American Geographical Society

Mapping "Utopia": A Comment on the Geography of Sir Thomas More

Author(s): Brian R. Goodey
Source: Geographical Review, Vol. 60, No. 1 (Jan., 1970), pp. 15-30
Published by: American Geographical Society
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/213342
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 MAPPING "UTOPIA"
A COMMENT ON THE GEOGRAPHY OF SIR THOMAS MORE*
BRIAN R. GOODEY

FROM the firstexcavationsby theEnglishDiggersin 1649to the more

recent activities of a similarly named group in San Francisco,'the
world has periodicallybeen dotted with Utopian communities. Some
have enjoyed severalyears of activity and have thereby earneddissectionat
the hands of academics;others have achieved much greaterimportance on
paper than they ever have on the soil. Most geographershave slight interest
in even the largest or most persistentof these communities, but to me the
prototype "Utopia" of Sir Thomas More has posed an interestingproblem.
In searchof some suitablynonexistentpolitical unit on which to base a series
of student activities,I turned to commentarieson More's work in the hope
of finding a Utopian map, preparedby some studentof Moreana.But aftera
fairly exhaustivesearchof the literatureit becameapparentthat no such map
existed, despite the statistical and topographical description of Utopia
provided by More in the early sections of Book Two. This brief study has
developed from an attempt to provide the requiredmap.
THE BACKGROUNDOF "UTOPIA"
The Latin first edition of More's "Utopia" appearedin 1516, published
by Thierry Martinsat Louvain (then in the Netherlands).2An unauthorized
* The writer wishes to thank Bernard
O'Kelly and Jackson Hershbell of the University of North
Dakota for their comments on earlierdraftsof this paper.
I The original Diggers were a small group of laborers who dug common land at Weybridge,
England, on April 1, 1649. This action and their subsequentpolitical activitiesare often regardedas the
first effortsat practicalUtopianism. See W. H. G. Armytage: Heavens Below: Utopian Experimentsin
England 1560-1960 (Toronto, 1961). The Diggers of San Franciscowere a group associatedwith the
hippie colony there in the mid-196o's; they collected and redistributedclothing and other goods.
2 The first edition was entitled "De
Optimo ReipublicaeStatv deqve noua insula Vtopia libellus
uere aureus,nec minus salutarisquamfestiuus,clarissimidisertissimiqueuir Thomae Mori inclytaeciutatis
Londinensisciuis & Vicecomitis"["The Best State of a Commonwealth and the New Islandof Utopia;
A Truly Golden Handbook, No Less Beneficial than Entertaining,by the Distinguished and Eloquent
Author Thomas More, Citizen and Sheriffof the Famous City of London"]. For a full list of editions,
together with a bibliographyof commentaries,see: FrankSullivanand MajiePadbergSullivan:Moreana,
1478-1945: A PreliminaryCheck List of Materialby and about SaintThomas More (KansasCity, Mo.,
1946); and Reginald W. Gibson: St. Thomas More: A PreliminaryBibliography of His Works and of
Moreanato the Year 1750(New Haven, 1961),which hasa bibliographyof Utopiana compiledby Gibson
and J. Max Patrick.

> MR. GOODEYis lecturer in the Centre for Urban and Regional Studies, University
of Birmingham, England. Formerly he was on the faculty of the Department of Geography,
University of North Dakota, Grand Forks.
16 THE GEOGRAPHICALREVIEW

