MATTHIAS BREDENBACH. — German Catholic humanist and polemicist, b. at Kierspe (duchy of Berg) in 1499, d. at Emmerich on 5 June 1559. After completing his studies at the University of Cologne, he was appointed in 1524 professor at the gymnasium in Emmerich, and in 1554 rector, a position he held until his death.
Besides various works of a literary nature, in polemics against Protestants he wrote: De dissidiis (Cologne 1557), which constitutes Bredenbach’s most important work. To defend himself against the attacks provoked by this work, in the same year 1557 he wrote an Apologia pro acerbitatibus in Lutherum in libro de dissidiis (ibid. 1557), and later, against the Lutheran Heinrich Pileus, the Hyperaspistes pro suo de componendis in religione dissidiis libello. This last work, however, was published in 1560, after Bredenbach’s death, by his son Tilmann, to whom we also owe the posthumous publication of the other two works: In psalmos et evangelium secundum Matthaeum commentarium (ibid. 1560), and Epistolae duae de negocio religionis (ibid. 1567).