Abstract: This essay examines Thomas More and his prison letters to capture his understanding of the ways in which ecumenical or general councils informed More's decisions to refuse the Oath of Succession and not to affirm the Act of Supremacy. we find that More grappled with the role of general councils in the context of the overarching concern of his public life — effecting the peace and unity of Christendom. Consistent with scholarly consensus, More should not be viewed as a proponent of conciliarism. Rather, he understood general councils in a pragmatic way: as a means of informing personal conscience and maintaining religious uniformity. That understanding was integrally bound up with the doctrine of papal or Roman primacy, which, as we show, he had come to accept as de fide , as binding all faithful Catholics. Of related concern is More's awareness of the Ecumenical Council of Florence (1439) that effectively prescribed papal primacy as a required belief for members of the Catholic Church. we trace More's prison letter invocations of general councils to show how they provide a key for unlocking his insights into the proper role of conscience in determining the limits of personal choice and political coercion. Against the backdrop of a survey of More's biographers, we conclude that More refused the Oath of Succession because he believed that swearing was tantamount to denying Roman primacy. we conclude by considering how to harmonize that position with More's insistence that the decision to swear was a matter of personal conscience. Central to our explanations is More's reliance on a rhetoric of silence, which was a hallmark of his humanistic writings and essential to his legal defence against the charge of treason.
Karlin et al. (Mon,) studied this question.