Margaret More Roper
- LAST MODIFIED: 25 September 2019
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780195399301-0429
- LAST MODIFIED: 25 September 2019
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780195399301-0429
Introduction
Margaret More Roper (b. 1505–d. 1544) was the eldest daughter of Sir Thomas More and Jane Colt, More’s first wife. More was a vocal proponent of humanism, and he set up a school in his home to teach his four children—Margaret, Elizabeth, Cicely, and John—Latin and Greek as well as arithmetic, astronomy, philosophy, and theology. While More’s commitment to educating his daughters was truly pioneering, it did not reflect a proto-feminist commitment to women’s equality. Rather, More aimed to enhance all of his children’s piety, and to prepare his daughters in particular for their domestic roles as wives and mothers. By all accounts, Roper was the star pupil of this school, and she gained a national and even international reputation as one of the foremost learned women in England. Roper exchanged letters with the prominent humanist scholar Desiderius Erasmus, who dedicated to her his commentary on two hymns by Prudentius (1523). Perhaps in response to this compliment, Roper translated Erasmus’s treatise on the Lord’s Prayer (A Devout Treatise upon the Pater Noster, 1524) from Latin into English. Published quasi-anonymously, this text popularized Erasmian piety in the vernacular while also advocating for the value of women’s education according to humanist tenets. Roper also drew on her classical learning to compose a number of works in Latin that have since been lost: letters to her father and Erasmus, declamations, and poetry. In 1521 she married William Roper, a lawyer and a friend of her father, and she soon became a mother, giving birth to five children: Elizabeth, Mary, Thomas, Margaret, and Anthony. Like her father, Margaret Roper educated her children according to humanist standards, and her daughter Mary Basset became known in her own right for her English translations of Latin and Greek works. As Thomas More’s favorite daughter, Roper also played an important role in his personal piety and his final years. She alone washed the hair shirt that More wore for devotional purposes, and only she was allowed to visit him after he was imprisoned in the Tower for refusing to accept Henry VIII’s marriage to Anne Boleyn. Three of the English letters that she wrote during his incarceration are extant, including the important Alington letter, which dramatically recounts her unsuccessful efforts to persuade More to change his mind. After More’s execution, she preserved his writings and his severed head, safeguarding his legacy until her own death in 1544.
General Overviews
From the start, scholarship on Margaret Roper has been dominated by biographical and historicist methodologies. In the initial stages of the feminist recovery of early modern women writers, these approaches were essential, because scholars were actively piecing together the lives of these forgotten and neglected authors. Some of the first critical treatments of Roper emphasized her importance as a foundational figure for the emerging canon of women writers. Warnicke 1983 focuses on the groundbreaking nature of her humanist education, positioning Roper as a model of the new learning for women. Through this lens, Roper’s erudition appears to anticipate the modern feminist push for equal treatment of the sexes, thereby reflecting the feminist desire to find proto-feminist foremothers. Beilin 1987 likewise draws attention to Roper’s role as an innovator by identifying her as the first figure within the emerging canon of early modern women writers. In the wake of post-structuralism, scholars began to consider the critical problems posed by Roper’s life and writings. McCutcheon 1993, for example, explores the issues involved in editing and studying a woman writer whose corpus is so fragmentary. More recently, scholars have reaffirmed Roper’s importance within the feminist canon by incorporating her into critical works that survey the lives and writings of early modern women. Like Beilin, Demers 2005 situates Roper within a tradition of female authors, paying special attention to the literary strategies at work within her translation of Erasmus. Ross 2009, meanwhile, places Roper within an international framework by comparing More’s school with similar household academies in England and Italy. The burgeoning scholarly interest in the history of the book has also begun to shape the way that critics view Roper. Johnston 2011 provides an introduction to Roper’s translation of Erasmus that pays attention to the biographical circumstances of this work as well as its complex print history.
Beilin, Elaine. Redeeming Eve: Women Writers of the English Renaissance. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1987.