edition was publishedin Paris in 1517, and two editions were preparedin
Basel the following year. Other Latin editions were quick to follow, from
pressesin Florence,Venice, Vienna, Cologne, Wittenberg, Frankfurt,Han-
over, Milan, Amsterdam,Oxford, London, Glasgow, and Berlin. The book
achieved a high reputationamong humanisticscholarsof the Renaissance
period, and letters of comment by the Dutchman, Busleyden, and by the
Frenchclassicist,Bude, were includedin the Basel editions.
The first English translation, by Ralph Robinson, was published in
London in 1551 under the title: "A fruteful and PleasauntWorke of the
Best Stateof a Publiqueweale, and of the Newe Yle called Utopia: Written
in Latine by Syr Thomas More Knyght, and Translatedinto Englyshe by
Ralphe Robynson Citizein and Goldsmytheof London, at the Procurement
and EarnestRequest of George Tadlowe Citizein and Haberdassherof the
Same Citie." A second,corrected,edition of thisEnglishtranslationappeared
in 1556, and other earlyEnglisheditionsdatefrom 1597and 1624.Texts used
in the preparationof the presentpaper were the Lumby second edition of
1883 and the Yale St. Thomas More Project editions of 1964 and 1965.3
More's "Utopia" is in two parts.The first comprisesa discussionof the
social problems evident in early sixteenth-centuryEngland; the second
containsa detaileddescriptionof the imaginaryhedonisticand communistic
society called Utopia-literally, "Nowhere." Utopia is an island4in the New
World, formerly called Abraxa but renamed after its capture by Prince
Utopus. The geographicaland societaldescriptionsof the islandare delivered
through the mouth of RaphaelHythlodaeus,a Portuguesetravelerwho had
supposedly sailed with Amerigo Vespucci on his last three voyages to the
New World.
Although "Utopia" is rememberedchiefly as a descriptionof an imagin-
ary ideal, it was largelyconceivedas a criticismof politicaland socialpatterns
in contemporary Europe. Many topical events, including the Vespucci
discoveries,are specificallymentioned, and it is likely that the concept of
3J. Rawson Lumby, edit.: Utopia (Cambridge, 1883); Edward Surtz and J. H. Hexter, edits.: The
Complete Works of St. Thomas More: Volume 4, Utopia (New Haven, 1965). The text of this latter
work is also included in a paperback edition, Edward Surtz (edit.): St. Thomas More: Utopia (New
Haven, 1964).
4 The island unit as a utopian territory was a feature of several other Renaissance studies and has
since been the focus of descriptions by authors ranging from Defoe to Aldous Huxley. As Yi-Fu Tuan
has noted, "The view of the island as Eden, evoking nostalgia for lost innocence, has an enduring place
in the Western mind" (Yi-Fu Tuan: Attitudes toward Environment: Themes and Approaches, in
Environmental Perception and Behavior (edited by David Lowenthal; Univ. of Chicago, Dept. of Geogr.
Research Paper No. 109, 1967, pp. 4-17; reference on p. 14).
 MAPPING UTOPIA 17

Utopia is based on ideas about the communal social structuresof American

empires, which were gradually becoming known at that time. Vespucci's
accounts had been published in 1507, and his letters were published in
Florenceonly a few months before the first edition of "Utopia" was made
available."Utopia" consistsof a subtleblend of the ideal and the actual.This
jigsaw of fact and fiction hasprovidedmany interestinghoursfor the students
of literature,and at the time of its publication the protective fictions that
surroundedthe factualdetailsmay well have provided a slight barrierto the
primitive censorshipof the period. But to the modem geographerthejuxta-
position of actual geographicaldistanceswith idealized and imaginarypat-
ternsposes many problems.
"Utopia" was written in the context of similarworks by several other
European authors, but it was More's descriptionthat gained the most at-
tention in the centuriesthat followed. The concept of a garden city with a
craft economy, the opposition to war, and the unadornedreligion of Utopia
were adopted by successivegroups of "Utopians" in both the Old World
and the New. It was a book of humanistichope, describinga society that had
seemingly taken the best from the Greeksand the Romans, from the Dutch
and the Hanseaticcities, from the Swiss Confederation,and from Venice.
The influenceof Plato's "Republic,"of Aristotle's"Politics,"of St. Augus-
tine's "De Civitate Dei," and of St. Thomas Aquinas's"Commentary on
Politics"sarefound in the writing; for More appearsto have been impressed
with these works. Important too were contemporary influences, such as
More's friend Erasmus, who supervised the first printing of the work.6
Although More may have borrowed some smallpoints, the compositionwas
his own. Ideasfor the book had been forming in his mind for severalyears,
and Book Two was almost certainly written in 1515, during the lengthy
negotiations between the English and the Dutch over the resumption of
normal traderelations.More was a member of this negotiating group.
Although much more could be said concerningthe intellectualmilieu in
which the book was created,and the sourcesfrom which it stemmed, these
facts can be ascertainedfrom a number of commentaries.But there is really
5 For example, the comments on urban sites and fortificationsin More's
"Utopia" and in the
"Commentary on Politics" are similar(P. Albert Duhamel: Medievalismof More's "Utopia," Studiesin
Philology,Vol. 52, 1955, pp. 99-126; referenceon p. o18).
6 For detailed comment on More's sources and influences see the
introductory chaptersof Surtz
and Hexter, op. cit. [see footnote 3 above], and RussellA. Ames: Citizen Thomas More and His Utopia
(Princeton, N. J., 1949), p. 5o. Proctor Fenn Sherwin: Some Sources of More's Utopia, Univ. of New
Mexico,Bull. No. 88, 1917, and Henry W. Donner: Introductionto Utopia (London, 1946), are also of
value.
18 THE GEOGRAPHICALREVIEW

no substitutefor reading "Utopia" itself; written more than four hundred

and fifty yearsago, the book is still full of ideasthat are applicableto modem
societies.7

