Johannes Tauler OP ( – 16 June 1361) was a German mystic, a Roman Catholic priest and a theologian. A disciple of Meister Eckhart, he belonged to the Dominican order. Tauler was known as one of the most important Rhineland mystics. He promoted a certain neo-platonist dimension in the Dominican spirituality of his time. Life He was born about the year 1300 in Strasbourg, and seems to have been the son of Nikolus Tauler or Taweler, of Finkweiler (now Finckwiller st.), who in 1304 was a member of the Strasbourg city council. He entered the Dominican order at the age of about eighteen, and was educated at the Dominican convent in that city. Meister Eckhart, who greatly influenced him, was active in Strasbourg between about 1313 and 1326, though it is unclear what relationship they may have had. It is possible that while taking the customary eight-years' course of study at the monastery he heard Eckhart preach. From Strasbourg he went to the Dominican college of Cologne, and perhaps to St. James's College, Paris, ultimately returning to Strasbourg, but more probably he returned from Cologne to Strasbourg. Around 1330 Tauler began his preaching career in Strasbourg. The city contained eight convents of Dominican nuns and perhaps seventy smaller beguine communities. It seems likely that (as with Meister Eckhart and Henry Suso), much of his preaching was directed to holy women. Most of Tauler's nearly eighty sermons seem to reflect a convent situation, although this may partly reflect the setting in which such sermons were most likely to be written down and preserved. In 1338 or 1339 the Dominicans were exiled from Strasbourg as a result of the tensions between Pope John XXII and Lewis of Bavaria. Tauler spent his exile (c. 1339–1343) in Basel. Here, he became acquainted with the circles of devout clergy and laity known as the Friends of God (Gottesfreunde). Tauler mentions the Friends of God often in his sermons. Evidence for further connections with this group is found in the letters exchanged between the secular priest Henry of Nördlingen and his spiritual friend, the Dominican nun Margaret Ebner. Through Henry, Tauler also became acquainted with Mechthild of Magdeburg's Flowing Light of the Godhead. Tauler worked with the Friends of God, and it was with them that he taught his belief that the state of the soul was affected more by a personal relationship with God than