Henry VIII. and Francis I. at the Field of the Cloth of Gold. He at
length became a Franciscan monk of Canterbury. 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, London. He died
shortly after this last preferment at Croydon, Surrey, where he was buried
on the 10th of June 1552. 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[1] brings against his moral
character may be put down to his hatred of Barclay's cloth.

The _Ship of Fools_ was as popular in its English dress as it had been in
Germany. It was the starting-point of a new satirical literature. In itself
a product of the medieval conception of the fool who figured so largely in
the Shrovetide and other pageants, it differs entirely from the general
allegorical satires of the preceding centuries. 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 the old fool whom time merely
strengthens in his folly, of those who are 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 _Narrenschiff_ of
Sebastian Brant was essentially German in conception and treatment, but his
hundred and thirteen types of fools possessed, nevertheless, universal
interest. It was in reality sins and vices, however, rather than follies
that came under his censure, and this didactic temper was reflected in
Barclay. The book appeared in 1494 with woodcuts said to have been devised
and perhaps partly executed by Brant himself. In these illustrations, which
gave an impulse to the production of "enblems" and were copied in the
English version, there appears a humour quite absent from the text. In the
Latin elegiacs of the _Stultifera Navis_ (1497) of Jacob Locher the book
was read throughout Europe. Barclay's _The Shyp of Folys of the Worlde_ was
first printed by Richard Pynson in 1509. He says he translated "oute of