THE UTOPIAN ISLAND

"Utopia" was not written as a geography.The locale of More's society is

almost incidental to the social structurethat he describes,and as a result
the maps included in the presentpaper are based on only a few sections of
description. As Surtz suggests,8a better title for the popular editions of
the book might have been "The Best Stateof a Commonwealth";for much
of the work does not rely on the geographyof the imaginarystateof Utopia
for its effect.
Following the marginalglossesthat were addedto More's manuscriptby
Erasmus,9and that are includedin the Lumby edition, we learn certainfacts
concerning the "sice and fasion of the newe ylande Utopia."I?More states
that at its broadestthe islandwas two hundredmiles wide. It was not much
narrowerthroughoutits length, but taperedtoward the ends. The extremi-
ties almost formed a circle, five hundredmiles in circumference.This gave
the islandthe image of a moon, the tips of which were separatedby a strait
eleven miles wide. At the heartof the island,protectedby the encirclingland,
was a large, placid bay that facilitatedmarine communicationbetween the
opposing horns. The strait,which was dotted with reefs and shallows, was
dominated by a centralcrag on which a watchtower had been constructed.
The marginal gloss emphasizesthat such "a place naturallyfenced nedeth
but one garrison.""I Utopian pilots were requiredfor thejourney throughthe
protected narrows, and for guidance they used landmarksthat were easily
relocatedin timesof conflict(theglossnotes "a politiquedevisein the chaung-
ing of land markes").s2The outside "uttercircuite"'3of the islandhad many
well-defended harbors,some naturallyprotected and some with man-made
fortifications.The islandwas once connectedto the mainland,but the Utopi-
7 Lewis Mumford has given Utopia considerableattention in his studies on urbanism:in an early
book, "The Story of Utopias" (New York, 1922), he includes a chapteron More's work and integrates
the proposalwith others, from Plato's "Republic"through to the writings of H. G. Wells.
8 Surtz, op. cit. [see footnote 3 above], p. xxii.
9Justificationof Erasmus'sauthorshipof these glossesis containedin J. H. Hexter: More's Utopia:
The Biography of an Idea (Princeton,N. J., 1962), p. 44.
'0 Lumby, op. cit. [see footnote 3 above], p. 67, line lo.
I Ibid., p. 68, line 6.
12 Ibid., line 15.
'3 Ibid.,lines 18-19.
 MAPPING UTOPIA 19

an founderhad "causedxv mylesof uplandyshe grounds,wherethe seahad

no passageto be cut anddyggedup."'4The removalof thissectionof land
had createdthe UtopianIsland,but it is not clearwhetherthisfifteenmiles
referredto the lengthor to the width of the constructed
waterway.
Fromthe initialdescriptionof Utopia,the readeris immediatelystruck
by parallelswith the geographyof the BritishIsles.This was a point em-
phasizedby Erasmus, who indicatedthatit wasMore'sintentionto basesome
of his designsuponhishomeland.'sThe two-hundred-mile widthof Utopia
was noted as equivalentto the breadthof Englandin the SaintAlbans
Chronicle,publishedin 1515,,6and on the modem map a line of approxi-
matelytwo hundredmilesrunsfromtheNorfolkcoastof EastAngliato the
northernpartof theEnglishborderwith Wales.The figureof five hundred
miles,thecircumference of Utopia,hasa lessaccurateparallel;forEnglandis
about 400 miles long (Berwick-on-Tweedto LandsEnd). The Utopian
dimensionsare undoubtedlybasedon the Englishmodel, but the crescent
shapeis, of course, a fantasy.
Guardedriverand bay entranceswere certainlyknown to the author,and
the remainsof coastalcastlessimilarto those describedas defending Utopia
may be seen on the British and European coasts today. Another point of
comparisonbetween Utopia and Britainis the fifteen-mile channelbetween
the island and the mainland,though the shortestdistancebetween England
and Francetoday is twenty-one miles, and this distancewould appearto have
changed little since More's time. The idea of a Utopian channel is almost
certainly derived from the English Channel, of which More had extensive
experienceon his severalcontinentaljourneys.
Britain'sphysical detachmentfrom continentalEurope took a long time
to accomplish,and there was obviously no chroniclerto document it, but of
the constructionof the Utopian Channelwe learn that with all handsto the
task it was "with exedinge marvelous spede dispatched."'7The defensive
qualitiesof the new channelwere uppermostin the eyes of its creator,though
the potentials for a trade route were not neglected. Mackinderno doubt
reechoed More's thoughts when he noted of the English Channel and its
I4 Ibid., lines 31-33.
Is p. S. Allen and others, edits.: Opus epistolarumDes ErasmiRoterodami,Vol. 4 (Oxford, 1958),
p. 21. This comparisonis evaluatedby GerhardRitter: The Corrupting Influenceof Power (translated
by F. W. Pick; Hadleigh, 1952), pp. 46-89.
I6 "The Descrypcon of Englande" is included at the end of "Cronycle of Englande . .. by one
sometyme scole mayster of St. Albans"(London, 1515).
17
Lumby, op. cit. [see footnote 3 above], p. 59, lines 6-7.
 T

'
'.'
?
,: -~~~~ .: .:?

