HENRY
237
HENRY
1780) in which, under the form of a disputation be-
tween an Urbanist and a Clementine, he advocates the
suppression of the schism by way of a general council
or a compromise. In his "Epistola concilii pacis",
composed in 1381, and based on a similar work, " Epis-
tola Concordiaj" of Conrad of Gelnhausen, he urges
still more strongly the necessity of a general council
and severely criticises the many abuses that were
permitted to go on witliin the Church. These two
treatises of Henry, and the "Epistola Concordiae" of
Conrad, formed the basis of a discourse delivered by
Cardinal Pietro Philargi, the future Alexander V, at
the first session of the Council of Pisa (20 March, 1409) ;
see Bliemetzrieder in " Historisches Jahrbuch " (Mu-
nich, 1904), XXV, 536-541. Henry's " Epistola con-
cilii pacis" is printed in von der Hardt's "Concilium
Constantiense ", II, 1, 3-60, with the exception of the
first and the second chapter, which were afterwards
published by the same author in " Discrepantia mss. et
editionum" (Helmstadt, 1715), 9-11.
When in 1382 the French court compelled the pro- fessors of the Paris university to acknowledge the antipope Clement VII, Henry left the university and spent some time at the Cistercian monastery of Eber- bach near Wiesbaden. A letter which he wrote here to Bishop Eckard of Worms, and which bears the title "De scismate" was edited by Sommerfeldt in "Historisches Jahrbuch" (Munich, 1909), XXX, 46- 61. Another letter which he wrote here to the same bishop, on the occasion of the death of the bishop's brother, is entitled " De contemptu mundi" and was edited by Sommerfeldt in " Zeitschrift fCir kath. Theo- logie" (Innsbruck,1905), XXIX, 406-412. A second letter of condolence, written about 1384, was edited by Sommerfeldt in " Hist. Jahrbuch " (Munich, 1909), XXX, 298-307. Following the invitation of Albert III, Duke of Austria, he came to the Uni- versity of Vienna in 1384, and assisted in the founda- tion of a theological faculty. Here he spent the remainder of his life, teaching dogmatic theology, exegesis, and canon law, and writing numerous treatises. He refused an episcopal see which was offered him by Urban VI. Roth (see below) ascrilaes to him seven works on astronomy, eighteen historico- political treatises on the schism, seventeen polemics, fifty ascetical treatises, and twelve epistles, sermons and pamphlets. Among his printed works the most important are: "De conceptione", a defence of the Immaculate Conception (Strasburg, 1500); "Contra disceptationes et pra;dicationes contrarias fratrum Mendicantimn ", another defence of the Immaculate Conception against some of the Mendicants (Milan, 1480; Basle, 1500; Strasburg, 1516); "Speculum anim;e" or mirror of the soul, an ascetical treatise edited by Wimpfeling (Strasburg, 1507); "Secreta Sacerdotum ' ', treating of certain abuses in the celebra- tion of Mass, edited by Lochmayer (Heidelberg, 1489), and often thereafter; " De contractibus emtionis et venditionis", a very important work, on the politico- economical views of his times, published among the works of Gerson (Cologne, 1483), IV, 185-224. Other valuable treatises are : " Summa de republica ' ', a work on public law; and "Cathedra Petri", a work on eccle- siastical policy, both stUl unedited.
Hartwig, Leben und Schriften Ileinrichs de Langenstein (Marburg, 1S57): Roth, Zur Bibliographie des H. Hetnbuche de Lanoenstein in // Beiheft zum Centralblatt fiir Biblioihekswesen (Leipzig. 1888); K-NEEU, Die Entstehuno der Ko7i2iliarenTheorie. Zur Geschichte de^ Schi-imas und der Kirchen politischeri Schrifts- teller K. von Gelnhausen und H. von Langenstein (Rome, 1893); Bliemetzrieder. Das General Konzil im grossen abendtdndi- schen Srhisma (Paderborn, 1904), passim; .\schbach, Gesch. der Wiener Univ. (Vienna, 1865), I, 366-402; Scheuffgen, Beitrdge zur Gesch. des gr. Schismas (Freiburg im Br., 1SS9), 35 sqq.
