Thomas More: life of the week

Welcome to the History Extra podcast. Thomas More was a man of letters and reason, a virtuous thinker, humanist and writer, whose book Utopia some believe is the blueprint for an ideal society. He also harboured a deep hatred of heretics, to the extent that, it was rumoured, he had them tortured in his own house. So who was the real Thomas More? In this Life of the Week episode, Kev Lochin speaks to historian and biographer Dr.

Joanne Paul to unpick one of Tudor England's most inscrutable characters. Joanne, welcome to the History Extra podcast. Great to have you here today. Oh thank you.

It's so good to join you. I wonder if we could start by talking about the two versions of Thomas More that history gives us. There's the kind of the man of conscience who we see in A Man for all seasons. But then there's also that kind of zealot bigot that gets sent to us from, say, Wolf Hall. And I was interested in whether both of these ideas, where they come from and whether they're really coming from after his life and how much of that is weaponized history.

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