and they become as idle as their lords.

Hythloday continues: once these serving men’s lords die, or once they themselves fall ill and are thrust out to get their living independently, serving men have no choice but to “‘manfully play the thieves’,” lest they starve. What choice do they have? After being thrust out, the men wear their clothes threadbare and become sickly, which makes it unlikely that another master will take them into service. Moreover, farmers dare not put them to work either, knowing that such men do not have the temperament or discipline to do hard work for small wages.

The lawyer responds that England should cherish these pampered, out-of-work serving men, for they are stouter and more courageous than craftsmen and farmers tend to be, and they make up the whole strength of the English army as such. Hythloday agrees that, when such out-of-work serving men don’t become thieves, they do tend to become soldiers, but he finds it troubling that England must cherish its thieves for war’s sake.

Moreover, Hythloday observes that in all nations, but especially in France, having a standing army in peacetime is bad policy. Nations don’t like sending unpracticed soldiers into battle, and so they provide practice by seeking out unnecessary wars. Standing armies of mercenaries or slaves also have a history of turning against the countries that support them. Finally, as France’s military record in wars with England would suggest, practiced soldiers don’t even have an advantage over unpracticed ones. Hythloday thinks that men who have a craft tend to be stouter and sturdier than gentlemen’s serving men who are softened by idleness anyway.

Hythloday introduces a second cause of thievery in England. For the sake of reaping huge profits in the wool trade, noblemen, gentlemen, and even churchmen tear down houses and towns to pasture their sheep on what could otherwise be farmland, thereby making it impossible for people to live on and work the land. The farmers who are cheated or oppressed out of their land often get nothing for it, or for their household stuff. After wandering the country and spending all they have, they inevitably turn to theft, having no other way to get their living, and then they are hanged. Those who beg instead are often imprisoned; in any case, they can’t contribute to the public good either.

The decay of farming causes yet other problems, in Hythloday’s account: food shortages and a spike in the price of wool, which makes it so that poor people can no longer afford to buy wool and make cloth from it. This problem was further exacerbated, Hythloday recalls, by the death of many English sheep due to an epidemic of sheep rot, which only made wool harder to get. This, again, results in people being forced out of work into idleness, and only a few greedy people profit. Hythloday also foresees similar problems arising when “utter covetousness” leads noblemen and gentlemen to exploit the cattle industry as they’ve already done with the sheep industry.

Making matters even worse, according to Hythloday, is the fact that beggary and poverty are often accompanied by debauched drinking, decadent excess, the soliciting of prostitutes, and gambling among those not reduced to poverty, like serving men, craftsmen, and farmers. Hythloday calls for a law that will force the people who despoiled farmland to restore it, and he calls for an end to idleness. Until these problems are solved, he says, justice will be mere show and not profitable, and children will be brought up in sin. A society should not make thieves and then punish them cruelly, Hythloday concludes.

The lawyer tediously claims he will answer Hythloday, promising to rehearse each of his points in order and then counter all of Hythloday’s arguments. However, Cardinal Morton cuts him off: he doesn’t want to listen to such verbosity, and would rather the lawyer save his answer for later.

Instead, Cardinal Morton asks Hythloday how he thinks thieves should be punished, if not by death. Hythloday responds that a man’s life is worth more than money, that cruel laws disproportionate to the crime they’re punishing should not be tolerated, and that man’s law ought not to go against God’s commandment against killing insofar as this is possible, lest man usurp God’s power. Not even Moses’s sharp law punished theft with death, Hythloday points out. Moreover, thieves who know they’ll be hanged for thieving and murder alike are more likely to kill their witnesses, such that the death penalty for theft perversely incentivizes murder.

Hythloday then turns to how thieves should be punished. He points out that the Romans punished thieves and other criminals by forcing them to serve the public good in stone quarries and mines. Hythloday says that the (fictional) people called the Polylerites (from the Greek meaning “nonsensical people”), whose fertile land is ringed in by mountains, punish thieves by forcing them to pay restitution to the victims of their crimes, and also by forcing them to become common laborers, or serving men. These laborers, humanely treated, are not imprisoned or bound unless they refuse to work, in which case they are also whipped.

Furthermore, Hythloday says, the serving men among the Polylerites are distinguished from other citizens by the common color of their clothes and the fact that the tip of one of their ears is cut off. For them to receive money or weapons is death, for the receiver and giver alike; for a serving man to throw away his distinct clothes or to run away is likewise death. For a free man to counsel a serving man to run away is bondage; for a serving man to do so, death. Those who reveal the plots of a runaway receive freedom or money, depending on whether they’re serving men or freemen, respectively. It is always better for a runaway to repent and turn back than to “go forward in their evil purpose.” Serving men can also achieve freedom through hard work and patience.

