TEODORICO di NYEM. — German conciliarist canonist, b. around 1340 at Brakel in Westphalia, d. at Maastricht on 22 March 1418.
From 1370 he was a notary at the Papal Curia in Avignon; he followed Gregorio XI to Rome (1377) and witnessed the outbreak of the Great Schism, while nevertheless remaining faithful to Urbano VI. In 1395 Bonifacio IX appointed him bishop of Verden, but he was not consecrated, nor did he take possession of the episcopate, and he remained an abbreviator and writer in the Papal Chancery. He sided with Alessandro V and Giovanni XXIII, with whom he took part in the Council of Constance; after the latter’s flight, however, he definitively separated from him and composed a violent pamphlet: Invectiva in fugientem e Concilio Constantieni Joannem XXIII, which contributed greatly to the measures taken by the Assembly against the Pope and, together with his other writings, to the development of conciliar ideas.
T.’s production is extensive: Liber Cancellariae apostolicae and Stilus Palatii abbreviatus, collections of formularies for use by the Rota and the Papal Chancery; De schismate libri tres, a history of the Great Schism, rich in important details, although written with partisan concerns. On the Council and reform: De modis unendi ac reformandi Ecclesiam and Avisamenta de unione et reformatione membrorum et capitis fienda.
For him, the superiority of the council over the pontiff was undisputed, because only the general council represents the universal Church and can issue decisions from which there is no appeal. The council is superior to the pope in authority, dignity, and function; it can elect the pope, limit his powers, deprive him of his title, and indeed could also depose him. Originally, the authority of the bishops was equal to that of the popes, and the present pontifical primacy must be regarded as a delegation granted to him by the Church and which could be withdrawn.