Clerk, Jean

Clerk, Jean, a French martyr, was born at Meaux, on the Marne. There he was arrested in 1523 for putting upon the church door a paper against indulgences, in which he called the pope Antichrist; for this his sentence was that three successive days he should be whipped, and have a mark of infamy upon his forehead. Afterwards he went to Rosia, in Bray, and from thence removed to Metz, in Lorraine, where he broke the papal images which the people were about to worship, and, being arrested, confessed the fact. He was brought before the judges, and his hand was cut off; then his nose was torn from his face; after that both his arms and paps were likewise plucked out. His mutilated body was then committed to the fire and consumed, in 1524. See Fox, Acts and Monuments, iv, 361.