Barclay, Alexander

BARCLAY, ALEXANDER: English scholar of the Renaissance period; b. probably in Scotland about 1475; d. at Croydon (9 m. s. of London), Surrey, 1552. He is believed to have studied at one, or perhaps both, of the English universities; traveled on the continent; was made chaplain in 482 the collegiate church at Ottery St. Mary, Devonshire; afterward became a monk in the Benedictine monastery of Ely; in 1546 became vicar of Great Baddow, Essex, and of Wokey, Somersetshire; in 1552 also rector of All Saints in Lombard Street, London. His chief works were the Ship of Fools (London, 1509), a translation, with some additions, of Sebastian Brandt’s Narrenschiff; and the Eclogues (n.d., probably 1514).

Bibliography: A full account of Barclay and valuable list of references is given in DNB, iii, 156-161; consult also for list of his writings and his life the edition of the Ship of Fools, by T. H. Jamieson, 2 vols., Edinburgh, 1874.