A thorough discussion of Margaret Roper’s education and career, focusing on how the later myth of Roper as the ideal learned woman resulted from the efforts of Thomas More, her tutor Richard Hyrde, and Roper herself. Pays special attention to Roper’s association with feminine virtues such as obedience and modesty.
Demers, Patricia. Women’s Writing in English: Early Modern England. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2005.
An economical discussion of Margaret Roper’s reputation as a learned woman serves as a preface to a concise but detailed treatment of her translation of Erasmus. Provides careful attention to Roper’s translation strategies, such as onomatopoeia, expansion, and simplification.
Johnston, Hope. “Desiderius Erasmus, A Devout Treatise.” EEBO Introductions Series. Early English Books Online, 2011.
A short introduction to Margaret Roper’s translation of Erasmus, situating this work within her humanist accomplishments and biography. Places special emphasis on the text’s print history, paratexts, and critical reception.
McCutcheon, Elizabeth. “Life and Letters: Editing the Writing of Margaret Roper.” In New Ways of Looking at Old Texts: Papers of the Renaissance English Text Society, 1985–1991. Edited by W. Speed Hill, 111–117. Binghamton, NY: Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 1993.
A short discussion of the author’s views on her edition of Margaret Roper for the anthology Women Writers of the Renaissance and Reformation (1987). Provides an explanation of her editorial rationale even while gesturing toward larger questions about the scholarly reception of Roper’s authorship and the problems inherent in dealing with such a fragmentary corpus.
Ross, Sarah Gwyneth. The Birth of Feminism: Woman as Intellect in Renaissance Italy and England. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009.
A discussion of Margaret Roper’s education within the household academy of Thomas More, as well as her contemporary reception as a learned woman. Demonstrates that the Mores were one of several intellectual families in early modern England and Italy that promoted humanist training for women.
Warnicke, Retha M. Women of the English Renaissance and Reformation. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1983.
A brief exploration of Margaret Roper’s literary importance that situates her within a largely educational framework. Views Roper as an idealized humanist who was at the cutting edge of the new learning within England.
Users without a subscription are not able to see the full content on this page. Please subscribe or login.
How to Subscribe
Oxford Bibliographies Online is available by subscription and perpetual access to institutions. For more information or to contact an Oxford Sales Representative click here.
Article
- Academies
- Aemilia Lanyer
- Agrippa d’Aubigné
- Alberti, Leon Battista
- Alexander VI, Pope
- Amsterdam
- Andrea Mantegna
- Andreas Bodenstein von Karlstadt
- Anne Boleyn
- Anne Bradstreet
- Antwerp
- Aretino, Pietro
- Ariosto, Ludovico
- Art and Science
- Art, German
- Art in Renaissance Florence
- Art in Renaissance Siena
- Art in Renaissance Venice
- Art Literature and Theory of Art
- Art Market
- Art of Poetry
- Art, Spanish
- Art, 16th- and 17th-Century Flemish
- Art, 17th-Century Dutch
- Artemisia Gentileschi
- Artisans
- Ascham, Roger
- Askew, Anne
- Astell, Mary
- Astrology, Alchemy, Magic
- Augsburg
- Austria
- Avignon Papacy
- Bacon, Francis
- Banking and Money
- Barbaro, Ermolao, the Younger
- Barbaro, Francesco
- Baron, Hans
- Baroque
- Baroque Art and Architecture in Italy
- Barzizza, Gasparino
- Bathsua Makin
- Beaufort, Margaret
- Bellarmine, Cardinal
- Bembo, Pietro
