Sentence:  Secondly , to find a learned diversion and a pleasing joke in More 's account of the stupid brutalities of <WSD>early</WSD> sixteenth century wars , of the anguish of the poor and dispossessed , of the insolence and cruelty of the rich and powerful requires a callousness toward suffering and sin that would be surprising in a moral imbecile and most surprising in More himself . 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  at or near the beginning of a period of time or course of events or before the usual or expected time