Jean Crespin

[VirginiaHuguenot]

Jean Crespin was a French Huguenot who lived from c. 1520 to 1572. He was born at Arras, studied law and practiced in Paris before retiring for religious reasons to Strasbourg (in 1545) and then to Geneva (in 1548). There he established a printing press and published his most famous work Livre des martyrs (1554), and Actes des martyrs (1564), French counterparts to John Foxe's Book of Martyrs; a bundled edition of a Reformed catechism, Psalter and liturgy; and John Calvin's Anti-Nicodemite pamphlet, among around 250 volumes published total. His account of the French Huguenot colony in Brazil is a primary source for the Martyrs' Confession, referred to in this thread, which was the first Protestant confession of faith in the New World.

 

[VirginiaHuguenot]

Luc Racaut, Religious polemic and Huguenot self-perception and identity, 1554-1619:

The single most important text for the elaboration of Huguenot culture and identity is undeniably Jean Crespin´s Histoire des Martyrs. First published in 1554, it went through severall editions before the definitive edition produced by Simon Goulard in 1619.

 

[VirginiaHuguenot]

In 1556, 450 years ago, Jean Crespin published the Genevan Book of Church Order, originally entitled The Forme of Prayers and Ministrations of the Sacraments, etc., used in the English Congregation at Geneva: and approved by the famous and godly learned man, Iohn Calvuyn. Imprinted at Geneva by Iohn Crespin. MDLVI.