- Benito Arias Montano
- Bernardino of Siena, San
- Beroaldo, Filippo, the Elder
- Bessarion, Cardinal
- Bible, The
- Biondo, Flavio
- Bishops, 1550–1700
- Bishops, 1400-1550
- Black Death and Plague: The Disease and Medical Thought
- Boccaccio, Giovanni
- Bohemia and Bohemian Crown Lands
- Borgia, Cesare
- Borgia, Lucrezia
- Borromeo, Cardinal Carlo
- Bosch, Hieronymous
- Bracciolini, Poggio
- Brahe, Tycho
- Bruegel, Pieter the Elder
- Bruni, Leonardo
- Bruno, Giordano
- Bucer, Martin
- Buonarroti, Michelangelo
- Burgundy and the Netherlands
- Calvin, John
- Calvinism
- Camões, Luís de
- Caravaggio
- Cardano, Girolamo
- Cardinal Richelieu
- Cardinals
- Carvajal y Mendoza, Luisa De
- Cary, Elizabeth
- Casas, Bartolome de las
- Castiglione, Baldassarre
- Catherine of Siena
- Catholic/Counter-Reformation
- Catholicism, Early Modern
- Cecilia del Nacimiento
- Cellini, Benvenuto
- Cervantes, Miguel de
- Charles V, Emperor
- China and Europe, 1550-1800
- Christian-Muslim Exchange
- Church Fathers in Renaissance and Reformation Thought, The
- Ciceronianism
- Cities and Urban Patriciates
- Civic Humanism
- Civic Ritual
- Classical Tradition, The
- Clifford, Anne
- Colet, John
- Colonna, Vittoria
- Columbus, Christopher
- Comenius, Jan Amos
- Commedia dell'arte
- Concepts of the Renaissance, c. 1780–c. 1920
- Confraternities
- Constantinople, Fall of
- Contarini, Gasparo, Cardinal
- Convent Culture
- Conversion
- Conversos and Crypto-Judaism
- Copernicus, Nicolaus
- Cornaro, Caterina
- Cosimo il Vecchio de' Medici
- Costume
- Council of Trent
- Crime and Punishment
- Croatia
- Cromwell, Oliver
- Cruz, Juana de la, Mother
- Cruz, Juana Inés de la, Sor
- Dance
- d'Aragona, Tullia
- Datini, Margherita
- Davies, Eleanor
- de Commynes, Philippe
- de Sales, Saint Francis
- de Valdés, Juan
- Death and Dying
- Decembrio, Pier Candido
- Dentière, Marie
- Des Roches, Madeleine and Catherine
- d’Este, Isabella
- di Toledo, Eleonora
- Dialogue
- Diplomacy
- Dolce, Ludovico
- Donatello
- Donne, John
- Drama, English Renaissance
- Dürer, Albrecht
- du Bellay, Joachim
- Du Guillet, Pernette
- Dutch Overseas Empire
- Ebreo, Leone
- Edmund Campion
- Edward IV, King of England
- El Greco
- Elizabeth I, the Great, Queen of England
- Emperor, Maximilian I
- England, 1485-1642
- English Overseas Empire
- English Puritans, Quakers, Dissenters, and Recusants
- Environment and the Natural World
- Epic and Romance
- Erasmus
- Europe and the Globe, 1350–1700
- European Tapestries
- Family and Childhood
- Fedele, Cassandra
- Federico Barocci
- Ferrara and the Este
- Ficino, Marsilio
- Filelfo, Francesco
- Florence
- Fonte, Moderata
- Foscari, Francesco
- France in the 17th Century
- France in the 16th Century
- Francis Xavier, St
- Francisco Jiménez de Cisneros
- French Law and Justice
- French Renaissance Drama
- Fugger Family
- Galilei, Galileo
- Gallicanism
- Gambara, Veronica
- Garin, Eugenio
- General Church Councils, Pre-Trent
- Geneva (1400-1600)
- George Buchanan
- George of Trebizond
- Georges de La Tour
- Ghetto
- Giambologna
- Ginés de Sepúlveda, Juan
- Giustiniani, Bernardo
- Góngora, Luis de
- Gournay, Marie de
- Greek Visitors
- Guarino da Verona
- Guicciardini, Francesco
- Guilds and Manufacturing
- Hamburg, 1350–1815
- Hanseatic League
- Henry VII
- Henry VIII, King of England
- Herbert, George
- Hispanic Mysticism
- Historiography
- Hobbes, Thomas
- Holy Roman Empire 1300–1650
- Homes, Foundling
- Huguenots
- Humanism
- Humanism, The Origins of
- Hundred Years War, The
- Hungary, The Kingdom of
- Hus, Jan
- Hutchinson, Lucy
- Iconology and Iconography
- Ignatius of Loyola, Saint
- Inquisition, Roman
- Ireland
- Isaac Casaubon
- Isabel I, Queen of Castile
