born c. 1476
died June 10, 1552, Croydon, Surrey, Eng.
poet who won contemporary fame chiefly for his
adaptation of a popular German satire, Das
Narrenschiff, by Sebastian Brant,
which he called The Shyp of Folys of the Worlde
(first printed 1509).
Barclay, possibly of Scottish birth, was by 1509
a chaplain at the College of St. Mary Ottery,
Devon. He later became a Benedictine monk at Ely
and still later a Franciscan friar of
Canterbury. He presumably conformed to
Protestantism, however, for after the
Reformation he retained livings (benefices) in
Essex and Somerset held since 1546. In 1552 he
became rector of All Hallows, London.
Barclay
also wrote (probably while a monk at Ely) the
first formal eclogues in English, filled with
entertaining pictures of rural life.
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