**HERBORN, NIKOLAUS FERBER von.** — Franciscan theologian, born in Herborn (Hesse) c. 1480, died in Toulouse on 15 April 1535. He appears fully active in anti-Lutheran polemics in 1525.
Invited to take part in the Synod of Homberg, convened in October 1526 by the Protestant Philip, Landgrave of Hesse, to debate with the apostate Avignonese Franciscan Francesco Lambert, H. declined the invitation; however, from Marburg he replied to Lambert with the *Assertiones trecentae ac viginti sex adversus Fr. Lamberti, exitièi monachi, Paradoxa impia in Hombergiana Hessoium congregatione proposita* (Cologne 1526). To Lambert’s rebuttal (*Epistola ad Coloniennes* of 1527), H. responded with the *Epistola ad Coloniense, felicissimam urbem, qua hortatur eandem, uti pergat maiorum suorum inhaerere vestigiis* (ibid. 1527); *Locorum communium adversus huius temporis haereses enchiridion* (ibid. 1528); edited by P. Schlager [Corpus catholicorum, 12], Münster in V. 1927.
In 1529 he became provincial minister of Cologne. Sent by the bishop of Aarhus, he went in 1530 to Copenhagen to participate in a conference between Catholics and Protestants; against the arguments of the latter he later directed his *Confutatio lutheranismi Danici, anno 1530 conscripta a Nicolao Stagefyr seu Herborneo* (published by L. Schmitt, Quaracchi 1902). In 1532 he was summoned to Toulouse for the General Chapter of his Order, from which he emerged elected Commissary General for the provinces beyond the Alps, subsequently serving as Vicar General.