- Italian Wars, 1494–1559
- Ivan IV the Terrible, Tsar of Russia
- Jacques Lefèvre d’Étaples
- Jansenism
- Japan and Europe: the Christian Century, 1549-1650
- Jeanne d’Albret, queen of Navarre
- Jesuits
- Jews
- Jews and Christians in Venice
- Jews and the Reformation
- Jews in Florence
- Joan of Arc
- Jonson, Ben
- Joseph Justus Scaliger
- Juan de Torquemada
- Julius II
- Kepler, Johannes
- King of France, Francis I
- King of France, Henri IV
- Knox, John
- Kristeller, Paul Oskar
- Labé, Louise
- Landino, Cristoforo
- Landscape
- Last Wills and Testaments
- Laura Cereta
- Law
- Lay Piety
- Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm
- Leo X
- Leonardo da Vinci
- Leoni, Leone and Pompeo
- Leto, Giulio Pomponio
- Letter Writing and Epistolary Culture
- Libraries
- Literary Criticism
- Literature, French
- Literature, Italian
- Literature, Late Medieval German
- Literature, Penitential
- Literature, Spanish
- Locke, John
- London
- Lorenzo de' Medici
- Lorenzo Ghiberti
- Louis XI, King of France
- Louis XIII, King of France
- Louis XIV, King of France
- Lucas Cranach the Elder
- Lucretius in Renaissance Thought
- Luther, Martin
- Lyric Poetry
- Machiavelli, Niccolo
- Macinghi Strozzi, Alessandra
- Malatesta, Sigismondo
- Manetti, Giannozzo
- Mannerism
- Mantovano (Battista Spagnoli), Battista
- Manuel Chrysoloras
- Manuzio, Aldo
- Margaret Clitherow
- Margaret Fell Fox
- Margery Kempe
- Marinella, Lucrezia
- Marino Sanudo
- Marlowe, Christopher
- Marriage and Dowry
- Mary Stuart (Mary, Queen of Scots)
- Mary Tudor, Queen of England
- Masculinity
- Medici Bank
- Medici, Catherine de'
- Medici Family, The
- Medicine
- Mediterranean
- Memling, Hans
- Merici, Angela
- Midwifery
- Milan, 1535–1706
- Milan to 1535
- Mirandola, Giovanni Pico della
- Mission
- Monarchy in Renaissance and Reformation Europe, Female
- Montaigne, Michel de
- More, Thomas
- Morone, Cardinal Giovanni
- Music
- Naples, 1300–1700
- Navarre, Marguerite de
- Netherlandish Art, Early
- Netherlands (Dutch Revolt/ Dutch Republic), The
- Netherlands, Spanish, 1598-1700, the
- Nettesheim, Agrippa von
- Newton, Isaac
- Niccoli, Niccolò
- Nicholas of Cusa
- Nicolas Malebranche
- Nobility
- Opera
- Ottoman Empire
- Ovid in Renaissance Thought
- Panofsky, Erwin
- Paolo Veronese
- Papacy
- Papal Rome
- Paracelsus
- Paris
- Parr, Katherine
- Patronage of the Arts
- Perotti, Niccolò
- Persecution and Martyrdom
- Peter the Great, Tsar of Russia
- Petrarch
- Petrus Ramus and Ramism
- Philip Melanchthon
- Philips, Katherine
- Piccolomini, Aeneas Sylvius
- Piero della Francesca
- Pierre Bayle
- Pilgrimage in Early Modern Catholicism
- Plague and its Consequences
- Platonism, Neoplatonism, and the Hermetic Tradition
- Poetry, English
- Pole, Cardinal Reginald
- Polish Literature: Baroque
- Polish Literature: Renaissance
- Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, The
- Political Thought
- Poliziano, Angelo
- Polydore Vergil
- Pontano, Giovanni Giovano
- Pope Innocent VIII
- Pope Nicholas V
- Pope Paul II
- Portraiture
- Portugal
- Poulain de la Barre, Francois
- Poverty and Poor Relief
- Prince Henry the Navigator
- Printing and the Book
- Prophecy
- Purgatory
- Purity of Blood
- Quirini, Lauro
- Rabelais, François
- Raphael
- Reformation and Hussite Revolution, Czech
- Reformation and Wars of Religion in France, The
- Reformation, English
- Reformation, German
- Reformation, Italian, The
- Reformation, The
- Reformations and Revolt in the Netherlands, 1500–1621
- Rembrandt
- Renaissance, The
- Reuchlin, Johann
- Revolutionary England, 1642-1702
- Rhetoric
- Ricci, Matteo
- Richard III
- Rienzo, Cola Di
- Roman and Iberian Inquisitions, Censorship and the Index i...
