Poor Mister More

The Life of Thomas More has unfolded midway as of this evening. I've reached midpoint and I find it curious that Peter Ackroyd devoted as much effort and space as he did to More's childhood and early service in London's municipal government. It is a testament to the late Fifteenth Century, but other than meager scarps of cross-reference More led an undocumented life until his ascendancy into the Star Chamber and the confidences of Wolsey and Henry VIII. The exception to this is, of course, his friendship with Erasmus. I read Stefan Zweig's biography of Erasmus a few years ago and I recall both More and Luther appearing to be straw men, as such. Wasn't Zweig working from memory at the time, maybe in Brazil? I don't know. Maybe I'm confusing him with Auerbach and Mimesis?