SPEE von LANGENFELD, FRIEDRICH. - Jesuit, poet, and ascetical spiritual writer, b. 25 Feb. 1591 at Kaiserwerth, d. at Treviri on 7 Aug. 1635.
Having entered the Order on 22 Sept. 1610 and been ordained priest in 1622, he first devoted himself with great success to the ministry, especially during the Thirty Years’ War, converting several regions to Catholicism; he then taught philosophy and moral theology at Colonia, Paderborn, and Treviri. He died while caring for plague victims. S. was a poet of most delicate feeling and profound spirituality.
His masterpiece is the Trutznachtigal (Colonia 1649), which went through many reprints, one of them edited by Cl. Brentano (1817); and the Guldene Tugendbuch, which Leibnitz called “one of the most substantial and moving books of devotion.” His work Cautio criminalis (Rinteln 1631), condemning trials against witches, was likewise of great value.