Hermann of Reichenau

An artistic rendering of "Herman the Lame" as he is sometimes called

Relics of Hermann in Altshausen, Germany

Salve Regina of Herman de Reichenau sung by Les Petits Chanteurs de Passy

Hermann of Reichenau (1013 July 18 – 1054 September 24), also called Hermannus Contractus or Hermannus Augiensis or Herman the Cripple, was an 11th century scholar, composer, music theorist, mathematician, and astronomer. He composed the Marian prayer Alma Redemptoris Mater. He was beatified (cultus confirmed) in 1863.

Childhood

Hermann was a son of the duke of Altshausen. He was crippled by a paralytic disease from early childhood. He was born in 1013 with a cleft palate, cerebral palsy and spina bifida. [None of the sources cited just the specific diagnosis of spina bifida]. As a result he had great difficulty moving and could hardly speak. At the age of seven he was placed in a Benedictine monastery by his parents who could no longer look after him. He grew up in the monastery, learning from the monks and developing a keen interest in both theology and the world around him.

Adulthood

He spent most of his life in the abbey of Reichenau, an island on Lake Constance. Hermannus contributed to all four arts of the quadrivium. He was renowned as a musical composer (among his surviving works are officia for St. Afra and St. Wolfgang). He also wrote a treatise on the science of music, several works on geometry and arithmetics and astronomical treatises (including instructions for the construction of an astrolabe, at the time a very novel device in Western Europe). As a historian, he wrote a detailed chronicle from the birth of Christ to his own present day, for the first time compiling the events of the 1st millennium AD scattered in various chronicles in a single work, ordering them after the reckoning of the Christian era. His disciple Berthold of Reichenau was its continuator.

At the age of twenty Herman was professed as a Benedictine monk; he spent the rest of his life in the monastery. He was literate in several languages, including Arabic, Greek and Latin and wrote about mathematics, astronomy and Christianity. He built musical and astronomical instruments and was also a famed religious poet. [None of the references justify the claim that he could read Arabic. There were few Arabic speaking scholars in Europe at this time, and Herman could not have learned by traveling scholars]. When he went blind in later life he began writing hymns. His best known is Salve Regina (Hail Holy Queen).

Herman died at the age of forty in the monastery in 1054. The Church beatified him in 1863.

Legacy and influence

Three of five symphonies that were written by Russian composer Galina Ustvolskaya are based on his texts.

See also

• List of Roman Catholic scientist-clerics

External links

• O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F., "Hermann of Reichenau", MacTutor History of Mathematics archive, University of St Andrews, http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Hermann_of_Reichenau.html .
• Catholic Encyclopedia
• Hermannus Contractus German language site with a collection of original texts
• Catholic Forum
• musicologie.org Hermannus Contractus et la théorie de la musique. Sources, éditions, bibliographie, commentaires