GUGLIELMO of HINDERNISSEN. - Carmelite, prior at Mechelen, then at Brussels, leader, together with Egidio Cantor, of the sect of the "men of intelligence" (lomines intelligentiae) existing in Brussels at the beginning of the fifteenth century. The origin of the sect may perhaps be traced back to the poetess Blommaerdine, whose pantheistic mysticism was opposed in the previous century by G. Ruysbroeck (cf. Anal. Boll., 4 [1885], p. 286).
The doctrine of the sect was akin to that of the Free Spirit (v.): it repudiated the precepts of the Church and the means of sanctification (Sacraments); it was also reproached for the community of women. Like the Joachimites, it accepted three ages of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, awaiting the last in which the free spirit was to reign and the salvation of all men, even of the demons, was to be accomplished! In 1410 Pierre d'Ailly, bishop of Cambrai, to whose diocese Brussels belonged, instituted a process against the sect, which was concluded in 1411; its acts are almost the sole source for its history. G. of H. recanted and was sentenced to three years in prison, after which he was to be confined for life in a Carmelite convent outside the diocese. No information has been handed down about the fate of the other adherents of the sect.