HERSFELD (HEROLVESFELD): A town of Hesse-Nassau, Germany, about twenty-three miles north of Fulda, the site of a celebrated abbey founded about 770 by Archbishop Lullus of Mainz. Charles the Great placed the monastery under royal protection and conferred upon the monks freedom of choice in the election of their abbot. He also bestowed upon it extensive territorial possessions. During the lifetime of its founder the monastery included 150 monks, who were active in propagating Christianity among the Saxons. Literary labor began in the ninth century, the most important production being the Hersfeld chronicles, now lost, but drawn upon by the compilers of the chronicles of Hildesheim, Quedlinburg, and Weissenburg.

At Herafeld, in the eleventh century, wrote Lambert (q.v.) and the author of the Liber de unitate ecclesite conservanda, according to some Walram, later bishop of Raumburg. Beginning with the thirteenth century, the town gradually freed itself from the jurisdiction of the abbey, and about 1371 placed itself under the protection of the landgrave of Hesse, which was conceded by the abbot in 1432. The prosperity of the abbey declined; and on the resignation of Abbot Wolpert in 1513 it was placed under the abbot of Fulda for a time. Abbot Krato (1517-56) was inclined to Lutheran ideas, but the abbey maintained a feeble existence until the death of the last abbot, Joachim 8511, in 1606. The landgrave of Hesse kept the administration in his family until at the Peace of Westphalia (1648) the territory of the abbey, as a fief of the empire, was formally incorporated with Hesse.

Bibliography: Lampertus, De institutions Heroeldensis eccleaim, in his Opera, Hanover, 1894; idem, Vita Lulli, in MGH, Script., xv. 1 (1887), 132; Miracula Wigberti, in MGH, Script., iv (1841), 224; Rettberg, KD, i. 602; Hauck, KD, ii. 58.

HERTZLER, CHARLES WILLIAM: Methodist Episcopal; b. at Burlington, Ia., Feb. 22, 1867. He studied at German Wallace College, Berea, O. (B.A.,1889) and the University of Berlin (1892-93), and held pastorates -at Peoria, Ill. (1889-91), and St. Louis, Mo. (1891-92). After his return from Germany he was pastor at Jordan, Minn., from 1893 to 1895, when he was appointed president of St. Paul's College, St. Paul, Minn., a position which he occupied for five years. Since 1900 he has been professor of practical theology at Nast Theological Seminary, Berea, O.

HERVAEUS BRITO (HERVAEUS NATALIS; Hervé de Nédellec): Thomist philosopher and theologian; b. at Nddellec, Brittany; d. at Narbonne Aug., 1323. He studied at Paris, entered the Dominican order, became provincial for France in 1309 and general of his order in 1318.

For many years he taught scholastic theology and philosophy. As a moderate Thomist, he distinguished himself by his opposition to the views of Duns Scotus. In opposition to the univocal. being of the Scotists he maintained that the reality of individual objects depends upon that background of being which is common to them. On the other hand, he seemed to incline toward nominalism in his view that universals, though they have their basis in the nature of things, are subjective. In particular Hervaeus devoted his attention to the famous question of individuation, which the Scotists had explained by the doctrine of haecceity. He showed that liaecceity itself is only a universal concept, which becomes a principle of individuation only when applied to an individual thing, and that such a principle might just as well be applied to matter or form. His own view is that essence is the inner principle of individuation. In theology Hervaeus held that the existence of God can be deduced on rational grounds, but that positive knowledge of God is won only through faith. He treated the doctrines concerning God, the Trinity, and Christ in the traditional scheme of distinctions. His importance lies in the insight which he gives into the sphere of interests of Thomistic philosophy and theology after Scotus. His chief. works are: In quatuor Petri Lombardi sentegit,volumina scripta subtilissima (Venice, 1505); Quodlibeta undecim cum octo profundissimis tractahWus (1513); and De intentionibus secundis (Paris, 1544).; A list of unpublished writings by Hervaeus will be found in Qudtif and Itchard's Seriptores ordinis prwdiicatorum (vol. i., p. 533, Paris, 1719).

(R. Seeberg.)

Bibliography: J. C. F. Hoefer, Nouvelle biographie pEn_rale, xxiv. 532-533, 46 vols., Paris, 1852-1866; K. Werner, Der heilige Thomas won Aquino, iii. 104 sqq., Regensburg, 1859; B. Haurdsu, Hist. de la philosophie scolaatique, ii. 2, pp. 327 sqq., Paris, 1880; KL, v. 1916-17.