| Profile | Major Works | Resources |
Thomas Wilson, 1525-1581.
16th Century Tudor state official, Protestant humanist, logician and rhetorician.
Educated at King's College, Cambridge. receiving his M.A. in 1549, and went on to serve as tutor in the household of the Duchess of Suffolk, and coming into the circle of John Dudley (Earl of Warwick, future Duke of Northumberland). He rose in status when Dudley seized control of the regency for young Edward VI away from Somerset in 1549. Thomas Wilson fled England in 1553, after he was implicated in Northumberland's failed coup to keep the Catholic queen Mary I from ascending to the throne. Wilson spent most of exile residing in northern Italy (notably Ferrara and Padua.
Wilson returned to England after 1560, and became an Elizabethan official, judge in the Court of Requests and privy councilor. He would serve as a diplomat to Portugal and the Netherlands.
Thomas Wilson is best known to economist for his Discourse on Usury (pub. 1572, but written years earlier). Wilson sets out the issue of usury in the manner of a dialogue between a parson, a doctor, a lawyer and a merchant. Wilson defends the religious laws against usury, categorically declaring it sinful. Although the protagonists agree, they make note that "trade is one thing, religion another". Wilson goes on to consider various other economic issues of the day, condemning commerce, the Fuggers, the Antwerp exchange, enclosures, the sturdy beggar, etc. as endangering the stability and welfare of the kingdom. In that respect, Wislon's Discourse is a one of the first tracts against creeping capitalism that goes beyond religious strictures.
|
Major Works of Thomas Wilson
|
Top|
HET
|
|
Resources on Thomas Wilson
|
All rights reserved, Gonçalo L. Fonseca