,<?s _B. .:.

.
, Amaurotum .

, ** ' *
?'. . *

~~~~
?**Fo
,
p., .. .,, ..... .

\ ,,.,, . . . ?E .,JAN.X1970, '.- '

' ' 'ur' "'.

''"'*. .'''''''',,''
''''.,'''
'.,'''.'' ' '. '

FIG.1 (left)-Map of Utopi

pictogram with urbanelevation
^; - 6EOGR........... ... .. ..... . . FIG. 2 (above)-This outline
circumferenceof 500 miles is pre
 MAPPING UTOPIA 21

North Sea extension: "The Narrow Seas are the strong naturalfrontier of
Britain,but at all times they have been freely traversed,and the islandershave
been neighbouredby the peoples of the opposite shores.For some purposes,
at any rate, those opposite shoresare the true frontiersof Britain,and no ac-
count of the island realm would be complete which ignored their charac-
teristics."I8
Two of the earlyeditionsof "Utopia" includedwoodcuts of obliquemap
views of the island. In the 1516 Louvain edition, "the reverse of the title
page has the sketch of the island of Utopia, much plainer and better con-
formed to the text than that in [the] 1518"Basel editions.'9The ornateview
of the island and neighboring coastline in the Basel text is by Ambrosius
Holbein; the artist responsible for the 1516 cut is not known.20 An outline of
the islandform suggestedin both illustrationsis shown in Figure 1.
Although the Holbein map is resplendentwith views of Germaniccities,
it gives little help to the would-be Utopian cartographer.The fifteen-mile
channelis irregular,and it appearsratherthat Utopia is set at the mouth of
a mainlandbay. The islandis far from being crescentshaped,and though the
structuremarked "X" in Figure 1 may be the watchtower guarding the
strait,the interiorbay appearsto be absent.With so many discrepanciesbe-
tween text and contemporarymap, we may well ask why the artistdid not
attempt a closer reproductionof the design set by More.
The answer is unfortunately all too simple. More presents us with a
Utopia, a "Nowhere," thatcannot be mapped.A circlewith a circumference
of five hundredmiles cannot contain a diameterof two hundred miles. To
preserve the importantmoon shape and the interior bay, the figure of two
hundred must be forgotten, yet it is the most accurate of the references
derived from the British Isles. Figure 2 is a view of Utopia that neglects the
two hundred mile breadth in order to preserve the shape. But any map based
on these figuresproves to be even more inaccuratewhen an attemptis made
to include the suggestedinternaldivisions.

THE GEOGRAPHY OF UTOPIA

More'sislandcontainedfifty-four "largeandfairecities, or shieretowns,"

which Surtz translates as "city-states."2I Each was similar in social structure
18Sir Halford Mackinder:Britain and the British Seas (2nd edit.; Oxford,
J. 1925), p. 17.
19Surtz and Hexter, op. cit. [see footnote 3 above], clxxxiv.
p.
20
Ibid., pp. 276-277. The authorssuggest possible artistsfor the 1516 illustrationsand include both
cuts on pp. 16-17.
21Lumby, op. cit. [see footnote 3
above], p. 69, lines 1o-1l; Surtz, op. cit. [see footnote 3 above],
p. 61.
22 THE GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW

and, so far as terrainpermitted,in urbanregionalstructures; the marginal

gloss notes that "similitude causeth concorde."'22These citieswere at least
twenty-four miles from one another, but each was closeenoughto itsneigh-
borsto be reachedon foot in one day.Fromthecartographic pointof view,
the construction of theinternalpoliticaldivisionsof Utopiais againdifficult;
for withoutan accurateislandform thereis little valuein performingthe
operation.Afterseveralattemptsto incorporate More'sdistancecriteriainto
variousmodelsof the island,I abandonedthe task.
The city regions,or city states,formedthe basisof theisland'spolitical
structure,a loose confederation of unitson the Greekmodel.The number
fifty-four,allocatedas the numberof urbanregions,was probablyderived
from the administrative unitsinto which Englandwas dividedin More's
time.In the mid-sixteenth centurytherewerefifty-threecounty-levelunits,
together with the City London.In More'sschemeeach city was sur-
of
roundedby a circleof ruralland at least twelve miles in width.23These
inflexiblegreen belts were dottedwith "shierehousesor fermesbuilded,
well appointedand furnyshedwith all sorts of instrumentsand tooles
belongynge to husbandrye."24Each rural settlement had no fewer than
forty adultworkers,togetherwith two "bondmen,"or serfs,and an elder
masterand mistress,that is, at least forty-fouradults.Groupsof thirty
households(1320 or more adultpersons)were ruledby a phylarch,whose
title was derivedfrom the name given to Greektriballeaders.The rural
populationrotated;annuallytwentypersonsfrom eachhouseholdreturned
to the city aftertwo yearsof serviceandwerereplacedby city dwellers.