Hythloday concludes that the Polylerites’ treatment of thieves is much more humane than England’s. He thinks that society can be so organized that even bad people can’t help but to do good. The lawyer at once counters that, were England to do as the Polylerites do, the nation would fall into danger; he says no more, but everyone present agrees with him except Cardinal Morton. The Cardinal says proof is needed to decide either way, but he is sympathetic to Hythloday’s proposal and adds that forcing even vagabonds into labor might benefit society. Everyone at the table then praises what Hythloday had said; the highest praise, however, is reserved for the Cardinal’s novel point about vagabonds.

Hythloday then tells More and Giles about a joker at Cardinal Morton’s table who tried to say witty things as a professional fool might, but more often than not his jokes were so belabored and out of sync with the conversation that people ended up laughing at him more than at his jokes. Once in a while, however, the joker did succeed in saying something very witty and reasonable indeed.

One person at Cardinal Morton’s table says that, thanks to the proposals of Hythloday and the Cardinal, both thieves and vagabonds are taken care of in England—all that remains is to make provisions for the sick and old who have fallen into beggary. The joker proposes that beggars be forced into monasteries and convents and made into lay brethren and nuns. The Cardinal smiles at this joke, but others at the table uncritically accept the proposal in earnest. A usually very serious friar jests that, now that the joker has made provisions for beggars, he must make provisions for friars, too. The joker retorts that the Cardinal’s provision for vagabonds (putting them to work) applies to friars as well, for friars “‘be the veriest vagabonds that be’,” in the joker’s words.

The joker’s mockery of friars is too much for the friar to bear, and he is enraged. He chides, scolds, and curses the joker. The joker scoffs very entertainingly and advises the friar to follow the scripture in being patient. The friar maintains that he is angry but that he is not sinning. Cardinal Morton calms the friar and tells him not to debase his intelligence by arguing with a fool. The friar praises the Cardinal’s wisdom, but nonetheless insinuates that the joker could be excommunicated for his mockery. The Cardinal, seeing that the argument will not end, sends the fool away, changes the subject, and soon after dismisses all his company. Hythloday says that this story suggests how little courtiers would value his counsel.

Hythloday pardons himself for telling Thomas More and Peter Giles such a long tale. He says he did so only because it seemed as though his companions wanted to hear it all. He points out that all present at Cardinal Morton’s table that day disagreed with his views on punishment until the Cardinal approved them, which suggests that those men are impudent flatterers, even to the point of accepting smiled-on jokes for earnest proposals.

More thanks Hythloday for his tale, which was especially pleasant for him because he served Cardinal Morton in his boyhood. More confesses that he hasn’t changed his mind on one point, however: he believes that if Hythloday serves as the counselor of a prince, he will greatly benefit his nation, which is nothing more than a good man’s duty. Only when philosophers are kings or the counselors of kings will society become perfect, as Plato says.

Hythloday does not agree with More. He says that, unless kings themselves study philosophy seriously, they will not listen to the counsel of philosophers. He imagines helping an empire-building French king like Charles the VIII or Louis the VII wage his wars of conquest. All his fellow counselors would propose cunning ways of winning battles, forging alliances, holding old territory, and gaining new territory. And if he, Hythloday, were to suggest that the king cease his wars of conquest and focus on domestic matters, what would happen?

Hythloday even has an example in mind for his hypothetical French king to follow, which he learned from a (fictional) people called the Achorians (Greek for “those who live in a place that does not exist”), neighbors of the Utopians. The Achorian king conquered a new kingdom, but had a harder time keeping it than he did in getting it because of rebellion. The Achorians lost money and blood in battle, and in peace many were so corrupted by their warlike ways that they had developed “wicked manners” and criminal tendencies. The Achorians forced their king to choose one kingdom to govern, because in governing both he was merely half a king. So it was that he contented himself with his old kingdom.

Hythloday returns to his earlier question: how would the hypothetical French king receive his counsel, that he should cease his wars of conquest and not meddle with other kingdoms? More concedes the king would not be grateful for such advice.

