# Responsio ad Lutherum answers Luther under Henry’s anti-Lutheran campaign

Date: 1521

## The fact

In 1521 More’s Responsio ad Lutherum answered [Martin Luther](/people/martin-luther) as part of [Henry VIII](/people/henry-viii)’s anti-Lutheran campaign. The instrument is that polemical book, not Utopia and not the later Dialogue Concerning Heresies as a twin.

It is one event.

## Context

Royal polemics are shared with the king’s Assertio. Essential More and Britannica independently place the Responsio in 1521. Later Catholic reception is not this print.

[Thomas More](/people/thomas-more)’s documented role is bounded by other offices and collaborators named in the sources below. Sharing a field with them is not a reason to drop a documented act, and it is not a reason to assign later consequences done in the name after death.

Conventional years are 1478–1535. Surviving public files are later parliamentary biographies, HRP pages, Yale Essential More, and encyclopedias. More did not typeset those later pages. Posthumous canonisation is reception, not a lifetime act.

Named person as heading of the dated public instrument. Later editors, museums, printers, or offices share publication. Complex where later carriers are the surviving public file.

## Evidence and sources

Essential More and Britannica independently describe the 1521 Responsio ad Lutherum.

Official or archival record: Essential Works of Thomas More — Yale-linked public site (https://essentialmore.org/; Yale University Press / Essential More).

## Significance

[Political-polarization](/drivers/political-polarization) path. High confidence on the 1521 answer.

## What is established and what is not

Established: Responsio ad Lutherum appeared in 1521. Not established: a unique conversion series from the Latin quarrel.

What would change the picture: a contradictory original with a different date or name, or a measured series that can be argued, with lag and alternatives, as a consequence of this instrument rather than of later institutions.

The date is the date of this instrument, not a licence to back-date every later harm or benefit.

Established here: a sourced, dated public instrument with a named contribution by Thomas More.

They are not a public rating.

The driver `political-polarization` is attached because the mechanism named in Significance follows from this instrument, not because a standing list of welfare headings needed another tick. Thomas More did not file a later UNESCO form, a later Loeb colophon, or a later museum label as a personal act. A portrait or conventional bust is not this mechanism. Allegation, reconstruction, and established occurrence stay distinct. Responsio is not the 1529 Dialogue. Keep Luther Latin off the English heresies book. Keep the carrier date of later English distinct from the received historical year stored in the date field. Do not read a later English edition as a recovered autograph of Thomas More.

## People

- Thomas More: https://factrail.ai/people/thomas-more

## Drivers

- Political Polarization: https://factrail.ai/drivers/political-polarization

## Sources

- https://www.britannica.com/biography/Thomas-More-English-humanist-and-statesman
- https://essentialmore.org/

## Methodology

https://factrail.ai/methodology

Canonical: https://factrail.ai/facts/tm-responsio-luther-1521