Bettie's Books

bookshelves: published-1516, summer-2014, essays, nonfiction, gutenberg-project, e-book

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Angry exhortation against all land-grabbers who leave little to nothing for villeins to grow their food:

'They enclose all in pastures; they throw down houses; they pluck down towns and leave nothing standing but only the church to make of it a sheep-house. And as though you lost no small quantity of ground by forests, chases, lands and parks, those good holy men turn all dwelling places and all glebe-land into desolation and wilderness.'

I would have grabbed my pitch-fork too.

Quick angry essay (134 pages) along Platonic 'Republic' lines. Thomas More was the key counselor of King Henry VIII of England, who was tried for treason and beheaded in 1535.