HERISAU, the largest town in the Swiss half-canton of Appenzell-ausser-Rhoden, is situated at the confluence of the Glatt and Briihlbach, 7 miles north-west of Appenzell, and about 2550 feet above sea-level. The town is irregularly built, and extends over a large area. The church-tower, in which the archives are kept, is referred to the 7th century. Herisau has a public library, an arsenal, a new town-house, and a hospital, and is the seat of the cantonal council and of a district court of justice. The manufactures comprise muslin, cotton, and silk. Christianity was introduced at Herisau (a name during the Middle Ages Latinized as Augia Domini) about the beginning of the 7th century. The nobles of Herisau were its first superiors, but their power passed in 1390 into the hands of the abbots of St Gall, from whose somewhat oppressive rule the people bought themselves free in 1463. The population in 1870 was 9736. In the neighbourhood beautiful walks lead to the interesting ruins of the castles of Rosenberg and Rosen- burg. The baths and goat’s-whey cure of Heinrichsbad are about a mile to the north-east.
HERISTAL. See Herstal.
HERITABLE JURISDICTIONS, in the law of Scotland, were grants of jurisdiction made to a man and his heirs. They were a usual accompaniment to feudal tenures, and the power which they conferred on great families, being recognized as a source of danger to the state, led to frequent attempts being made by statute to restrict them, both before and after the Union. They were all abolished by the Act 20 Geo. II. c 43, which enacts (§ 1) that all heritable jurisdictions of justiciary, and all regalities and heritable baileries, and all heritable constabularies, other than the office of high constable of Scotland, and all stewartries, being parts only of shires and counties, and all sheriffships an deputy-sheriffships of districts, being parts only of shires and counties, belonging to or possessed by any sub- ject or subjects, shall be taken away and totally dissolved and extinguished. At the same time, constabularies and other jurisdictions having been recognized as rights of pro- perty by the Treaty of Union, the Act provides that com- pensation shall be awarded to all persons lawfully possessed of such jurisdictions, and the sum of £150,000 was after- wards voted by parliament to pay the claims for compensa- tion for loss of jurisdiction, as settled by a report of the Court of Session (see Erskine’s Znstitutes, by Nicholson, p. 92).
HERLEN, Fritz, of Noérdlingen, was an artist of the varly Swabian school, who tempered the rudeness of his native art with some of the delicacy of the masters of Bruges. The date and place of his birth are unknown, but his name is on the rell of the tax-gatherers of Ulm in 1449; and in 1467 he was made citizen and town painter at Nordlingen, ‘‘because of his acquaintance with Flemish methods of painting.” One of the first of his acknowledged productions is a shrine on one of the altars of the church of Rothenburg on the Tauber, the wings of which were finished in 1466, with seven scenes from the lives of Christ and the Virgin Mary. In the town-hall of Rothenburg is a Madonna and St Catherine of 1467; aud in the choir of Nordlingen cathedral a triptych of 1488, representing the Nativity and Christ amidst the Doctors, at the side of a votive Madonna attended by St Joseph and St Margaret as patrons of a family. In each of these works the painter’s name certifies the picture, and the manner is truly that of an artist “acquainted with Flemish methods.” We are not told under whom Herlen laboured in the Netherlands, but he probably took the same course as Schongauer and Hans Holbein the elder, who studied in the school of Van der Weyden. His altarpiece at Rothenburg contains groups and figures, as well as forms of action and drapery, which seem copied from those of Van der Weyden’s or Memling’s disciples, and the votive Madonna of 1488, whilst characterized by similar features, only displays such further changes as may be accounted for by the master’s constant Jater contact with contemporaries in Swabia. Herlen had none of the genius of Schongauer. He failed to acquire the delicacy even of the second-rate men who handed down to Matsys the traditions of the 15th century; but his example was certainly favourable to the development of art in Swabia. By general consent critics have assigned to him a large altarpiece, with scenes from the gospels and figures of St Florian and St Floriana, and a Crucifixion, the principal figure of which is carved in high relief on the surface of a large panel in the church of Diukelsbihl. A Crucifixion, with eight scenes from the New Testament, is shown as his in the cathedral, a Christ in Judginent, with Mary and John, and the Resurrection of Souls in the town-hall of Noérdlingen. A small Epiphany, once in the convent of the Minorites of Ulm, is in the Holzschuher collection at Augsburg, a Madonna and Circumcision in the National Museum at Munich. Herlen’s epitaph, preserved by Rathgeber, states that he died on the 12th of October 1491, and was buried at Nérdlingen.
HERMANN, the popular modern name in Germany for the ancient German hero Arminius. See Germany, vol. x. p. 475.
HERMANN, commonly distinguished as Hermannus Contractus, i.e., Hermann or Heriman the Lame, an old German chronicler and scholar, was born in 1013, a son of the Swabian Count Wolverad (Wolfrat) of Vehreningen (Veringen or Voringen), and died in 1054, at the family residence of Aleshusen near Biberach. Educated at the monastery of Reichenau, and afterwards admitted a member of the fraternity, he added greatly to that reputation for learning which the establishment had maintained from the time of Abbot Berno. Besides the ordinary studies of the monastic scholar, he devoted himself to mathematics, astronomy, and music, and constructed watches and instruments of various kinds.
His chief work is a Chronicon ab urbe condita ad annum 1054, which in its earlier portion consists of a compilation from previous chronicles, but between 1044 and 1054 furnishes important and original material for the history of Henry III. The first edition, from a MS. no longer extant, was printed by Sichard at Basel in 1529, and reissued in 1530; another edition appeared at St Blaise in 1590 under the supervision of Ussermann; and a third, from a Reichenau MS., forms part of vol. v. of Pertz’s Monumenta Germaniæ historica. A German translation of the last is contributed by Robbe to Die Geschichtsschreiber der deutschen Vorzeit. The separate lives of Conrad II. and Henry III., often ascribed to Hermann, appear to have perished. His treatises De mensura astrolabii and De utilitatibus astrolabii (to be found, on the authority of Salzburg MSS., in Pez, Thesaurus anecdotorum novissimus, iii.) being the first contributions of moment furnished by a European to this subject, Hermann was for a time considered the inventor of the astrolabe. A didactic poem from his pen, De octo vitiis principalibus, is printed in Haupt’s Zeitschrift für deutsches Alterthum (vol. xiii.); and he is sometimes credited with the composition of the Latin hymns Veni Sancte Spiritus, Salve Regina, and Alma Redemptoris.