The economyappearedto be largelyagricultural. Among the features
notedwerepoultryraisingwith incubationmethods("astraungefassionin
hatchingeand bringing up of pulleyne"25),oxen maintainedfor draft, grain
plantedfor bread,andwine,cider,andberryproduction.Honeyandlicorice
for flavoringwaterwere foundin abundance.The annualharvestwas ac-
complishedin one daywith theaidof a draftedbodyof city dwellers.Urban
and ruralproductswere exchanged,but therewas no systemof barteror
payment.The islandersalsotradedruralproductsfor iron,whichwasmuch
22
Lumby, op. cit. [see footnote 3 above], p. 69, line 14.
23In the Lumby edition this figure is given as "xx," as derived from the 1517 edition; the "twelve"
of the 1516 edition is undoubtedly correct, as it agrees with the twenty-four mile average distancebe-
tween cities. See Lumby, op. cit. [see footnote 3 above], p. 69, line 28, and Surtz and Hexter, op. cit.[see
footnote 3 above], p. 388, note 112-29.
24Lumby, op. cit. [see footnote 3 above], p. 70, lines 2-5.
25
Ibid., p. 71, line 5.
 MAPPING UTOPIA 23

neededandheldasgoldby thepeople.We arenot giventhetotalpopulation

of eachgreen-beltregionor the numberof settlementsin eacharea,but a
fairlyclearimageof the landscapeemergesnonetheless.
In many respectsthe political units representedre-creationsof the
classicalGreekcity states.By idealizingthe Greekexamplesanddrawingon
philosophicalproposalsof thatperiod,ruraland urbansocietieswere fully
integratedby the systemof rotatinglaborgroups,and the greenbelt was
trulya gardenfor eachcity.Eventhecolonizingactivitiesof theGreekswere
repeated;for when Utopianunitsexceededa suitablepopulation,colonies
wereestablished elsewhere.The Utopianschemewasnot only a reflectionof
a classicalGreekpattern,however,it also expresseda hope for the con-
temporaryEuropeanscene.
The conflictsbetweenrivalurbancenterswerewell knownto More,and
his Utopianplanfor fixed sociopolitical unitswasperhapsan attemptto re-
move suchrivalry.But thespacingof urbancenterswasnot drawnfromhis
surroundings; for by More'stimethecitiesandtownsinEnglandproduceda
muchdenserpointpatternthanhe advocated.With referenceto EastAnglia,
Dickinsonnotes that "the maximumrangeof influenceof the medieval
marketwas aboutsix miles;indeed,it is stillillegal,in accordance
with an
old law, to establisha marketwithinsix andtwo-thirdsmilesof an existing
legalmarket.The actualmarketarea,however,rarelyreachedthislimit,and
varied considerablyaccording to local conditions."26Although there was
much in the intensemarketcompetitionof the more fertileruralareasof
EnglandthatMoremay havewishedto eradicate in his society,the form of
his economiclandscapewas not dictatedby the rivalriesof marketcenters,
butratherby a harmonybetweentown andcountry.The divisionof Utopia
into urbanregionsof similarsizeandwith similarservicesstandsasa pointed
reminderto modernlocal governmentreformers.It is interestingto note
that althoughlittle has changedin the Englishadministrativepatternsince
More'stime, modem suggestionsfor changeincludea systemof divisions
akinto thatadvocatedin Utopia.27
26 Robert E. Dickinson: City Region and Regionalism(2nd edit.; London, 1960), p. 80.
27 The city-region concept is at the core of both the majority and dissentingproposalsof the Maud
Commissionthat reportedinJune, 1969. The commissionquotesthe definitionsubmittedby the Ministry
of Housing and Local Government:a city region "consistsof a conurbationor one or more cities or big
towns surroundedby a number of lessertowns and villages set in ruralareas,the whole tied together by
an intricateand closely meshed system of relationshipsand communications,and providing a wide range
of employment and services"("Local Government Reform: Short Version of the Report of the Royal
Commission on LocalGovernmentin England"[London, 1969],p. 6). More would surelyhave approved
of this statementand its influence on commission decisions.
 ,2~~~~~~~~~~~ ~..'".".....'... '..

.: '~:'.:
~_ ~ ~. ~ ~ * **
?..i---'~::.:.:S
- C.:,:I.:*:

FIG. 3-The city of Amaurotum,basedlargelyon More's descriptions.The drawingsshow (A) the siteplan,(B) the
in relationto the drainagesystem.Market areasare shaded.
 MAPPING UTOPIA 25

THE URBAN GEOGRAPHYOF AMAUROTUM

It is in More's description of the capital, Amaurotum-the "Darkling
City," or "City of the Clouds"-that we find the best materialfor mapping
Utopian geography. The descriptionbegins by repeating that all the cities
were alike in form, and Amaurotumhad been chosen for detailedexamina-
tion becauseof its capitalfunctions. The metropolis was set on the side of a
low hill and was almost square,two miles in width and somewhat longer
where it fronted the River Anyder (the "Waterless"River). This river rose
