DENIFLE, HEINRICH. – Dominican medievalist theologian, born at Imst (Tirolò) on 16 January 1844, died at Munich on 10 June 1905. Having been orphaned, he became a choirboy at Bressanone, where he also completed his secondary education. He entered the Dominican Order at Graz (1861), took the name Enrico Susone, and was ordained a priest in 1866. He studied at Graz, Rome, and St-Maximin (Var), where he obtained the lectorate in theology. He taught ecclesiastical sciences at Steinamanger and, from 1870, at Graz. He lived in Rome from 1880 onward.
He published Die kath. Kirche u. das Ziel der Menschheit (Graz 1872; 2nd ed. 1906) and Das geistliche Leben (ibid. 1873; 9th ed. Salzburg 1936). Regarding J. W. Preger’s history of German mysticism, he made irrefutable observations (Hist. pol. Blätter, 75 [1875], passim); he addressed the problem of the Gottesfreund im Oberland (ibid.) and related questions; he brought several studies on Blessed Enrico Susone to completion with Die Schriften des sel. Heinrich Seuse, I: Deutsche Schriften (Munich 1880); he demolished legends concerning Tauler: Taulers Bekehrung kritisch untersucht (Strasbourg 1878, etc.); and he produced fundamental studies on the homeland, writings, trial, and doctrine of Meister Eckart (Zeitschr. f. deutsches Altertum, 29 [1885], p. 259 ff.).
With keen insight he revealed the relationships between scholasticism and mysticism. Companion to the Master General in Rome (1880–83), he also collaborated on the Leonine edition of the works of St Thomas, surveying the libraries of Germany, Holland, England, France, Spain, and Portugal. At the proposal of Cardinal Hergenröther, D. was appointed deputy archivist of the Holy See (1 January 1883) and named consultor to the cardinalitial commission for historical studies. He published Die Universitäten des Mittelalters bis 1400 (vol. I, Berlin 1885; four further volumes left unfinished) and other studies on the universities of Italy and France, especially that of Paris. Together with Fr Ehrle, he directed the Archiv für Literatur- u. Kirchengeschichte des Mittelalters (7 vols., Berlin–Freiburg im Breisgau 1885–1900). At the request of the French government (1887), he published, in collaboration with Châtelain, the Chartularium Universitatis Parisiensis (4 vols., Paris 1889–97) and the Auctarium chartularii (2 vols., 1894–97).
He illustrated the institutional, doctrinal, and artistic history of the Middle Ages with Specimina palaeographica Regestorum Romanorum Pontificum (Rome 1888), with essays on the Curia, the Dominican, Franciscan, and Carmelite Orders, the Society of Jesus, etc., concluding his weighty work on doctrinal history with Luther u. Lutherum (I, I, Mainz 1903, 2nd ed. 1904; I, II, 1905; II, 1909, edited by Fr. A. M. Weiss; Italian translation of vol. I, Rome 1905). D. responded vigorously to Harnack, Seeberg, and others. Unpublished writings in Römische Quartalschrift, 22 (1926), pp. 46–58, and Divus Thomas, 22 (1944), pp. 339–54.