GUGLIELMO di HINDERNISSEN. – Carmelite, prior first at Malines and then at Brussels, and, together with Egidio Cantor, leader of the sect of the “men of intelligence” (homines intelligentias) existing in Brussels at the beginning of the fifteenth century. The origin of the sect perhaps goes back to the poet Blommaerdine, whose pantheistic mysticism was combated in the preceding century by G. Ruysbrock (cf. Anal. Boll., 4 [1885], p. 286).
The doctrine of the sect was related spirit (v.): it rejected the precepts of the Church and the means of sanctification (the Sacraments); it was also reproached with the communal sharing of women. Like the Joachimites, it accepted three ages: that of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, awaiting the latter, in which the free spirit would reign and the salvation of all human beings and even of the demons would be accomplished! In 1410 Pietro d'Ailly, bishop of Cambrai, to whose diocese Brussels belonged, instituted proceedings against the sect, which he concluded in 1411; the records of the trial are almost the sole source for its history. G. di H. recanted and was condemned 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 concerning the fate of the other adherents of the sect.