Ferber, Nicolaus, Friar Minor and controversialist, b. at Herborn, Germany, in 1485; d. at Toulouse, 15 April, 1534. He was made provincial of the Franciscan province of Cologne and was honoured by Clement VII with the office of vicar-general 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. At the instance of the bishops of Denmark, he was called to Copenhagen to champion the Catholic cause against Danish Lutheranism, and there he composed, 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 latine Evangeliorum quadragesimalium”, preached in German and published in Latin (Antwerp, 1533).
SCHMITT, Der Kölner Theolog Nicolaus Stagefyr und der Franziskaner Nicolaus Herborn (Freiburg, 1896); HURTER, Nomenclator (Innsbruck, 1906), II, 1255-56; SBARALEA, Supplementum ad scriptores Ordinis Minorum, 556.
Stephen M. Donovan.