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Raphael Hythloday is often portrayed as an agent provocateur offering a radical social blueprint for improving and rebuilding England. To this effect, Richard Sylvester claims that his proposals "bristle with metaphors of deracination and eradication. . . . [H]e believes that man must cut himself away from the mainland of his present and past existence, must start from scratch, building a new society according to a prearranged plan."1 Raphael's most vociferous objection to the current state of the commonwealth over the issue of enclosure has stood as the most radical of his proposals. His compelling image of sheep becoming wolves, the "golden hoof" overrunning the English countryside like a horde of mercenaries, has made Thomas More the continuing beneficiary of much positive press as the champion of the rights of the common against the greed and corruption of the upper classes. Appearing as a court outsider and an agent provocateur, Raphael has impressed himself upon many readers other than Sylvester as a bold innovator of new social policies.
In a contrary spirit, I will argue that there is a peculiar backwardness to Raphael's reforms, particularly in regards to enclosure. A chronological arranging of enclosure statutes and proclamations leading up to the publication of Utopia will cause a reassessment of Raphael as a bold innovator of social policy. Far from provocative, the proclamatory nature of his pronouncements is derivative not only of the style and tenor of Tudor documents but also of the ideology driving their formulation. Recasting Raphael as an agent proclamateur, I will suggest that Raphael operates as a double agent, whose status as a court outsider is contradicted by his encoding of Tudor economic and legislative policy into the text of his reforms. This reassessment of Raphael will lead to the argument that Utopia was itself an important bargaining chip in Mores negotiations over entering court service. Appropriating Tudor ideology in his figuration of Raphael and skillfully positioning his text to take advantage of the prevailing winds of Tudor policy, More provides a telling demonstration of how his humanist training in letters allowed him to pursue power and privilege, while still maintaining the humanist pose of detachment from-and even disdain for-such maneuverings.
It has been the fashion to speak of Utopia, particularly book...