COELDE (KOLDE), THEODORICH (Dederich, Dietrich, Dietrich e Dirk). - Preacher, ascetical writer, and author of hymns, b. c. 1435 at Münster, d. at Louvain on 11 Dec. 1515; he was called Dietrich von Münster or von Osnabrück, the native place of his family. He was one of the most renowned and effective popular preachers of his time.
He first studied at Cologne and then, after a brief stay among the Hermits of S. Agostino, entered the Observant Friars Minor in 1453, becoming one of the most zealous reformers of the Order in the province of the Rhine and in the Netherlands. There he distinguished himself as an apostle of charity, especially in tending plague victims at Brussels in 1489. He was a spiritual director, for whose guidance he wrote several small works. His reputation for holiness was so great that his beatification was considered. Various of his spiritual pamphlets have been printed, but above all mention should be made of a very rare little volume entitled Christenspiegel (1st ed., 1745), regarded as the first catechism in the German language. Moufang reproduced it at the beginning of his collection of sixteenth-century German catechisms under the title Ein fruchtbar Spiegel, oder Handbüchelchen der Christenmenschen von Bruder Dederich von Münster.
Felice da Mareto