[1] Perrone, _De locis theologicis_, pt. i., sec. i. cap. 2.
[2] Si quis dixerit in ecclesia catholica non esse hierarchiam divina
ordinatione institutam, quae constat ex episcopis, presbyteris, et
ministris: anathema sit.
HIERATIC, priestly or sacred (Gr. [Greek: hieratikos, hieros], sacred),
a term particularly applied to a style of ancient Egyptian writing,
which is a simplified cursive form of hieroglyphic. The name was first
given by Champollion (see EGYPT, S _Language_).
HIERAX, or HIERACAS, a learned ascetic who flourished about the end of
the 3rd century at Leontopolis in Egypt, where he lived to the age of
ninety, supporting himself by calligraphy and devoting his leisure to
scientific and literary pursuits, especially to the study of the Bible.
He was the author of Biblical commentaries both in Greek and Coptic, and
is said to have composed many hymns. He became leader of the so-called
sect of the Hieracites, an ascetic society from which married persons
were excluded, and of which one of the leading tenets was that only the
celibate could enter the kingdom of heaven. He asserted that the
suppression of the sexual impulse was emphatically the new revelation
brought by the Logos, and appealed to 1 Cor. vii., Heb. xii. 14, and
Matt. xix. 12, xxv. 21. Hierax may be called the connecting link between
Origen and the Coptic monks. A man of deep learning and prodigious
memory, he seems to have developed Origen's Christology in the direction
of Athanasius. He held that the Son was a torch lighted at the torch of
the Father, that Father and Son are a bipartite light. He repudiated the
ideas of a bodily resurrection and a material paradise, and on the
ground of 2 Tim. ii. 5 questioned the salvation of even baptized
infants, "for without knowledge no conflict, without conflict no
reward." In his insistence on virginity as the specifically Christian
virtue he set up the great theme of the church of the 4th and 5th
centuries.
HIERO (strictly HIERON), the name of two rulers of Syracuse.
HIERO I. was the brother of Gelo, and tyrant of Syracuse from 478 to
467/6 B.C. During his reign he greatly increased the power of Syracuse.
He removed the inhabitants of Naxos and Catana to Leontini, peopled
Catana (which he renamed Aetna) with Dorians, concluded an alliance with
Acragas (Agrigentum), and espoused the cause of the Locrians against
Anaxilaus, tyrant of Rhegium. His most important achievement was the
defeat of the Etruscans at Cumae (474), by which he saved the Greeks of
Campania. A bronze helmet (now in the British Museum), with an
inscription commemorating the event, was dedicated at Olympia. Though
despotic in his rule Hiero was a liberal patron of literature. He died
at Catana in 467.
See Diod. Sic. xi. 38-67; Xenophon, _Hiero_, 6. 2; E. Lubbert,
_Syrakus zur Zeit des Gelon und Hieron_ (1875); for his coins see
NUMISMATICS (section _Sicily_).
HIERO II., tyrant of Syracuse from 270 to 216 B.C., was the illegitimate
son of a Syracusan noble, Hierocles, who claimed descent from Gelo. On
the departure of Pyrrhus from Sicily (275) the Syracusan army and
citizens appointed him commander of the troops. He materially
strengthened his position by marrying the daughter of Leptines, the
leading citizen. In the meantime, the Mamertines, a body of Campanian
mercenaries who had been employed by Agathocles, had seized the
stronghold of Messana, whence they harassed the Syracusans. They were
finally defeated in a pitched battle near Mylae by Hiero, who was only
prevented from capturing Messana by Carthaginian interference. His
grateful countrymen then chose him king (270). In 264 he again returned
to the attack, and the Mamertines called in the aid of Rome. Hiero at
once joined the Punic leader Hanno, who had recently landed in Sicily;
but being defeated by the consul Appius Claudius, he withdrew to
Syracuse. Pressed by the Roman forces, in 263 he was compelled to
conclude a treaty with Rome, by which he was to rule over the south-east
of Sicily and the eastern coast as far as Tauromenium (Polybius i. 8-16;
Zonaras viii. 9). From this time till his death in 216 he remained loyal
to the Romans, and frequently assisted them with men and provisions
during the Punic wars (Livy xxi. 49-51, xxii. 37, xxiii. 21). He kept up
a powerful fleet for defensive purposes, and employed his famous kinsman
Archimedes in the construction of those engines that, at a later date,
played so important a part during the siege of Syracuse by the Romans.
