Men of Understanding
The Men of Understanding (Homines Intelligentiae) were a Christian sect in the Low Countries of Europe in the late 14th and early 15th century until their suppression by the Inquisition.
The sect was founded by Ægidius Cantor, a layman, and was led by Cantor and a Dutch Carmelite named William of Hildernissen.[1]
The sect was doctrinally related to the earlier Brethren of the Free Spirit; they subscribed to a form of universal reconciliation which included demons, the idea that bodily sin could not defile the soul, and a mystical state of perfect illumination and union with God which exempted from all laws and guaranteed salvation. They believed that prayer had no benefits and that there was no resurrection.[2] Both men reported visions; Cantor once, in a state of religious exaltation, ran nude through the streets of Brussels, declaring himself the saviour of mankind.
About 1410, Peter d'Ailly, Bishop of Cambrai, initiated the suppression of the Men of Understanding by the Inquisition. William of Hildernissen recanted, both in 1410 and after a second investigation in 1411,[3] after which he was sentenced permanently to a Carmelite monastery in another diocese. The sect was dissolved after this time.
From the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia
Men of Understanding — (HOMINES INTELLIGENTIAE).
Name assumed by a heretical sect which in 1410-11 was cited before the Inquisition at Brussels. Its leaders were Egidius Cantoris, an illiterate layman, and the Carmelite William of Hildernissen, near Bergen-op-Zoom. The sect was doctrinally related with the earlier Brethren of the Free Spirit. It taught the eventual salvation of all human beings and even of the demons, maintained that the soul of man cannot be defiled by bodily sin, and believed in a mystical state of illumination and union with God so perfect that it exempted from all subjection to moral and ecclesiastical laws and was an infallible pledge of salvation. Both leaders gloried in the visions with which they claimed to have been favoured. Cantoris in a moment of religious exaltation went so far as to run nude through the streets of Brussels declaring himself the saviour of mankind. About 1410 Peter d'Ailly, Bishop of Cambrai, seems to have taken the first steps towards the suppression of the heresy. William of Hildernissen consented to a retractation, the sincerity of which appeared doubtful. In 1411, a second investigation resulted in another retractation, but also in a sentence compelling William to return permanently to an extra-diocesan Carmelite monastery after three years' detention in one of the episcopal castles. No information has reached us respecting the result of the inquisitorial procedure against the other members of the sect.
FREDERICQ, Corpus documentorum inquisitionis Neerlandicae, I, 267-79 (Ghent, 1889); HAUPT in Realenc. f. prot. Theol., VIII, 311-12; LEA, History of the Inquisition, II, 405-06 (New York, 1888).