Author

Johannes Tauler

Dominican preacher of Strasbourg who carried Eckhart’s teaching into the practice of the inner life.

c. 1300–1361

Also known as John Tauler

Biography

Johannes Tauler was born around 1300 in Strasbourg, entered the Dominican order there as a youth, and spent most of his life as a preacher, above all to the Dominican nuns and the beguines of the Rhine valley. He probably heard Meister Eckhart preach, and his teaching is deeply shaped by Eckhart’s, though more cautious in its expression.

During the conflict between the pope and the emperor Louis of Bavaria, when Strasbourg lay under interdict, the city’s Dominicans withdrew for some years to Basel. There Tauler came into contact with the “Friends of God”, circles of clergy and lay people devoted to the inner life. He returned to Strasbourg, ministered during the Black Death, and died there in 1361.

About eighty of his sermons survive, in German. A later legend, the “Master’s Book”, told of a learned master converted by a lay Friend of God, and was long taken to be Tauler’s story; it is now regarded as a pious fiction. His sermons were printed from 1498 and widely read. Martin Luther annotated them and praised them highly, and they shaped both Protestant and Catholic spirituality.

Major works

The History and Life of the Reverend Doctor John Tauler of Strasbourg: with Twenty-Five of His SermonsTranslation, tr. Susanna Winkworth, 1857Winkworth’s translation of twenty-five of Tauler’s sermons, preceded by the “History and Life”, the legend of his conversion by a Friend of God, now regarded as a later fiction, with a preface by Charles Kingsley.

Philosophical ideas

Scholarship

God is born in the ground of the soul, the innermost depth beyond all faculties, when the soul turns inward and lets go of its own will and images.

The way to this ground passes through humility, suffering accepted, and faithfulness in ordinary work; the inner life does not exclude the active life.

Cite this entry

Chicago (bibliography): “Johannes Tauler.” Author. The Library, Unitive Knowledge Society. Last modified November 7, 2026. https://www.unitiveknowledge.org/library/authors/johannes-tauler.
Chicago (note): “Johannes Tauler,” author, The Library, Unitive Knowledge Society, last modified November 7, 2026, https://www.unitiveknowledge.org/library/authors/johannes-tauler.
MLA: “Johannes Tauler.” The Library, Unitive Knowledge Society, 7 Nov. 2026, www.unitiveknowledge.org/library/authors/johannes-tauler.
BibTeX: @misc{authors-johannes-tauler, title = {{Johannes Tauler}}, howpublished = {The Library, Unitive Knowledge Society}, note = {Author. Last modified November 7, 2026}, year = {2026}, url = {https://www.unitiveknowledge.org/library/authors/johannes-tauler} }

Related authors

Influenced by: Meister Eckhart
Contemporary of: Jan van Ruusbroec

Related concepts

Related traditions

Rhineland MysticismMovementThe mystical movement of the fourteenth-century Rhine valley and Low Countries: Eckhart, Tauler, Suso and Ruusbroec.