from a small spring some eighty miles above the city,28was joined by two
large tributariesso that it was half a mile wide on reaching the city, and
continued some sixty miles beyond Amaurotum to the sea. The river was
tidal to a point somewhat above the city. There is no mention of any struc-
tureson the bank oppositethe urbanarea,but an impressivebridgejoined the
two banks, "made not of piles or of timber, but of a stonewarke with
gorgious and substancialarchesat that part of the citie that is farthestfrom
the sea: to the intent that shippesmaye passealong forbie all the side of the
citie without let."29A minor stream,a tributaryof the Anyder, flowed out of
the hill on which the city stood. "And becauseit riseth a litle without the
citie, the Amaurotianshave inclosedthe head springof it, with strongefences
and bulwarkes... to the intente that their water should not be stopped nor
turned away, or poysoned, if their enemies should chaunce to come upon
them."30Its channelhad been regulated,and baked-clayculverts took fresh
water to most partsof the city. This water supply was supplementedby the
storage of rainwaterin cisterns.Amaurotum was girded, on the three sides
not protectedby the river, with a massiveturretedwall, outsidewhich was a
dry moat filled with underbrushand thorn hedges. This descriptionof the
city I have mapped in Figure 3.
The streets of all the cities were arrangedto accommodate trafficcon-
veniently and to act as a protection againstthe wind; they were uniformly
twenty feet wide. More notes that the city plan was conceived by Utopus
himself,and that recordsfor a period of 1760yearsdescribehow the structures
within the plan gradually changed their design and materials; they were
transformedfrom wood, plaster, and thatched huts to the three-storied
brick, flint, and plasterrow houses with glass windows that "existed"at the
time of writing. In order that persons would not become attached to, or
28
Lumby, op. cit. [see footnote 3 above], p. 73, line 4, note "four and Twentie."
29Ibid.,lines 22-26.
30Ibid.,lines 26-30.
26 THE GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW

overimprove,theirhomes,residences werereallocatedeveryten years.Each

househada frontanda rearentrance,andwithno conceptof privateproper-
ty, citizenscouldcome andgo in any houseas theypleased.
Eachblockof houseswassimilarto thenext andencloseda largegarden
(Fig.4). In the gardensthe Utopiansgrew vines,fruits,herbs,andflowers,
and were muchpraisedfor theirefforts."Theirstudieand deligenceherin
commethnot onelyof pleasure,butalsoof certenstrifeandcontentionthatis
betweenstreteand strete,concerningthe trimming,husbandingand fur-
nisshingof theirgardens:everyman for his own parte."3IThe traditional
rivalriesof theEnglishgardeners hadseeminglybeentransferred by Moreto
the Utopiancontext.
This,then,is the maindescriptionof Amaurotum,thoughin laterparts
of the narrativevariousadditionaldetailscome to light; for example,the
presenceof four marketsquares,the communaleatingplaces,and some
suggestionsas to populationsizeareincludedin the discussions of sociallife.
Moreseemsto havebeenespeciallyawareof urbanproblems.Thisis not
reallysurprising, for he was an urbanman.He hadbeenbornandraisedin
London,one of the greatestcitiesof Europe,andhadservedthe city andits
populacefor manyyears.He wasawareof the structural andsocialdevelop-
mentsthathadtakenplacein thegreatcitiesof theLow Countries.He knew,
too, of thepowerthatcitieshadcometo holdin contemporary Europeandof
the classesthathad arisenfrom the expansionof urbansociety.With this
wideexperiencewe mightexpectthemodelsfor hisgeographical description
of Amaurotumto be many.Ames32hassuggestedthatGhentprovidedthe
basisfor thedescription, andMumford33 makessomeinteresting comparisons
with perhapsthe greatestof fifteenth-century European Venice.
cities,
But a studyof the descriptionof Amaurotummakesit fairlyevidentthat
Londonwastheprincipalguide.In themarginalglossesErasmusnotesof the
RiverAnydrusandAmaurotum:"Theverielike in Englandin the riverof
Thamys"and"hereinalsodoethLondonagrewith Amaurote."34 Andagree
it does.The medievalcity of Londonandits surrounding settlementswere
set on a seriesof hills, or terraces,risinggently above the Thames.The
Thamesitselfis derivedfrom a spring,thoughits sourceis more than 150
milesaboveLondon.Its tidalregime,similarto thatnotedby Morefor the
Anydrus,had been describedby PolydoreVirgilin his "EnglishHistory."
3I Ibid.,p. 75, lines 4-8.
32
Ames, op. cit. [see footnote 6 above], p. 98.
33Lewis Mumford: The City in History (New York, 1961), pp. 321-335.
34 Lumby, op. cit. [see footnote 3 above], p. 73.
 MAPPING UTOPIA 27

London Bridge, certainlyan impressivestructurein More's time, was located