Hythloday then imagines what cunning, vicious things his fellow counselors might advise the king to do: inflate the currency; pretend to go to war to raise money; renew old, outdated laws to collect fines; impose fines for certain practices and sell licenses to exempt people from the fines; etc. All the counselors agree on one thing: as the rich Roman Crassus says, a prince who must maintain an army can never have enough gold, and a prince can never do an injustice, because all men are his already. Poverty, such counselors say, makes people too poor to behave badly or rebel. And how would the king receive Hythloday’s counsel then, if Hythloday advised that he should care more about the wealth of his people than about his own wealth? A shepherd’s duty, Hythloday says, is to feed his sheep rather than himself.

Hythloday goes on to say that poverty is not the mother of peace so much as it is of conflict, arguing, and fighting, as the behavior of beggars would suggest. After all, people who are not content are also those most desirous for change, and people who have nothing to lose are likelier to resort to violence. Besides, it is beneath the dignity of a king to rule over beggars—this would be fitter work for a mere jailer. A king who cannot rule except by harming his subjects is not fit to rule at all; he would do better to renounce bad pleasures and pride.

Hythloday introduces a law of the (fictional) people called the Macarians (from the Greek meaning “happy people”). The Macarians do not permit their king to have more than a thousand pounds of gold or silver in his treasury, and by this measure they make sure that he enriches his country and not himself. A thousand pound of gold or silver is enough to support the king in putting down a rebellion, but not enough to encourage him to steal from his subjects.

Hythloday concludes, at last, that his counsel could only fall on deaf ears in a king’s court, and Thomas More now agrees with him. More says that “school philosophy” is not profitable or palatable to people who have already made up their minds, even if it’s “not unpleasant” among friends. Hythloday agrees that school philosophy has no place in the consultations of princes.

More does say, however, that philosophy does have a part to play in governance, although it must know its place and cannot digress. He means that philosophy which is craftily and wittily poured into the unreceptive ears of its audience to turn the “very bad” into the “merely bad”—if not the good. Not until all men are good, More says, can all be well—and some men will be bad a while yet.

Hythloday responds that playing such a crafty counselor would just make him as bad as everyone else. If he wants to speak truly, he must resort to “school philosophy,” and he does not know whether the philosopher can speak a falsehood and still be a philosopher. Hythloday does not want to play along with evil and wink at that which Christ forbids; he does not want ethics to be bent to accommodate vice. If he disagrees with a king’s counselors, no one will listen to him; and if he agrees with them, he will only help to further their madness and allow bad counsels and decrees to pass as good. He will either be denounced as a traitor, be corrupted himself, or be held accountable for the evils of others.

Hythloday speculates that no nation with private property or money can ever be justly governed. This reminds him of the Utopians, who have very few laws and share all resources collectively, but whose society is so well organized that everyone thrives. Just as Plato foresees in his Republic, because the Utopians have abolished private property, everyone is equal. No wicked, ravenous rich people prey on the poor, and no magistrates can be bought with bribes or gifts. Until private property is abolished in a society, Hythloday says, any kind of “cure” will just cause sickness somewhere else in a nation’s political body.

More questions Hythloday as to whether or not people will really work at all without the incentive of personal gain—won’t they be too confident in other people’s industry and so lazily excuse themselves from labor? Hythloday is not surprised by this question, but says that, had More lived in Utopia as he had for more than five years, More would grant that no people are as well-ordered as the Utopians themselves.

Peter Giles says it’s hard for him to believe that this is so, given that the people in Europe are just as witty as others and that their nations are even more ancient and experienced in governance than the Utopians’. Hythloday responds that there were cities in Utopia before there were people in the Netherlands. He also says that, while Europeans may surpass the Utopians in wit, the Utopians are superior in study and work ethic.

To demonstrate the Utopians’ excellence, Hythloday tells a story. According to the Utopian chronicles, some 1,200 years ago certain Romans and Egyptians washed up on Utopian shores after their ship was destroyed in a storm. The Utopians then studiously and profitably mastered all the crafts and sciences these people could transmit. Hythloday doubts that Europeans could adopt Utopian know-how as readily. This is why, he says, Utopia is governed so much more wisely than Europe, though the Europeans are not inferior in intelligence or resources to the Utopians.

Thomas More asks Hythloday to describe the island of Utopia in great detail, from its geography to its cities to its people to its customs to its laws. Hythloday gladly agrees, but says that the telling will require leisure. The men consequently agree to go into More’s house for dinner, after which they return to the garden and sit. Hythloday thinks in silence for a while, then proceeds to tell More and Peter Giles all about Utopia.