- Ronsard, Pierre de
- Roper, Margeret More
- Royal Regencies in Renaissance and Reformation Europe, 140...
- Rubens, Peter Paul
- Russell, Elizabeth Cooke Hoby
- Russia and Muscovy
- Ruzante Angelo Beolco
- Saint John of the Cross
- Saints and Mystics: After Trent
- Saints and Mystics: Before Trent
- Salutati, Coluccio
- Sandro Botticelli
- Sarpi, Fra Paolo
- Savonarola, Girolamo
- Scandinavia
- Scholasticism and Aristotelianism: Fourteenth to Seventeen...
- Schooling and Literacy
- Scientific Revolution
- Scotland
- Scève, Maurice
- Sephardic Diaspora
- Sforza, Caterina
- Sforza, Francesco
- Shakespeare, William
- Sidney Herbert, Mary, Countess of Pembroke
- Sidney, Philip
- Simon of Trent
- Sixtus IV, Pope
- Skepticism in Renaissance Thought
- Southern Italy, 1500–1700
- Southern Italy, 1300–1500
- Spain
- Spanish Inquisition
- Spanish Islam, 1350-1614
- Spenser, Edmund
- Spinoza, Baruch
- Stampa, Gaspara
- Stuart, Elizabeth, Queen of Bohemia
- Switzerland
- Tarabotti, Arcangela
- Tasso Torquato
- Tell, William
- Teresa of Avila
- Textiles: 1400 to 1700
- The Casa of San Giorgio, Genoa
- The Radical Reformation
- The Sack of Rome (1527)
- Thirty Years War, The
- Titian
- Toleration
- Tornabuoni, Lucrezia
- Trade Networks
- Tragedy, English
- Translation
- Transylvania, The Principality of
- Traversari, Ambrogio
- Universities
- Urbanism
- Ursulines
- Valeriano, Pierio
- Valla, Lorenzo
- van Eyck, Jan
- van Schurman, Anna Maria
- Vasari, Giorgio
- Vega, Lope de
- Vegio, Maffeo
- Velázquez
- Venice
- Venice, Maritime
- Vergerio, Pier Paolo, The Elder
- Vermeer, Johannes
- Vernacular Languages and Dialects
- Vida, Marco Girolamo
- Virgil in Renaissance Thought
- Visitors, Italian
- Vives, Juan Luis
- Walter Ralegh
- War and Economy, 1300-1600
- Ward, Mary
- Warfare and Military Organizations
- Weyden, Rogier van der
- Widowhood
- Witch Hunt
- Wolsey, Thomas, Cardinal
- Women and Learning
- Women and Medicine
- Women and Science
- Women and the Book Trade
- Women and the Reformation
- Women and the Visual Arts
- Women and Warfare
- Women and Work: Fourteenth to Seventeenth Centuries
- Women Writers in Ireland
- Women Writers of the Iberian Empire
- Women Writing in Early Modern Spain
- Women Writing in English
- Women Writing in French
- Women Writing in Italy
- Wroth, Mary