above the main dock area so that river traffic was not interrupted.The
analogy for the smallriverflowing from the hill through the city to the main

FIG. 4-"To every dwelling house a garden platte adjoyn-

ing." This plan of one (and every) city block in Amaurotum is
based on More's description.

river could be the Fleet, which was in evidence until the nineteenthcentury
but has since been driven underground,or it could have been the Walbrook,
which formerly bisectedthe City of London.
The essentialcity form of More's day was probably little differentfrom
the Roman city describedby Coppock:
The Roman city of Londinium was located on two low hills
(now LudgateHill and Corn-
hill) carved out of the Taplow terracenorth of the Thames. This site, where the alluvium
narrows considerablyto make for easier accessfrom the south, was
probably the then tidal
limit and the lowest possible bridging point; it was also the
only point for some distance
up- and downstreamat which the higher ground north of the Thames reachesthe river. The
site had several other advantages. It was
fairly easily defensible, for it was surrounded by
28 THE GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW

lower ground-the estuary of the Fleet to the west, the Shoreditch to the east and the
tributariesof the Walbrook, which bisected the city, to the north. The river was navigable
for large ships and the mouths of the tributarystreamsprovided minor harbours.The wall
which enclosed the Roman city followed the limits of the higher ground. .. "35

In two importantdetailsMore's Amaurotumdid not entirely agree with

the form of medievalLondon. Although the plan of RomanLondonhad been
regularand well conceived, the piecemealadditionsof severalhundredyears
had destroyedthisfunctionalpatternand replacedit with a maze of ill-served
streets,which have left remnantsof their ragged paths in the modern city.
Nor were the houses of late medieval London the neatly faced structuresof
More's Utopia. There were gardensand expansiveestatesin close proximity
to the city, but the central area was rather the "Darkling City" that the
translationof "Amaurotum"suggests.
Some of the featuresthat More added to the basicplan provided by con-
temporaryLondon were to be found in other cities of his day. In the Low
Countriestherewere urbancentersin which more attentionhad been paid to
design, and in southernEuropeVenice, Vigevano, Siena,and other citieshad
squaresakin to the sectionalmarket places of More's city. Nevertheless,the
Europeanenvironmentin which More lived containedfew urbanareasthat
we would recognize as having been "designed." As Gutkind notes, "the
Middle Ages possesseda sense of space but not yet an idea of space. This
means that spatialrelationsexisted; but they were simply there, not deliber-
ately created. They existed by the sheerjuxtaposition of houses and their
connection with the streets or squares. It was a pure topographical dis-
tribution. . 36

As a voice of the Renaissance,More createdin spacenot only a city, but

a whole state. Indeed,he createdspacefor living and went fartherthan that
to advocate the social structurethat was to occupy such space. To ensure
that Utopians appreciatedtheir natural surroundings,the urban populace
35J. T. Coppock: A General View of London and Its Environs, in Greater London (edited by
J. T. Coppock and Hugh C. Prince; London, 1964), pp. 19-41; referenceon p. 26.
36 Erwin A. Gutkind: Urban Development in CentralEurope (New York and London, 1964), p.
176. Giedion seesthe greateststep in Renaissancedesign as occurringbetween 1420 and 1430 with the
"idea" of space noted by Gutkind appearingin Masaccio's"Frescoof the Trinity" in Florence.But the
transferof the barrel-vaultperspectivepainted by Masaccioto a structuredid not occur until the com-
pletion of Leon Battista Alberti's Church of Sant' Andrea in Mantua in 1514, the year "Utopia" was
begun (SigfriedGiedion: Space,Time and Architecture:The Growth of a New Tradition[Sthedit.; Cam-
bridge, Mass., 1967], p. 32). In the first decadesof the sixteenth century the main Italianinterest con-
tinued to be on the star-shapedcity first discussedby Filaretein his "Trattato d'archittura,"written
between 1451 and 1464. In the 1490'sboth Francescodi Giorgio and Leonardoda Vinci produceddesigns
for polygonal "ideal-cities"crossedby a majorriverandplannedon a grid pattern(Giedion,op. cit., p. 52).
 MAPPING UTOPIA 29

were to be provided with enforced rural retreats: as Mumford remarks,

"More makes sure of his gardencity by educating garden-citizens."37 What
More appearedto suggest was the retentionof the better values of medieval
and earliersocietiesin a physical structureof the future. The intimate social
