Nicolaus Ferber (1485 – 15 April 1534) was a German

Franciscan The Franciscans are a group of related Mendicant orders, mendicant Christianity, Christian Catholic religious order, religious orders within the Catholic Church. Founded in 1209 by Italian Catholic friar Francis of Assisi, these orders include t ...

and controversialist.

Life

Ferber was born at Herborn, Germany. He was made provincial of the Franciscan province of

Cologne Cologne ( ; german: Köln ; ksh, Kölle ) is the largest city of the German western States of Germany, state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and the List of cities in Germany by population, fourth-most populous city of Germany with 1.1 m ...

Pope Clement VII Pope Clement VII ( la, Clemens VII; it, Clemente VII; born Giulio de' Medici; 26 May 1478 – 25 September 1534) was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 19 November 1523 to his death on 25 September 1534. Deemed "the ...

made him

vicar-general A vicar general (previously, archdeacon) is the principal deputy of the bishop of a diocese for the exercise of administrative authority and possesses the title of local ordinary. As vicar of the bishop, the vicar general exercises the bishop's ...

of that branch of the order known as the Cismontane Observance, in which capacity he visited the various provinces of the order in England, Germany, Spain, and Belgium. From about 1520 he was based at

Marburg Marburg ( or ) is a university town in the German federal state (''Bundesland'') of Hesse, capital of the Marburg-Biedenkopf district (''Landkreis''). The town area spreads along the valley of the river Lahn and has a population of approximate ...

. At the

synod of Homberg Synod of Homberg consisted of the clergy, the nobility, and the representatives of cities, and was held October 20–22, 1526. The synod is remarkable for a premature scheme of democratic church government and discipline, which failed for the time, ...

in 1526 he debated with François Lambert, ex-Franciscan, who had become adviser to

Philip of Hesse Philip I, Landgrave of Hesse (13 November 1504 – 31 March 1567), nicknamed (in English: "the Magnanimous"), was a German nobleman and champion of the Protestant Reformation, notable for being one of the most important of the early Protestan ...

. Ferber's position became untenable, and he moved to Brühl Abbey.Thomas Brian Deutscher and Peter G. Bietenholz, ''Contemporaries of Erasmus: A Biographical Register of the Renaissance and Reformation'' (2003), p. 16. At the instance of the bishops of

Denmark ) , song = ( en, "King Christian stood by the lofty mast") , song_type = National and royal anthem , image_map = EU-Denmark.svg , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Danish Realm, Kingdom of Denmark ...

, he was called to

Copenhagen Copenhagen ( or .; da, København ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a proper population of around 815.000 in the last quarter of 2022; and some 1.370,000 in the urban area; and the wider Copenhagen metropolitan ar ...

to champion the Catholic cause against Danish

Lutheranism Lutheranism is one of the largest branches of Protestantism, identifying primarily with the theology of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German monk and Protestant Reformers, reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practice of the Cathol ...

. He died at

Toulouse Toulouse ( , ; oc, Tolosa ) is the prefecture of the French department of Haute-Garonne and of the larger region of Occitania. The city is on the banks of the River Garonne, from the Mediterranean Sea, from the Atlantic Ocean and from Par ...

Works

In Copenhagen he wrote in 1530, the ''Confutatio Lutheranismi Danici'', first edited by L. Schmitt, S.J., and published at Quaracchi (1902), which earned for him the sobriquet of Stagefyr (fire-brand). Ferber's principal work is entitled: ''Locorum communium adversus hujus temporis hæreses Enchiridion'', published at Cologne in 1528, with additions in 1529. Besides this he wrote ''Assertiones CCCXXV adversus Fr. Lamberti paradoxa impia'' etc. (Cologne, 1526, and Paris, 1534); and ''Enarrationes latinæ Evangeliorum quadragesimalium'', preached in German and published in Latin (Antwerp, 1533).

References

*Schmitt, ''Der Kölner Theolog Nicolaus Stagefyr und der Franziskaner Nicolaus Herborn'' (Freiburg, 1896) *

Hugo von Hurter The von Hurter family belonged to the Swiss nobility; in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries three of them were known for their conversions to Roman Catholicism, their ecclesiastical careers in Austria and their theological writings. Friedric ...

, ''Nomenclator'' (Innsbruck, 1906), II, 1255–56 *

Sbaralea Giovanni or Gian Giacinto Sbaraglia (1687–1764), otherwise Joannes Hyacinthus Sbaralea, was a historian of the Franciscan Order , image = FrancescoCoA PioM.svg , image_size = 200px , caption = A cross, Ch ...

, ''Supplementum ad scriptores Ordinis Menorum'', 556.

Notes

External links

''Catholic Encyclopedia'' article
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ferber, Nicolaus 1485 births 1534 deaths German Franciscans 16th-century German Catholic theologians German male non-fiction writers 16th-century German male writers