MATTEO di CRACOVIA. – Theologian and bishop, b. in Cracow around 1335, d. in Pisa on 5 March 1410. At the University of Prague he became magister artium (1367) and doctor of theology (ca. 1381). A renowned orator, he was appointed synodal preacher by the archbishop of Prague. In 1295 he received the chair of theology at the new University of Heidelberg, of which he also became rector the following year.
Confessor to Roberto, elected King of the Romans in 1400, M. di C. had to participate in the entire civil and religious life of the time; sent to Rome to consult Innocenzo VII on the manner of Roberto’s coronation, he was elected bishop of Worms. Appointed cardinal by Gregorio XII (1408), he refused the honor, certainly not because of any lack of attachment to the pars romana (the Western Schism was then at its height), which he defended at the Council of Pisa (1409).
A man of broad and varied culture, he left many works: Tractatus rationis et conscientiae de sumptione pabuli salutiferi corporis Domini nostri Iesu Christi (Mainz 1460); a golden little treatise, which was reprinted several times under different titles, in which priests and the faithful are urged to frequent reception
of the Eucharist, and its conditions are laid down in terms that seem a fortunate anticipation of the decrees of Pius X; De squalore seu de praxi Curiae Romanae (Basel 1551); a dark portrayal of the condition of the Church, together with a reform project; Speculum aureum de titulis beneficiorum (there 1555). Numerous other writings remained unpublished, e.g., Opus de praedestinatione, De consolatione theologiae, De officio antistitum, etc.