HOOGSTRAETEN, JAKOB. - Dominican writer and polemicist, b. at Hoogstraten (Brabant) around 1460, d. at Cologne on 27 January 1527. He studied first at Louvain and then at Cologne; there he entered the Order of Preachers, taught for many years, was master of students (1498), regent of studies (1505, 1509) and prior of the convent (1510-11). He also taught theology at the University and was inquisitor in the provinces of Cologne, Mainz and Trier.
An intrepid defender of Catholicism, he was attacked by the greatest heretics of his time, against whom he waged a victorious open struggle. In defense of the rights of the Mendicant Friars he wrote: Defensorium Pratum Mendicantium contra curatos, qui privilegia Pratum iniuste impugnant (Cologne 1507). Against a certain Piero da Ravenna he wrote: Defensio scholastica principum Alemaniae in eo quod sceleratos detinent insepultos in ligno (ibid. 1508), Iustificatorium principum Alemaniae (ibid. 1509) and Protectorium principum Alemaniae de maleficis non sepeliendis (ibid. 1511). He sustained a long polemic against the celebrated humanist Johannes Reuchlin. The latter had written the Speculum oculare against the converted Jew G. Pfefferkorn, who in his Speculum manuale had maintained that all the books of the Jews, including the Talmud, ought to be burned because of the numerous errors contained in them concerning Jesus Christ and the Virgin. H., with the approval of the University of Cologne, condemned certain ideas of Reuchlin; the latter responded with the Defense against the slanderers of Cologne. The affair was referred to the archbishop of Mainz, but Reuchlin appealed to Rome (Sept. 1513); Leo X entrusted the examination of the question to the bishop of Speyer (Nov. 1513). Meanwhile H., in his capacity as inquisitor, condemned the Speculum, which was burned (Feb. 1514). The bishop of Speyer considered such a condemnation offensive to himself and issued a sentence favorable to Reuchlin (24 April 1514). H. again appealed to Rome. Meanwhile the Faculty of Theology of Paris also condemned the Speculum oculare as heretical (2 Aug. 1514). The Universities of Louvain, Mainz and Erfurt issued a similar condemnation. But in Rome the affair became complicated through political interventions. The solution was long in coming. Only on 13 June 1520 did Leo X declare the sentence of the bishop of Speyer null and prohibit Reuchlin's work as scandalous, while he confirmed H. as inquisitor.
In this polemic H. wrote Libellus accusatorius contra oculare Speculum Ioannis Reuchlin legum doctoris coram commissariis archiepiscopi Magontini productus; Libellus alius supplex Romae Leoni X de eodem negotio oblatus anno 1525 (both published in Acta iudiciorum inter Io. H. et Io. Reuchlin, Hagenau 1518); Ad SS. Leonem papam X ac d. Maximilianum imperatorem Apologia (Cologne 1518); Apologia altera (ibid. 1519). He also wrote Destructio cabalae seu cabalistae perfidiae (ibid. 1519) against the Ars cabalistica and the De verbo mirifico of the same Reuchlin. Finally, to be noted among his other writings: Margarita moralis philosophiae (Cologne 1521); Epitome de fide et aperibus adversus chimericam illam atque monstruosam M. Lutheri libertatem falso ab eo christianam appellatam (ibid. 1525); Aliquor disputationes contra lutheranos (ibid. 1526).