TAULEN, JoHN, a remarkable mystic and preacher, was b. at Strasburg in 1290, and died there June 16, 1361. About the year 1308, renouncing a considerable fortune, he entered into the mendicant order of Dominicans, and afterward studied theology in Paris, showing at that early period a predilection for speculative and mystic writings, as the scholastic philosophy and the prevailing theology of the schools did not satisfy him. Notwithstanding this tendency, his predominating practical turn of mind led him, on his return to Strasburg, to preaching and pastoral duty; and this he continued to practice with zeal and undaunted courage, even when, in consequence of the excommu nication which the pope had hurled against the emperor Ludwig, the country had fallen into a state of dreadful distraction, and almost all the clergy, in obedience to the inter dict issued by the bishop of Strasburg, had suspended worship. Although Tauler was now 50 years old, and had enjoyed celebrity for several years as a preacher, so power fully was he influenced by a Waldensian of the name of Nicholas von Basel, who paid him a visit in 1340, that he gave himself up for two years to ascetic exercises and devout contemplation. Afterward, however, he betook himself more decidedly to vigorous exertions on behalf of the despised and oppressed people, and preached with wonderful power, inveighing against the avarice, ostentation, and hard-heartedness of the laity as well as of the clergy; and, although not departing from the doctrines of the church, yet fearlessly exposing its abuses, and even not sparing the pope. Thus it happened, that although he had indefatigably administered the consolations of religion in the midst of the horrors and desolation of the black death (q.v.), the bishop interdicted him from
preaching, and he was obliged to quit his native town. He repaired to Cologne; but nothing further is known, either of his residence there or of his return to Strasburg, where, after a life full of toil, denial of self, and beneficence to others, he died, an old man of 70 years, and was buried in his cloister. If not the greatest German preacher of the middle ages as a whole, Tauler certainly was the greatest of his times. As his mysticism was in noway passive, but aimed at rising above the snd condition of his times and the failings of the church by inward piety and a love self-denying but at the same time active; so his style, both in his preaching and in his devotional work, was lively, impressive, picturesque, and had altogether a practical direction. Among his devotional works, the Nachfolge des armen Lebms Christi holds the first place. Whether the sacred hymns which bear his name really belong to him, is doubtful. Of his writings and ser mons, in which he always used the German language, many have been preserved in MS.; and since 1498, numerous editions have been published, but untrustworthy, and often translated into the dialect of the place where they happened to be printed. A careful translation into new High-German has been published by Schlosser (Predigten, 8 vols: Frank. 1826; Nae)folgung des armen Lebens Christi (Frank. 1833); Schmidt, Johannes Tauter von Strasburg (Hamb. 1841); and Susannah Winkworth, Life and limes of Tauter, with 25 of his sermons translated from the German (Lond. and New York, 1857).