Note 1149 — Chapter III · PROTESTANTISM.

Juan Pérez was held in much honor by Calvin and, as the little company of refugees increased, he formed them into a congregation of which he was pastor. In 1562 he went to France and took charge of a church at Blois, becoming subsequently chaplain to Renée de France, the widowed Duchess of Ferrara, whose Huguenot tendencies are well known. In 1567 he died in Paris, leaving his little accumulations for the good work of printing books in furtherance of the faith. In 1556 he issued a Castilian New Testament; in 1557, a prose translation of the Psalms, and these were followed by a number of other works.—Böhmer, op. cit., II, 57.

Several of his writings were included by Usoz y Rios in the Reformistas, viz.: Epistola consolatoria, in Vol. II; Carta á Felipe II, in Vol. III; Breve Tratado de la Doctrina antigua de Dios, in Vol. VII; Suplicacion al Rey Don Philipe, in Vol. XII; Breve Sumario de Indulgentiis, in Vol. XVIII.

There was also by him a Catechism—Sumario breve de la doctrina Christiana, printed in 1556 by Crespin in Geneva, though with the imprint of Pietro Daniel of Venice, with approbation of the Spanish Inquisition (Böhmer, II, 86). The rigor with which it was suppressed is illustrated in the trial at Toledo, in 1561, of Mossen Juan Fesque, a French priest, simply for possessing a copy, which he had accidentally bought without knowing what it was and had shown to a bookseller for information. He was tortured with great severity, without eliciting anything more and, as there was nothing else against him, he was discharged. In the course of the trial allusion was made to two other persons, Antonio Martel and Jacobo Sobalti, who had been burnt by the tribunal for possessing the Catechism.—MSS. of Library of Univ. of Halle, Yc, 20, Tom. III.