NETTER, THOMAS. — Carmelite controversialist, born in Saffron Walden (Essex) ca. 1375. From his place of origin, he is better known by the epithet *Waldensis*.
A Carmelite friar in London, he was ordained priest on 23 Sept. 1396 and earned his doctorate in theology at Oxford (*Doctor praestantissimus*). He served as Provincial of England (1416–30); in this office, and together with Nicomachus Gregory, he promoted regular observance and intellectual activity.
Confessor to the royal court, he was a close advisor to the kings of England. In 1409, Henry IV sent him as his spokesman to the Council of Pisa. In 1415, he attended the Council of Constance as an envoy of Henry V. The latter also appointed him as his representative on a special mission to reconcile Władysław of Poland, Alexander, Grand Duke of Lithuania, and Michael, Grand Master of the Teutonic Order in Prussia. In France, at Vincennes, on 30 August, he attended King Henry V on his deathbed. He died while accompanying Henry VI to France as his chaplain on 2 Nov. 1430.
More than fifty different works are known to us, covering philosophy, theology, polemics, biblical exegesis, sacred eloquence, and an interesting collection of letters (cf. extracts in Zimmermann [V. BIBLICA.], pp. 444–82). His principal work, however, is the *Doctrinale antiquitatum fidei catholicae Ecclesiae*, a thorough indictment of the errors of the Wycliffites and Hussites. Notable within it are doctrinal developments on the members of the Church, the primacy of St Peter, papal infallibility, and transubstantiation. His *De sacramentaliibus* is the first systematic treatise on the subject.
Several editions of his works exist, the most accurate being that of Venice (1757–59). The *Doctrinale* was admired by his contemporaries, and its author—especially for his perfect orthodoxy, recognized even during his lifetime by Pope Martin V after a careful examination of the first two parts—was esteemed for his wide patristic learning and dialectical vigor and hailed as the *princeps controversistarum* of his age.