WOUTERS, G. HENRY. - Historian, born at Oostham (Belgian Limburg) on 3 May 1802, died at Nijmegen on 5 January 1872.
At the age of twenty-seven he was already professor of moral theology and ecclesiastical history at the University of Liège, from which he later moved (1834) to the Catholic University of Leuven to teach the same disciplines there. To his teaching, which he exercised as a mission until his death, W. united a vast scholarly output, which makes him one of the greatest European historians of the last century. Among his many works, all inspired by lofty religious sentiments in an age dominated by secularism, particular mention should be made of the Historia ecclesiastica compendium (3 vols., 1st ed. 1842), reprinted many times, and the Dissertationes in selecta historiae ecclesiasticae capita (4 vols., 1868–72). These works deal especially with the history of the Church in Flanders and the preparation for the Council of Trent.