HERLEN (or Herlin), FRITZ, of Nördlingen, German artist of the early Swabian school, in the 15th century. The date and place of his birth are unknown, but his name is on the roll of the tax-gatherers of Ulm in 1449; and in 1467 he was made citizen and town painter at Nördlingen, “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; and in the choir of Nördlingen 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 Memlinc’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 later 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 altar-piece, 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 Dinkelsbühl. A Crucifixion, with eight scenes from the New Testament, is shown as his in the cathedral, a “Christ in Judgment, with Mary and John,” and the “Resurrection of Souls” in the town-hall of Nördlingen. 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 Nördlingen.
HERMAE, in Greek antiquities, quadrangular pillars, broader above than at the base, surmounted by a head or bust, so called either because the head of Hermes was most common or from their etymological connexion with the Greek word ἕρματα (blocks of stone), which originally had no reference to Hermes at all. In the oldest times Hermes, like other divinities, was worshipped in the form of a heap of stones or of an amorphous block of wood or stone, which afterwards took the shape of a phallus, the symbol of productivity. The next step was the addition of a head to this phallic column which became quadrangular (the number 4 was sacred to Hermes, who was born on the fourth day of the month), with the significant indication of sex still prominent. In this shape the number of herms rapidly increased, especially those of Hermes, for which the distinctive name of Hermhermae has been suggested. In Athens they were found at the corners of streets; before the gates and in the courtyards of houses, where they were worshipped by women as having the power to make them prolific; before the temples; in the gymnasia and palaestrae. On each side of the road leading from the Stoa Poikile to the Stoa Basileios, rows of Hermae were set up in such numbers by the piety of private individuals or public corporations, that the Stoa Basileios was called the Stoa of the Hermae. The function of Hermes as protector of the roads, of merchants and of commerce, explains the number of Hermae that served the purpose of signposts on the roads outside the city. It is stated in the pseudo-Platonic Hipparchus that the son of Peisistratus had set up marble pillars at suitable places on the roads leading from the different country districts to Athens, having the places connected with the roads inscribed on the one side in a hexameter verse, and on the other a pentameter containing a short proverb or moral precept for the edification of travellers. Sometimes they bore inscriptions celebrating the valour of those who had fought for their country. Just as it was customary for the passer-by to show respect to the rudest form of the god (the heap of stones) by contributing a stone to the heap or anointing it with oil, in like manner small offerings, generally of dried figs, were deposited near the Hermae, to appease the hunger of the necessitous wayfarer. Garlands of flowers were also suspended on the two arm-like tenons projecting from either side of the column at the top (for the oracle at Pharae see [Hermes]). These pillars were also used to mark the frontier boundaries or the limits of different estates. The great respect attaching to them is shown by the excitement caused in Athens by the “Mutilation of the Hermae” just before the departure of the Sicilian expedition (May 415 B.C.). They formed the object of a special industry, the makers of them being called Hermoglyphi. The surmounting heads were not, however, confined to those of Hermes; those of other gods and heroes, and even of distinguished mortals, were of frequent occurrence. In this case a compound was formed: Hermathena (a herm of Athena), Hermares, Hermaphroditus, Hermanubis, Hermalcibiades, and so on. In the case of these compounds it is disputed whether they indicated a herm with the head of Athena, or with a Janus-like head of both Hermes and Athena, or a figure compounded of both deities. The Romans not only borrowed the Hermes pillars for their deities which at an early period they assimilated to those of the Greeks (as Heracles—Hercules) but also for the indigenous gods who preserved their individuality. Thus herms of Jupiter Terminalis (the hermae being identified with the Roman termini) and of Silvanus occur. Under the empire, the function of the hermae was rather architectural than religious. They were used to keep up the draperies in the interior of a house, and in the Circus Maximus they were used to support the barriers.
See the article with bibliography by Pierre Paris in Daremberg and Saglio’s Dictionnaire des antiquités; for the mutilation of the Hermae, Thucydides vi. 27; Andocides, De mysteriis; Grote, Hist. of Greece, ch. 58; H. Weil, Études sur l’antiquité grecque (1900); Burolt, Griech. Gesch. (ed. 1904), III. ii. p. 1287.
HERMAGORAS, of Temnos, Greek rhetorician of the Rhodian school and teacher of oratory in Rome, flourished during the first half of the 1st century B.C. He obtained a great reputation among a certain section and founded a special school, the members of which called themselves Hermagorei. His chief opponent was Posidonius of Rhodes, who is said to have contended with him in argument in the presence of Pompey (Plutarch, Pompey, 42). Hermagoras devoted himself particularly to the branch of rhetoric known as οἰκονομία (inventio), and is said to have invented the doctrine of the four στάσεις (status) and to have arranged the parts of an oration differently from his predecessors. Cicero held an unfavourable opinion of his methods, which were approved by Quintilian, although he considers that Hermagoras neglected the practical side of rhetoric for the theoretical. According to Suidas and Strabo, he was the author of τέχναι ῥητορικαί (rhetorical manuals) and of other works, which should perhaps be attributed to his younger namesake, surnamed Carion, the pupil of Theodorus of Gadara.
See Strabo xiii. p. 621; Cicero, De inventione, i. 6. 8, Brutus, 76, 263. 78, 271; Quintilian, Instit. iii. 1. 16, 3. 9, 11. 22; C. W. Piderit, De Hermagora rhetore (1839); G. Thiele, Hermagoras Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Rhetorik (1893).
HERMANDAD (from hermano, Lat. germanus, a brother), a Castilian word meaning, strictly speaking, a brotherhood. In the Romance language spoken on the east coast of Spain in Catalonia it is written germandat or germania. In the form germania it has acquired the significance of “thieves’ Latin” or “thieves’ cant,” and is applied to any jargon supposed to be understood only by the Initiated. But the typical “germania” is a mixture of slang and of the gipsy language. The hermandades have played a conspicuous part in the history of Spain. The first recorded case of the formation of an hermandad occurred in the 12th century when the towns and the peasantry of the north united to police the pilgrim road to Santiago in Galicia, and protect the pilgrims against robber knights. Throughout the middle ages such alliances were frequently formed by combinations of towns to protect the roads connecting them, and were occasionally extended to political purposes. They acted to some extent like the Fehmic courts of Germany. The Catholic sovereigns, Ferdinand and Isabella, adapted an existing hermandad to the purpose of a general police acting under officials appointed by themselves, and endowed with large powers of summary jurisdiction even in capital cases. The hermandad became, in fact, a constabulary, which, however, fell gradually into neglect. In Catalonia and Valencia the “germanias” were combinations of the peasantry to resist the exactions of the feudal lords.