the XIII. day of December." That he became a Benedictine and lived at
the monastery of the order at Ely is evident from his 'Eclogues.' Here
he translated at the instance of Sir Giles Arlington, Knight, 'The
Myrrour of Good Maners,' from a Latin elegiac poem which Dominic Mancini
published in the year 1516.

"It was about this period of his life," says Mr. Jamieson in his
admirable edition of the 'Ship of Fools,' "probably the period of the
full bloom of his popularity, that the quiet life of the poet and priest
was interrupted by the recognition of his eminence in the highest
quarters, and by a request for his aid in maintaining the honor of the
country on an occasion to which the eyes of all Europe were then
directed. In a letter to Wolsey dated 10th April, 1520, Sir Nicholas
Vaux--busied with the preparation for that meeting of Henry VIII and
Francis I called the Field of the Cloth of Gold--begs the Cardinal to
send them ... Maistre Barkleye, the Black Monke and Poete, to devise
histoires and convenient raisons to florisshe the buildings and banquet
house withal."

He became a Franciscan, the habit of which order Bullim refers to; and
"sure 'tis," says Wood, "that living to see his monastery dissolv'd, in
1539, at the general dissolution by act of Henry VIII, he became vicar
of Much Badew in Essex, and in 1546, the same year, of the Church of St.
Matthew the Apostle at Wokey, in Somersetshire, and finally in 1552, the
year in which he died, of that of All Saints, Lombard Street, London. In
his younger days he was esteemed a good poet and orator, but when years
came on, he spent his time mostly in pious matters, and in reading the
histories of Saints."

'The Ship of Fools' is the most important work associated with Barclay's