HERBORN, NIKOLAUS FERBER von. - Franciscan theologian, b. at Herborn (Hesse) about 1480, d. at Toulouse on 15 April 1535. He appears in full anti-Lutheran activity in 1525.
Invited to take part in the Synod of Homberg, convened for October 1526 by the Protestant Philip, Landgrave of Hesse, in order to dispute with the Avignonese apostate Francesco Lambert, H. declined the invitation; from Marburg, however, he replied to Lambert with the Assertiones trecentae ac viginti sex adversus Fr. Lamberti, exiticii monachi, Paradoxa impia in Hombergiana Hessoorum congregatione proposita (Cologne, 1526). To Lambert’s reply (Epistola ad
Colonienses of 1527), H. responded with the Epistola ad Coloniensem 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 W. 1927).
In 1529 he became provincial minister of Cologne. Sent by the bishop of Aarhus, he went to Copenhagen in 1530 to take part in a conference between Catholics and Protestants; against the arguments of the latter he subsequently directed his Confutatio lutheranismi Danici, anno 1530 conscripta a Nicolao Stagefyr seu Herborneo (published by L. Schmitt, Quaracchi, 1902). In 1532 he was called to Toulouse, to the General Chapter of his Order, from which he emerged elected general commissioner for the Cismontane region, later holding the office of vicar general.