MlCH.\EL OtT.
Henry of Nbrdlingen, a Bavarian secular priest, of the fourteenth century, date of death unknown; the spiritual adviser of Margaretha Ebner (d. 1351),
the mystic of Medingen. Henry's many acquaint-
ances, his travels, liis influence as a director of souls,
as preacher and confessor, excite a special interest be-
cause of the light they cast upon the immense develop-
ment of mysticism, and the religious state of Germany
at the time of Louis of Bavaria. Among the laity
of both sexes, the nobility, and in monasteries of men
and women, from the Low Countries across the Rhen-
ish Provinces, Bavaria, etc., to Northern Italy, we
find the mystics, the Gottesfreunde, coming into in-
tercourse with one another; Henry is often the con-
necting link. He writes to, or visits, Margaretha
Ebner, Tauler, Christina Ebner, Suso, Rulman Mers-
win, etc. ; he translates into High German the book of
Mechtilde of Magdeburg and urges other mystics, as
Margaretha Ebner, to write their visions; his visits
and instructions are received by the Cistercians of
Kaisheim, etc., the Dominican nuns of Engelthal, Med-
ingen, etc., the Bernardines of Zimmern, etc., and by
the Benedictine nuns of Hohewart, etc.; to his cor-
respondents he sends books now of theology (St.
Thomas), now of mysticism, with relics, etc. But,
as in the case of many other mystics of his time, the
life of Henry is unhappily unknown to us save from
his correspondence and the writings of the Ebners
during the period between 1332 and 1351. Of these
nineteen years, the first three were spent in or about
Nordlingen, where Henry was the beloved director of
a group of mystics which included his mother. In
1335 he set out for Avignon on a voluntary exile in
consequence of the dispute between the pope and the
emperor. In 1339, a short while after his return to
Nordlingen, his ficlelity in abiding by the interdict
brought him into a critical position, and he went by
way of Augsburg and Constance to Basle, where he
found Tauler and whither several of the Gottes-
freunde followed him from Bavaria.
At Basle (January, 1339), which he now made the centre of his activity, his success in the confessional and pulpit brought crowds to him, especially in 1.345. Letters to Margaretha Ebner give an idea of his work, fears, and hopes; in 1346-7 he made several trips to Cologne, Bamberg, etc. ; then he left Basle, much regretted Ijy the Gottesfreunde, and after a wan- dering life of preaching in Alsace (1348-9), while the black pest was raging in Germany, he returned to his country (1350), a little before the death of Margaretha Ebner. We then find him in commimication with the aged Christina Ebner of Engelthal, but after 1352 nothing more is heard of him.
His works consist of a collection of fifty-eight letters, of which but one manuscript remains (British Muse- um). It is the first collection of letters, properly so called, in German literature, as the letters of Henry Suso, which are an earlier composition, are practically sermons, a title which they bear in many manuscripts. We remark in these letters the tender sympathetic soul of Henry, impressionable and burning with zeal for the practice of the interior life and imion with God; they are not speculative, or deep meditations on mys- ticism; but rather with him all was sentiment. Of Henry's preaching in Basle and Alsace nothing has been handed down to us, if indeed anything was ever written. To his letters must be joined the translation from Low German into High German of the work of Mechtilde, now at Einsiedcln; but for him, this pre- cious jewel of German literature would have been preserved to us only in a Latin translation, inaccurate and incomplete.
Straitch. Margaretha Ebner und Heinrich von Nordlingen (Freiburg and Tiiijingen, 1882); Denifle in Deutsche Littera- turzeilung. III (1882), 921; DE Villermont, Un groupe mystique allemand (Brussels, 1907), 312, 423, etc.
.1. DE GhellinCK.
Henry of Rebdorf, alleged author of an imperial and papal chronicle of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, is not an historical personage. The only
