#448 erkenningsnummer p708816
september 21, 2016 \ newsweekly - € 0,75 \ read more at www.flanderstoday.eu current affairs \ p2
What lies beneath
Bruges’ long-awaited beer pipeline has opened, pumping De Halve Maan brews under the streets to the bottler three kilometres away \6
politics \ p4
business \ p6
innovation \ p7
tastes of iraq
When an Iraqi expat visited Brussels and found none of his native food, he decided to cook it himself, like he had done in Baghdad \ 10
education \ p9
art & living \ p10
this little piggy
A Ghent organisation is making farmers out of city-slickers to teach residents lessons in sustainability and consumption \ 11
Leuven as the capital of Utopia
thomas more’s vision looms over flemish brabant’s largest city, 500 years on
ian mundell more articles by Ian \ flanderstoday.eu
On the quincentenary of the publication of Thomas More’s influential book Utopia, Leuven searches for the meanings behind the words with a mulit-disciplinary festival.
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© Courtesy national portrait Gallery
euven may not be perfect, but for the next few months nowhere is closer to Utopia. The city is marking 500 years since Thomas More’s book Utopia first appeared in print with a festival that combines exhibitions, performances, guided walks and many other events. “We want to make Leuven the capital of Utopia for four months,” says Lien De Keukelaere, co-ordinator of the festival. “Utopia is not just a story about 1516 or about Thomas More, it’s a universal story. And that’s the link we want to make with the festival. We want to bring Utopia to the audience of today, and connect 1516 with 2016.” More (pictured left in a portrait by Hans Holbein the Younger) began writing Utopia during an extended visit to Flanders in 1515. He arrived in May as part of a delegation sent to re-open the wool trade between England and the Low Countries, which had stalled after a failed engagement between Mary Tudor, the sister of Henry VIII, and Charles, the Duke of Burgundy and effectively the ruler of the Low Countries. Although More would later become a high official in Henry VIII’s government, he was not yet part of the court. Instead he worked as a lawyer, regularly helping London merchants negotiate with partners overseas. It seems likely he owed his place on the 1515 delegation to the wool merchants. He also belonged to a loose group of humanist scholars in northern Europe, who studied Greek and Latin literature and corresponded on philosophical questions. The foremost among them was Desiderius Erasmus, who wrote his celebrated essay In Praise of Folly while staying at More’s house in London. When the trade talks in Bruges stalled in July, More was at liberty to visit his humanist connections in Flanders. He stayed with Jeroen van Busleyden in Mechelen and took up a recommendation of Erasmus to meet Peter Gillis, town clerk of Antwerp. He may also have visited Leuven, but evidence is thin on the ground. This factual background is where Utopia begins. In the text, More mentions his reasons for being in Flanders, the pause in the trade talks and meeting Gillis in Antwerp. Then, outside the cathedral, Gillis introduces More to the explorer Raphael Hythloday – a fictional character whose last name means “dispenser of nonsense” in Greek. In the first part of the book the three men discuss the shortcomings of European society, such as the connection between poverty and theft, and the way monarchs use the threat of war to increase taxes. They also talk about the hazards of being in the service of a king, an irony given More’s later, fatal, experience in the service of Henry VIII. Then Hythloday tells the others about a perfect society on the island of Utopia, which he visited on a voyage to the Americas. Here there is common ownership of property, food and health care for all, and freedom of worship. Farming is a common duty, but working hours are restricted, continued on page 5