Thomas More

=== Legal ===

More debated [[Christopher St Germain]] through various books: while agreeing on various issues on equity, More disagreed with secret witnesses, the admissibility of hearsay, and found St Germain's criticism of religious courts superficial or ignorant.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Curtright |first1=Travis |title=The One Thomas More |date=2012 |publisher=Catholic University of America Press |doi=10.2307/j.ctt284wpm |jstor=j.ctt284wpm |isbn=978-0-8132-1995-0 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt284wpm |access-date=29 July 2023}}</ref> More and St Germain's views on equity owed in part to the 15th Century humanist theologian, [[Jean Gerson]], who taught that consideration of the individual circumstances should be the norm not the exception.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Mazour-Matusevich |first1=Yelena |title=Some Aspects of Jean Gerson's Legal Influence in Sixteenth Century England: The Issue of Epikeia |journal=Journal of Early Modern Christianity |date=1 April 2017 |volume=4 |issue=1 |pages=47–62 |doi=10.1515/jemc-2017-0003|s2cid=164459672 }}</ref>

Before More, English [[Lord Chancellor]]s tended to be clerics (with a role as [[Keeper of the King's Conscience]]); from More on, they tended to be lawyers.<ref>{{cite book |title=The History of the English Constitution|trans-title=Englische Verfassungsgeschichte|last1=Gneist |first1=Rudolph |author-link1=Rudolf von Gneist |translator-last1=Ashworth |translator-first1= Philip|translator-link1= |date=1886 |publisher=[[William Clowes (printer)|William Clowes]] |location=London |volume=2|page=178}}</ref>

A 1999 poll of legal British professionals nominated More as the person who most embodies the virtues of the law needed at the close of the millennium. The virtues were More's views on the primacy of conscience and his role in the practical establishment of the principle of [[Equity (law)|equity]] in English secular law through the [[Court of Chancery]].<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Herian |first1=Robert |title=The Conscience of Thomas More: An Introduction to Equity in Modernity |journal=The Heythrop Journal |date=January 2022 |volume=63 |issue=1 |pages=64–75 |doi=10.1111/heyj.13507|s2cid=214203101 |url=https://oro.open.ac.uk/69459/9/69459.pdf }}</ref>