Heinbuche von Langenstein, Heinrich (Heinrich von Hessen)

HEINBUCHE von LANGENSTEIN, HEINRICH (HEINRICH von HESSEN). - German scholar and theologian of the 14th century, also called Henry of Heinbuche or of Hesse the elder. In 1363 Magister artium in Paris; he wrote on astronomy and natural sciences (Quaestio de cometa, 1368; Contra astrologos, 1371). Later a doctor in theology and Sacred Scripture, in 1378 he was 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 (Feb. 11, 1397).

Of very vast erudition, besides many theological writings, among which one in favor of the Immaculate Conception, the Contra maculam beati Bernardi, he owes his fame to the work 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, together with Conrad of Gelnhausen, to formulate. On the 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 integral representation of the Church, had the right to examine the legitimacy of the doubtful election of the pontiff.

Stanislao Majarelli