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 (1834) moved to the Catholic University of Louvain to teach the same disciplines. To his teaching, exercised as a mission until his death, W. added extensive scholarly production, which makes him one of the major European historians of the last century. Among his many works, all inspired by lofty religious sentiments in an age of prevailing secularism, particular mention should be made of the Historiae ecclesiasticae compendium (3 vols., first ed. 1842), repeatedly reprinted, and the Dissertaciones in selecta historiae ecclesiasticae capita (4 vols., 1868–72). The latter deal particularly with the history of the Church in Flanders and the preparations for the Council of Trent.
Renzo U. Montini