Thomas Starkey

Thomas Starkey (* around 1490 ; † 1538 in Oxford ) was an English humanist and political thinker.

Life

Starkey was a graduate of Oxford University and taught science at Magdalen College . Around 1531 he entered the service of Reginald Pole in Italy and in 1534 he was chaplain to Pole's mother, Margaret Pole, 8th Countess of Salisbury . Shortly thereafter, he was appointed royal chaplain. In 1535 King Henry VIII commissioned him to persuade Poles to return to England by letter and to find out his opinion about the king's divorce. His efforts were fruitless. Nevertheless, the king rewarded him and appointed him master of Corpus Christi College , Oxford (1536).

His best-known works are “Exhortation to Christian Unity” (1534) and “Dialogue between Cardinal Pole and Thomas Lupset” (1536–38). The Dialogue describes the evils of life in England at the time and discussed the question of the public good. The author sought to discover the nature of the true community and the ways of establishing it in England. The work is permeated with humanistic utilitarianism . Along with Thomas More's “ Utopia ”, it is the most outstanding literary work on English politics of that era.

literature

• Kathleen M. Burton: A Dialogue Between Reginald Pole and Thomas Lupset. 1948
• Arthur Kinney: Tudor England: An Encyclopedia (Garland Science, 2000)