A picture of the prosperity of Syracuse during his rule is given in
the sixteenth idyll of Theocritus, his favourite poet. See Diod. Sic.
xxii. 24-xxvi. 24; Polybius i. 8-vii. 7; Justin xxiii. 4.
HIEROCLES, proconsul of Bithynia and Alexandria, lived during the reign
of Diocletian (A.D. 284-305). He is said to have been the instigator of
the fierce persecution of the Christians under Galerius in 303. He was
the author of a work (not extant) entitled [Greek: logoi philaletheis
pros tous Christianous] in two books, in which he endeavoured to
persuade the Christians that their sacred books were full of
contradictions, and that in moral influence and miraculous power Christ
was inferior to Apollonius of Tyana. Our knowledge of this treatise is
derived from Lactantius (_Instit. div._ v. 2) and Eusebius, who wrote a
refutation entitled [Greek: Antirrhetikos pros ta Hierokleous].
HIEROCLES OF ALEXANDRIA, Neoplatonist writer, flourished c. A.D. 430. He
studied under the celebrated Neoplatonist Plutarch at Athens, and taught
for some years in his native city. He seems to have been banished from
Alexandria and to have taken up his abode in Constantinople, where he
gave such offence by his religious opinions that he was thrown into
prison and cruelly flogged. The only complete work of his which has been
preserved is the commentary on the _Carmina Aurea_ of Pythagoras. It
enjoyed a great reputation in middle age and Renaissance times, and
there are numerous translations in various European languages. Several
other writings, especially one on providence and fate, a consolatory
treatise dedicated to his patron Olympiodorus of Thebes, author of
[Greek: historikoi logoi], are quoted or referred to by Photius and
Stobaeus. The collection of some 260 witticisms ([Greek: asteia]) called
[Greek: Philogelos] (ed. A. Eberhard, Berlin, 1869), attributed to
Hierocles and Philagrius, has no connexion with Hierocles of Alexandria,
but is probably a compilation of later date, founded on two older
collections. It is now agreed that the fragments of the _Elements of
Ethics_ ([Greek: Ethike stoicheiosis]) preserved in Stobaeus are from a
work by a Stoic named Hierocles, contemporary of Epictetus, who has been
identified with the "Hierocles Stoicus vir sanctus et gravis" in Aulus
Gellius (ix. 5. 8). This theory is confirmed by the discovery of a
papyrus (ed. H. von Arnim in _Berliner Klassikertexte_, iv. 1906; see
also C. Prachter, _Hierokles der Stoiker_, 1901).
There is an edition of the commentary by F. W. Mullach in _Fragmenta
philosophorum Graecorum_ (1860), i. 408, including full information
concerning Hierocles, the poem and the commentary; see also E. Zeller,
_Philosophie der Griechen_ (2nd ed.), iii. 2, pp. 681-687; W. Christ,
_Geschichte der griechischen Literatur_ (1898), pp. 834, 849.
Another Hierocles, who flourished during the reign of Justinian, was
the author of a list of provinces and towns in the Eastern Empire,
called [Greek: Synekdemos] ("fellow-traveller"; ed. A. Burckhardt,
1893); it was one of the chief authorities used by Constantine
Porphyrogenitus in his work on the "themes" of the Roman Empire (see
C. Krumbacher, _Geschichte der byzantinischen Literatur_, 1897, p.
417). In Fabricius's _Bibliotheca Graeca_ (ed. Harles), i. 791,
sixteen persons named Hierocles, chiefly literary, are mentioned.
