HEINBUCHE von LANGENSTEIN, HEINRICH (HEINRICH von HESSEN). — German scholar and theologian of the fourteenth century, also known as Heinrich of Heinbuche or senior Heinrich of Hesse. In 1363 he was Magister artium at Paris; he wrote on astronomy and the natural sciences (Quaestio de cometa, 1368; Contra astrologos, 1371). Subsequently a doctor of theology and Sacred Scripture, in 1378 he became vice-chancellor of the University, but in 1382 he left Paris to follow Urban VI to Eberbach and Worms. Invited by Albert III, in 1383 he went to Vienna to organize the University (founded in 1363), of which he was rector (1393–94) and a celebrated master until his death (11 February 1397).
Of very extensive erudition, in addition to many theological writings, including one in favor of the Immaculate Conception, the Contra maculam beati Bernardi, he owes his fame to the work he carried out during the Western Schism as an adherent of Urban VI and especially as a supporter of the conciliar theory, which he was the first to formulate together with Conrad of Gelnhausen. On this subject, he wrote the dialogue Epistola pacis (1379), the Epistola concilii pacis (1381), the Invectiva contra monstrum Babilonis (1393), Super cathedrum Petri (1395), De futuris Ecclesiae periculis, etc. He held that the ecumenical council, as the full representation of the Church, had the right to examine the legitimacy of the doubtful election of the pope.