associationsresultingfrom crowded living conditions were to be retained;
his new urbanblockswere, in modem planningterminology, "high density."
The city size was of the future; for the Utopian cities had more than a hun-
dred thousandpersonsliving within theirwalls. In More's day this was much
more a figure of the future than of the past or present. True, some major
European cities such as Venice, Florence, and Milan were well above the
hundredthousandmark by the sixteenthcentury, but these were exceptions
and in each case populationpressurehad to some degree distortedthe urban
fabric.
The simple checkerboarddesign was employed to accommodate the
proposed population in comfort. The form that More advocated was not
common at the time he wrote, but it had classicalantecedentsand was to be
acceptedas a basisfor organizedurbanstructurein the baroquedesigns that
were to appearon the Europeanlandscape.Greekaims in urbandesign were
to give inhabitantsof the city security and happiness.Security came from
the walls and from the political structurethey contained;happinessfrom the
subtle blending of rural and urban elements in a pleasantdesign. Such de-
signed environmentswere seldom found in the early sixteenthcentury, and
it was More's major purpose to suggest their revival. In Utopia, as in the
cities of Greece,the home seemed almost incidentalto the pleasuresof com-
munal activity in horticulture,eating, or debate.38The Hellenisticcities, like
Amaurotum, had a regular street pattern, but Utopian cities were better
structured than Greek cities and appear rather to resemble examples of
Roman urbanplanning. Twenty feet was the averagewidth of Roman city
streets,which, again like Amaurotum,were borderedby fairly high-density
housing blocks that surroundedlarge courtyardsused for recreation.As in
Amaurotum, the rectangularblock patternwas the most evident feature of
the Roman urbanplan. In the Roman city this patternwas broken only by
the insertionof major public buildings, again a feature of the Utopian city.
More's planning suggestionsheralded-though they were certainly not
responsiblefor-a new period of urbandesign. But it would be incorrectto

37 Mumford, The
City in History [see footnote 33 above], p. 325.
38For a sound account of the functional aspectsof the Greek city see A. E. Morris: Greek
J. City
andPlanning,Vol. 30, 1967, pp. 837-844.
States, OfficialArchitecture
30 THE GEOGRAPHICALREVIEW

assumethat the planningidealsof the classicalperiodshad been entirely

lost, howeverfew the examplesof plannedurbandevelopmentsin More's
day. The formallyplannedFrenchbastidesand theirEnglishcounterparts,
togetherwith the urbantoolsof Germancolonizationeastof theElbe,serve
to remindus of the existenceof a formof medievalplanning.Whendefense
needsdictatedthe remodelingof an urbanarea,the medievalengineerwas
alsoequalto the task.In urbandesign,the Renaissance was a preludeto the
activitiesof the baroqueperiodof the seventeenthcentury.More gave his
readerssomeideaof the form of the citiesof the future.
Althoughelementsof Utopiancity form do appearin the seventeenth-
and eighteenth-century Europeanlandscapes,the rural-urban society that
More advocated has never been In
achieved. the four hundred and fifty
yearssincehe wrote,someof his ideashavebeenused.Few Utopiangroups
havebeenlargeenoughto builda village,let alonea city, but a twentieth-
centuryexceptionillustrates thefactthatMore'sideas,evenif theyarenever
put into practice,are not yet dead.In 1898EbenezerHowardproducedhis
book, "Tomorrow: A Peaceful Plan to Real Reform,"39in which he ad-
vocated the building of a garden city with a population of some 32,000
personswho would have the advantagesof both ruraland urbanlife. With
the architectsRaymond Unwin and Barry Parker, he put this idea into
practicein 1903 at Letchworth GardenCity,40which has provided the basis
for the ambitiousprogramsof new-town constructionin England and else-
where.
Urban forms have changed to accommodate the automobile and the
factory, and the life of "securityand happiness"advocatedby Aristotle and
illustratedby More is perhapsa little closer to being achieved in the new
towns and gardencities of today. But the regularinternaldivisions,together
with many other aspectsof "Utopia," still seem to be far from reality.
39This work was revised and reissuedas "GardenCities of Tomorrow" (1902). The latest edition,
with valuableintroductionsby Lewis Mumford and F. J. Osborn, was publishedin London in 1965. The
leap from More to Howard omits other major Utopian proposals,many of which may be worthy of
geographicalexamination.For a fairly complete list see Mumford, The Story of Utopias [see footnote 7
above].
40 Letchworth GardenCity is in Hertfordshire,England.