GRANDERATH, THEODOR. - Jesuit, canonist and historian, b. at Giesenkirche (Rhineland) on 19 June 1839, d. at Valkenburg (Dutch Limburg) on 19 March 1902. He was a professor at the College of Ditton-Hall (England), first of canon law (1874-1876) and then of dogmatics and apologetics (1876-87).
Having moved to Exaeten (Holland) to complete the Collectio Lacensis founded by Fr. G. Schneemann, he published its seventh and last volume: Acta et decreta Sancti Oecumenici Concili Vaticani (Freiburg im Br. 1890). Having by then devoted himself to studies on this Council, he wrote: Constitutiones dogmaticae SS. Oecumenici Concilii Vaticani ex ipsis eius actis explicatae atque illustratae (ibid. 1892) and, having moved to Rome, where Leo XIII placed the Vatican Archives at his disposal, he composed his capital work: Geschichte des Vatikanischen Concils von seiner ersten Ankündigung bis zu seiner Vertagung nach den authentischen Dokumenten (3 vols., ibid. 1903-1906, posthumous, edited by Fr. K. Kirch, who also completed the last; French trans., 3 vols., in 6 parts, Brussels 1907-10, with an appendix of documents [ibid. 1914]). The work, a direct and accurate study of the sources, also exploits first-rate documents concerning the agitated and hostile atmosphere that surrounded the work of the Council and answers and refutes the suspicions and intrigues of its adversaries. In the meantime he collaborated for many years with important articles on theology and law in the periodicals Stimmen aus Maria Laach (1874-99) and Zeitschrift für Katholische Theologie (1881-96).