Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Peryn, William
PERYN, WILLIAM (d. 1558), Dominican, was probably connected with the Perins of Shropshire, though his name does not occur in the visitation of that county of 1623. He early became a Dominican, and was educated at the house of that order in Oxford. He thence went to London, where he was a vigorous opponent of protestant opinions. For some time he was chaplain of Sir John Port [q. v.] On the declaration of royal supremacy in 1534 he went abroad, but took advantage of the catholic reaction to return in 1543, when he supplicated for the degree of B.D. at Oxford. On the accession of Edward VI he is said to have recanted on 19 June 1547 in the church of St. Mary Undershaft, but soon left England (Gasquet and Bishop, Edward VI and the Book of Common Prayer, p. 50). He returned in 1553, when he was made prior of the Dominican house of St. Bartholomew in Smithfield, the first of Mary's religious establishments. On 8 Feb. 1558 he preached at St. Paul's Cross, and died in the same year, being buried in St. Bartholomew's on 22 Aug. (Strype, Eccl. Mem. iii. ii. 116).
Peryn was author of:
- ‘Thre Godlye … Sermons of the Sacrament of the Aulter,’ London [1545?], 8vo (Brit. Mus.). Dibdin describes an edition dated 1546, a copy of which belonged to Herbert. Tanner mentions another edition of 1548. It is dedicated to Edmund [Bonner], bishop of London.
- ‘Spiritual Exercyses and Goostly Meditacions, and a neare waye to come to perfection and lyfe contemplatyve,’ London, 1557, 8vo (Brit. Mus.); another edit., Caen, sm. 8vo, 1598 (Hazlitt).
- ‘De frequenter celebranda Missa,’ which does not seem to be extant (Tanner).
[Wood's Athenæ Oxon. i. 248, Fasti, i. 119; Foster's Alumni, 1500–1714; Strype's Eccl. Mem. III. i. 471, 501, ii. 2, 116; Dodd's Church Hist. i. 528; Tanner's Bibl. Brit.-Hib. p. 593; Quétif's Scriptt. Ord. Prædicat. ed. Echard, ii. 157 b; Simler's Bibl. Gesneriana; Pits, p. 571; Ames's Typogr. Antiq., ed. Dibdin, iv. 230; Hazlitt's Collections, 3rd ser. Suppl. p. 80; Stow's Annals, p. 594; Foxe's Acts and Mon. vii. 598; Dixon's Hist. of the Church of England, iii. 39; Bigsby's Repton, p. 157; works in Brit. Mus. Libr.]