HENRY OF NÖRDLINGEN. - Priest of the diocese of Augsburg, director of souls and preacher, d. after November 1351.

In the dispute between the Avignon popes and Louis the Bavarian, H. followed the Church's side rigorously. From 1335 to 1336 he went to Avignon. Expelled from Nördlingen in 1338 for observing the interdict. H. lived as a pilgrim priest in Constance, with a long stay in Basel where he met Tauler and many "Friends of God" and had great success, along the upper Rhine (Strasbourg, Sulz) and the lower Rhine (Cologne, Aachen). From Bamberg he brought relics of St. Henry and St. Cunegunda to Basel in 1347. After various visits to Nördlingen, the return to Nördlingen in 1350 and a visit to Engelthal, H. disappears from history in 1351.

A great admirer of the Holy Scriptures and of St. Thomas, H. was not a mystic, nor did he possess a properly mystical doctrine. Without high speculation, he was a practical director of souls, attuned to affective spirituality and driven by a remarkable zeal to promote souls to union with God. His influence and his success derive from his amiable character, from his rich feeling, at times gentle and exuberant, from his sincere piety, from his appreciation of mysticism.

H. has three merits for religious letters: for his correspondence with the blessed Margaretha Ebner (1332-50), which constitutes the first true correspondence in the German language; for the version from Low German into the language of Upper Germany of the Fliesende Licht der Gottheit and Rivelnazioni of Mechthild of Magdeburg, prepared in Basel around 1344-45, thus preserving for us this important text while the original is lost; for the order given to the blessed Ebner in 1344 to write down her spiritual experiences. The correspondence with Ebner and her Rivelnazioni are published by Strauch, the Rivelnazioni of Mechthild by p. G. Morel, Das Fliesende Licht der Gottheit (Ratisbon 1869).

Bibliography6 works

BIBL.: Ph. Strauch, Burgarita Ebner und Heinrich von Nördlingen, Freiburg-Tübingen 1882; L. Zoppl, Die Mystikerin M. Ebner, Leipzig 1914, pp. 37-40, 143-67; R. Wackernagel, Gesch. d. Stadt Basel, II, 11, Basel 1916, pp. 789-91, 162; H. Wilma, Die Offenbarungen der sel. M. Ebner, Vechta 1928, pp. 31-48; A. Manser, s. v. in LThK, IV, col. 531 ff.; F. W. Wentzlaff-Eggebert, Die deutsche Musik, 2nd ed., Tübingen 1947, pp. 202-93, 297.

Angelo Walz

@incollection{ec5_enrico_di_nordlingen, author = {Walz, Angelo}, title = {Enrico di Nördlingen}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {V}, pages = {392}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1950}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/enrico-di-nordlingen} }

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Henry of Nördlingen

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