BARCLAY, ALEXANDER (c. 1476-1552), British poet, author of the S/zip of Fools. His nationality is a matter of dispute, but William Bulleyn, who was a native of Ely, and probably knew him when he was in the monastery there, asserts that he was born "beyonde the cold river of Twede." At some time between and 1507, he became chaplain of the college of St. Mary Ottery, Devonshire. Here he made his version of Sebastian Brant's Ship of Fools, and even introduced his neighbours into the satire : For if one can flatter, and beare a Hauke on his fist, He shall be parson of Honington or Cist.
and Francis I. at the Field of the Cloth of Gold. He at length be came a Franciscan monk of Can terbury. It is presumed that he conformed with the change of religion, for he retained under Edward VI., the livings of Great Baddow, Essex, and of Wokey, Somerset, which he had received in 1546, and was presented in 1552 by the dean and chapter of Canterbury to the rectory of All Hallows, Lombard street, Lon don. He died shortly after this last preferment, at Croydon, Surrey, where he was buried on June 1 o, 15 5 2. All the evidence in Barclay's own work goes to prove that he was sincere in his reproof of contemporary follies and vice, and the gross accusations which John Bale brings against his moral character may be put down to his hatred of Barclay's cloth.
The Ship of Fools (The Shyp of Folys of the W orlde, first printed 1509) was the starting-point of a new satirical literature. It differs entirely from the allegorical satires of the preceding cen turies. The figures are no longer abstractions; they are concrete examples of the folly of the bibliophile who collects books but learns nothing from them, of the evil judge who takes bribes to favour the guilty, of those eager to follow the fashions, of the priests who spend their time in church telling "gestes" of Robin Hood and so forth. The spirit of the book reflects the general transition between allegory and narrative, morality and drama. The poem is written in the ordinary Chaucerian stanza, and in language which is more modern than the common literary English of his day.
Certayne Ecloges of Alexander Barclay, Priest, written in his youth, were probably printed as early as 1513, although the earliest extant edition is that in John Cawood's reprint (157o) of the Ship of Fools. Barclay's pastorals contain many pictures of rustic life as he knew it. He describes, for instance, the Sunday games in the village, football, and the struggle for food at great feasts; but his eclogues were, like his Italian models, also satires on social evils.
His other works are: The Castell of Laboure (Wynkyn de Worde, 15o6), from the French of Pierre Gringoire; the Introductory to write and to pronounce Frenche (Robert Copland, 1521) ; The Myrrour of Good Masers (Richard Pynson, not dated), a translation of the De quatuor virtutibus of Dominicus Mancinus ; Cronycle compyled in Latyn by the renowned Sallust (Richard Pynson, no date) , a trans lation of the Bellum Jugurthinum; The Lyfe of the glorious Martyr Saynt George (R. Pynson, c. 153o). The Lyfe of Saynte Thomas, and Haython's Cronycle, both printed by Pynson, are also attributed to Barclay, but on very doubtful grounds.
See T. H. Jamieson's edition of the Ship of Fools (1874), which contains an account of the author and a bibliography of his works; J. W. Fairholt's edition of The Cytezen and Uplondyshman (Percy Soc. 1847) , which includes large extracts from the other eclogues ; and Dr. Fedor Fraustadt, Ober das Verhaltnis von Barclays Ship of Fools zu den lateinischen, f ranzosischen and deutschen Quellen (1894) .