RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Hirsch Hirache
abbot was moved to side with Gregory by interest in church reform and in the battle against licentiousness and simony, not because he desired the empire to be subjected to the world-rule of the papacy. Accordingly he did not hesitate, in a letter to the opposition king, Hermann of Luxemburg, to reproach in the severest terms the antiimperial bishops of Saxony, who were allied with the pope for political interests, on account of their ecclesiastical deportment, which was inconsistent with the reformatory requirements.
No sooner was Abbot William dead than the ecclesiastical and political influence of Hirschau began to decline. His successor, Gebhard (1091- 1105), completely abandoned the Decline thought of establishing a congregaafter tion; and Hirschau now ceased to be William's the opposition's headquarters in the Death. investiture strife. Gebhard (d. 1107) received from the hand of the Emperor Henry V. the diocese of Speyer, and achieved a bad repute as bishop on account of his treatment of the dead body of the banished emperor, Henry IV. The period of the monastery's moral and economic degeneracy began after the death of Abbot Mangold (1157-65). In 1215 Emperor Frederick II. assumed the patronal administration of the monastery, which was vested thenceforth in the reigning emperor.
Not until Abbot Wolfram's day (1428-60) was Hirschau revived by his introduction of the Bursfelde rules (see Bursfblde, Congre- Second gation of) in 1457. The monastery Period of now enjoyed a second season of pros- Prosperity, perity, until in 1534 it was reformed The Prot- along Protestant lines; when, as during estant the times of Abbot William, it again Reforma- sent its reforming colonies to other tion. monasteries. Abbot John II. (1524-56) suffered in the Peasants' War, in 1525, when the monastery was stormed and severely damaged. The same abbot had to endure an Evangelical " reading-master," sent to Hirschau in 1535, the same as to other monasteries. After proclamation of the Interim (July 22, 1548) Roman monks again returned; but after the victory by Maurice of Saxony over the emperor, Duke Christopher, on June 11, 1552, gave orders to his abbots forbidding the reception of novices, and prohibiting Roman worship. By his monastery decree in 1556, he instituted at Hirschau one of the four higher cloister schools of his territory, for the education of Evangelical clergymen.
In the Thirty Years' War the monastery was occupied, in 1630, by the imperial troops, and the Protestant abbot, Albrecht Bauhof, Later had to yield. From 1630 to 1631 the History, monastery was occupied by the Roman Catholic abbot, Andreas Geist; and after the battle near Nordlingen, in 1634, the Catholics were able to hold the monastery till 1648. The last of the Catholic abbots, Wunibald Zurcher (1637-48), refused to acknowledge the duke of Wurttemberg as territorial sovereign, and claimed for his monastery immediate dependency on the empire. From the Peace of Westphalia (1648)
Hirschau fulfilled its new and richly favored appointment as Evangelical cloister school till, on Sept. 20, 1692, the French general, Melac, burned the buildings. The cloister school was thereupon removed to Denkendorf. Only the transept of the monastery, a tower of St. Peter's Church of the eleventh century, and the Lady Chapel built in 1516 are still preserved. G. Grutzmacher.
Bibliography: Sources are: Haymo, Vita of the Abbot Wilhelm of Hirschau, ed. W Wattenbach, in MGH, Script, xii (1856), 209-225; Hist, monasterii Hirsaugiensis, ed. G. Waitz, in MGH, Script., xiv (1883), 254-265; Constitutiones et consuetudines monachorum Hirsaugiensium, in Hergott, Vetus discipline, monasiica, pp. 37-132, Paris, 1726; J. Trithemius, Chronicon insigne Hirsaugiense, Basel, 1559; Annates Hirsaugienses, 2 vols., St. Gall, 1690. Consult: M. Kerker, Wilhelm der Selige, Abi zu Hirschau, Tubingen, 1863; C. D. Christmann, Geschichte des Klosters Hirschau, ib. 1782; B. Albers, Hirschau und seine GriXndungen, Freiburg, 1837; F. Steck, Das Kloster Hirschau, Calw, 1844; A. Helmsdorfer, Forschungen zur Geschichte des . Wilhelms von Hirschau, Gottingen,
1874; P. Giseke, Ausbreitung der Hirschau-Regel, Halle, 1877; idem, Die Hirschauer wahrend des Investiturstreites, Gotha, 1883; P. F. Stalin, Geschichte Wurttembergs, i. 1- 2, Gotha, 1882-87; K. Klaiber, Kloster Hirschau, Tubingen, 1886; M. Witten, Der selige Wilhelm Abt von Hirschau, Bonn, 1890; D. Hafner, in Studien und Mitteilungen aus den Benediktiner- und Cisterzienserorden, xii. 244 sqq., xiii. 64 sqq., xiv. 74 sqq., xv. 82 sqq., xv. 54 sqq.; Hauck, KD, ii. 599, 801, iii. 380, 813, 866 sqq.
HIRSCHE, GEORG KARL: German Lutheran divine; b. at Brunswick April 19, 1816; d. at Hamburg July 23, 1892. He was educated at the Collegium Carolinum in Brunswick, then at Gottingen (1833-36). He studied under Liicke at Gottingen and was greatly influenced by him; he also heard Erdmann lecture on philosophy at Berlin (1836). In Nov., 1836, he took his first examination in theology at Wolfenbtittel, and his second in Aug., 1840. Hirsche taught in the public school at Holzminden (1841-46), and in Oct., 1846, he was chosen minister of the Marienkirche at Osnabriick. The choice was not approved by the government but, after tedious negotiations, it was confirmed in 1848. In 1858 he was appointed an ecclesiastical councilor to the duke of Brunswick, which office he held until 1863, when he again entered the ministry at Hamburg, being chosen pastor of the St. Nicholas Church there. He held this position until a few months before his death.
During his pastorate at Hamburg he devoted himself to a study of Thomas a. Kempis and his book Be imitatione Christi. These labors have made him known both to Protestants and Roman Catholics. His purpose was a double one: to restore the " Imitation of Christ " to its original form and secondly to prove that Thomas a. Kempis was the author of the book. He succeeded in both these aims. He discovered from a manuscript in the library at Brussels that the original form of the book must have been in meter and rime. He then hunted through the other works of Thomas and the related literature in order to discover the thoughts which were peculiar to Thomas. This led him to a thoroughgoing investigation of the Brethren of the Common Life (q.v.), the results of which he published in the Herzog RE (2d ed., ii. 678-760). He drew from these investigations the conclusion that the Brethren of the Common Life
Hirscher Hittites, The