Once upon a time in Leuven, 1515
The birthplace of the “original” Utopia.
It was the summer of 1515 when Thomas More, a statesman and advisor-to-be to the king of England, was traveling to the Low Countries (present day Belgium and Netherlands). Not for pleasure but for business or more accurately “diplomacy”. Back then it was not uncommon complete countries wound up in (trade) wars over “personal” conflicts among the ruling royal families of Europe. Which was once the case again, what happened this time?
In 1507 Charles of Castile (then ruler of present-day Flanders, Belgium) was engaged (for more than 6 years) to Mary, the sister of king Henry VIII (king of England). Nevertheless, the English royal house decided that Mary should marry a more suitable counterpart. So the engagement got cancelled and in 1514 she married King Louis XII, king of France.
This might sound highly unusual but back then in the elite and royal circles love was primarily measured in terms of ruling power and marriage was merely a ‘business-reunion’ to seal the deal.
Obviously this one-sided decision was a enormous insult to Charles of Castile and could not go unpunished. Hence trade of wool from England to the Low Countries were banned as of immediate. And hence the very reason of Thomas More’s visit to the Low Countries on behalf of English throne to smoothen the relation and best-case-scenario lift the trade barrier on wool.
And while being in the Low Countries, Thomas More decided to visit friends in between the negotiation rounds. Most likely negotiations then took even longer and more inefficient then the recent Brexit-negotiations. So he had plenty of time – even to write a complete book.
Among his friends was humanist Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam with whom he corresponded regularly to exchange ideas on politics and society. But more noticeably he spend considerable time with Peter Gillis in Antwerp (a main character in the first book). It was during this time and stay in the Low Countries that More’s idea of Utopia evolved and got externalized in his eponymous work.
And so it happened that in 1516 the original Utopia became a fact when Dirk Martens printed the book in Leuven on behalf of Thomas More. The first copies were in Latin and it took another forty-five years before the first English version was published in 1551 in England. In fact, it was sixteen years after Sir Thomas More was executed for high treason. But more about More in the next story!