NIDER, JOHANN. - Dominican, preacher, b. at Isny (Württemberg) c. 1380, d. 13 Aug. 1438 at Nuremberg. He taught at the University of Vienna from 1423 and was dean of the Faculty of Theology there in 1436–37. Prior of the Observants at Nuremberg (1425–29) and at Basel (1429–36), he became vicar general of the German province (1429–38), which he largely reformed.
Preacher of the crusade against the Hussites from 1431, he hardened his stance against their union with the Church in Bohemia as legate of the Council of Basel at the Diet of Regensburg (1434) and at the Council itself. He also engaged in intense literary activity as an erudite and edifying author.
His Formicarius of 1437, which went through several editions (that of Helmstadt [1692] with some alterations), contains anecdotes and dialogues as oratorical material and is a source for contemporary history. He proved himself a moralist in the Praeceptorium divinae legis (17 editions before 1500 and one in 1611), in the Manuale confessorum (12 editions before 1500 and also 1513 and 1514), in the Tractatus de contractibus mercatorum (8 editions before 1500 and also 1514 and 1593), in the Consolatorium itinerantis conscientiae (7 editions of 1500 and also 1604), in the De morali lepra (6 editions before 1500); an ascetical writer in Vier und zweinzig gulden harpfen (9 editions before 1500), in De reformatione religiosorum (Paris 1511, Antwerp 1611); a preacher in his sermons (8 editions up to 1500). He also wrote letters advocating union with the Bohemians.