SPRENGER, JACOB. - Dominican theologian, zealous promoter of the Rosary, b. c. 1436 at Rheinfelden, d. 6 Dec. 1495 at Strasbourg. From the Observant convent of Basel, where he entered in 1452, he was transferred to Cologne, where he matriculated at the university in 1467 and became professor there in 1478; vicar in 1471 and prior in 1472 of the Cologne convent, and provincial of Germany in 1488-95, S. was one of the supporters of regular reform.
Inquisitor for the archdioceses of Cologne, Trier, and Mainz, he assisted Heinrich Institoris somewhat unsuccessfully in the *Malleus maleficarum* (Strasbourg 1487). His glory is the founding of the most famous first Confraternity of the Rosary in Germany, at Cologne, on 8 Sept. 1475. His figure