DENIFLE, HEINRICH. - Dominican medievalist theologian, b. at Imst (Tyrol) on 16 Jan. 1844, d. at Munich on 10 June 1905. Left an orphan, he was a choirboy at Bressanone, where he also completed the gymnasium. A Dominican at Graz (1861), he took the name Henry Suso and was ordained a priest in 1866. He studied at Graz, Rome and at 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). On J. W. Preger's history of German mysticism he made irrefutable observations (Hist. pol. Blätter, 75 [1875], passim); he treated the problem of the Gottesfreund im Oberland (ibid.) and related questions, crowned various studies on Bl. Henry Suso with Die Schriften des sel. Heinrich Seuse, I: Deutsche Schriften (Munich 1880), destroyed legends about Tauler: Taulers Bekehrung kritisch untersucht (Strasbourg 1878, etc.) and produced fundamental studies on the homeland, the writings, the trial and the doctrine of Master Eckhart (Zeitschr. f. deutsches Altertum, 29 [1885], pp. 259 ff.).
With keen insight he revealed the relations between scholasticism and mysticism. A companion of 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. On the proposal of Card. Hergenröther, D. was promoted under-archivist of the Holy See (1 Jan. 1883) and appointed consultor of the cardinalitial commission for historical studies. He published the work Die Universitäten des Mittelalters bis 1400 (vol. I, Berlin 1885; the other 4 vols. remained unfinished) and other studies on the universities of Italy and France, especially on that of Paris. With Fr. Ehrle he directed the Archiv für Literatur- u. Kirchengeschichte des Mittelalters (7 vols., Berlin-Freiburg im Br. 1885-1900). On the commission 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 wrote La désolation des églises, monastères et hôpitaux en France pendant la guerre des cent ans (2 vols., Paris 1897-99).
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, on the Dominican, Franciscan, Carmelite, Jesuit Orders, etc., concluding his weighty work of 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 trans. of vol. I, Rome 1905). D. replied vigorously to Harnack, Seeberg and others. Unpublished writings in Römische Quartalschrift, 22 (1926), pp. 46-58 and Divus Thomas, 22 (1944), pp. 339-54.