JACOB OF JUETERBOG: Roman Catholic reformer;
b. near Jüterbog, Brandenburg, 1381; d.
at Erfurt 1465. As a youth he entered the Polish
Cistercian monastery named Paradise, and was
sent by its abbot to the University of Cracow, where
he became professor and university preacher. In
1441, finding the Cistercian discipline too lax, he
joined the Carthusians, and removed to the monastery
Ad Montem Sancti Salvatoris in Erfurt. Here
he was active not only as a writer on canon law
and theology, but also as professor of law at the
university. In 1455 he became its rector. He was
intent upon a regeneration of monastic life. His
propositions of reform, laid down in Petitiones
religiosorum pro reformatione sui status and De
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negligentia praelatorum, rest upon the view that the
pope is only the most prominent member of the
Church; the infallible presence of the Holy Spirit
is promised not to him, but to the Church, which
has the power to depose the pope. He developed
these thoughts in a reformatory memorial addressed
in 1449 to Pope Nicholas V., under the title Avisamentum
ad papam pro reformatione ecclesiae. A
later work, De septem statibus ecclesiae, contains the
passionate lamentation of a hopeless man; its aged
author did not believe any longer in the possibility
of a reform. In spite of his attempts at moral reforms,
he did not deviate from orthodox Catholicism.
He wrote also a great number of works on
canon law, ethics and ascetics, which, however,
have mostly perished. The liberal tendency introduced
by him culminated in humanism at the time
of Luther.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: F. W. Kampschulte, Die Universität Erfurt, i. 15-16, Treves, 1858 (from the Roman Catholic point of view; cf. KL, vi. 1166-71); C. Ullmann, Reformers before the Reformation, i. 208-216, Edinburgh, 1874 (from the Protestant viewpoint); Pastor, Popes, ii. 45-49, 93, 94, 106.
JACOB OF KIEF. See NESTOR.
JACOB OF MIES (called Jacobellus, from his small stature): Bohemian reformer, colaborer of John Huss; b. at Mies (15 m. w. of Pilsen), Bohemia, after 1350; d. at Prague Aug. 9, 1429. He studied at Prague, receiving both the bachelor's and the master's degree in theology, and became pastor of the Church of St. Michael and an outspoken supporter of John Huss. In 1410 he took part in the disputations regarding Wyclif, defending the latter against archiepiscopal condemnation. His study of Scripture and the Fathers had showed him that the withholding of the cup in the administration of the Lord's Supper to the laity was an arbitrary measure of the Roman Church. In 1414 he propounded and defended his views in a public disputation; and when Huss, at that time in jail at Constants, accepted them, he began to administer the cup to his parishioners, in spite of the remonstrances of the bishop and the university. His example was quickly followed by other pastors in Prague. The fathers of the council, who were much alarmed, issued a curious decree, admitting in theory as truth what in practise they condemned as heresy. Though Jacob would by no means submit, he was not removed from his office, perhaps because in other points, as, for instance, in the doctrine of purgatory, he agreed with the Roman Church. During the last decade of his life Jacob was regarded as one of the foremost of the Utraquist theologians.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: E. H. Gillett, Life and Times of John Huss, i., chap. xviii., ii. chap. iii., Philadelphia, 1861; KL, ii, 1315; Neander, Christian Church, v. 297, 331, 337, 338, 367.
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