Abstract
Revisionists' explanations for Thomas More's willingness to serve as Chancellor have him scheming to support the Aragonese faction at Court-or conspiring with Hapsburg agents to revive papal influence in England in the wake of Campeggio's departure and Wolsey's "fall." In late 1529, More was obviously concerned with lay disaffection, troubled by the prospect that sectarian dissidents might capitalize on it to reform the church recklessly, and confident that the realm's bishops, assisted by the government, could outmaneuver the critics of Roman and English Catholicism, whose arguments for an alternative ecclesiology and soteriology he had opposed earlier that year. "To Assyst" presents More's concern and confidence as a more plausible answer to the question in its title, more plausible than rival responses on offer.
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
10-2008
Publisher Statement
Copyright AMICI THOMAE MORI Society - Moreana Publications Oct 2008. This article first appeared in Moreana (45: 174) October 2008, p. 171-192. Reprinted with permission by Moreana Publications.
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Recommended Citation
Kaufman, Peter Iver. "'To Assyst the Ordynaryes': Why Thomas More Agreed to Become Chancellor." Moreana 45, no. 174 (October 2008): 171-192.
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