HIEROGLYPHICS (Gr. [Greek: hieros], sacred, and [Greek: glyphe],
carving), the term used by Greek and Latin writers to describe the
sacred characters of the ancient Egyptian language in its classical
phase. It is now also used for various systems of writing in which
figures of objects take the place of conventional signs. Such characters
which symbolize the idea of a thing without expressing the name of it
are generally styled "ideographs" (Gr. [Greek: idea], idea, and [Greek:
graphein], to write), e.g. the Chinese characters.
See EGYPT, _Language_; CUNEIFORM; INSCRIPTIONS and WRITING.
HIERONYMITES, a common name for three or four congregations of hermits
living according to the rule of St Augustine with supplementary
regulations taken from St Jerome's writings. Their habit was white, with
a black cloak. (1) The Spanish Hieronymites, established near Toledo in
1374. The order soon became popular in Spain and Portugal, and in 1415
it numbered 25 houses. It possessed some of the most famous monasteries
in the Peninsula, including the royal monastery of Belem near Lisbon,
and the magnificent monastery built by Philip II. at the Escurial.
Though the manner of life was very austere the Hieronymites devoted
themselves to studies and to the active work of the ministry, and they
possessed great influence both at the Spanish and the Portuguese courts.
They went to Spanish and Portuguese America and played a considerable
part in Christianizing and civilizing the Indians. There were
Hieronymite nuns founded in 1375, who became very numerous. The order
decayed during the 18th century and was completely suppressed in 1835.
(2) Hieronymites of the Observance, or of Lombardy: a reform of (1)
effected by the third general in 1424; it embraced seven houses in Spain
and seventeen in Italy, mostly in Lombardy. It is now extinct. (3) Poor
Hermits of St Jerome, established near Pisa in 1377: it came to embrace
nearly fifty houses whereof only one in Rome and one in Viterbo survive.
(4) Hermits of St Jerome of the congregation of Fiesole, established in
1406: they had forty houses but in 1668 they were united to (3).
See Helyot, _Histoire des ordres religieux_ (1714), iii. cc. 57-60,
iv. cc. 1-3; Max Heimbucher, _Orden und Kongregationen_ (1896), i. S
70; and art. "Hieronymiten" in Herzog-Hauck, _Realencyklopadie_ (ed.
3), and in Welte and Wetzer, _Kirchenlexicon_ (ed. 2). (E. C. B.)
HIERONYMUS OF CARDIA, Greek general and historian, contemporary of
Alexander the Great. After the death of the king he followed the
fortunes of his friend and fellow-countryman Eumenes. He was wounded and
taken prisoner by Antigonus, who pardoned him and appointed him
superintendent of the asphalt beds in the Dead Sea. He was treated with
equal friendliness by Antigonus's son Demetrius, who made him polemarch
of Thespiae, and by Antigonus Gonatas, at whose court he died at the age
of 104. He wrote a history of the Diadochi and their descendants,
embracing the period from the death of Alexander to the war with Pyrrhus
(323-272 B.C.), which is one of the chief authorities used by Diodorus
Siculus (xviii.-xx.) and also by Plutarch in his life of Pyrrhus. He
made use of official papers and was careful in his investigation of
facts. The simplicity of his style rendered his work unpopular, but it
is probable that it was on a high level as compared with that of his
contemporaries. In the last part of his work he made a praiseworthy
attempt to acquaint the Greeks with the character and early history of
the Romans. He is reproached by Pausanias (i. 9. 8) with unfairness
towards all rulers with the exception of Antigonus Gonatas.
See Lucian, _Macrobii_, 22; Plutarch, _Demetrius_, 39; Diod. Sic.
xviii. 42. 44. 50, xix. 100; Dion. Halic. _Antiq. Rom._ i. 6; F.
Bruckner, "De vita et scriptis Hieronymi Cardii" in _Zeitschrift fur
die Alterthumswissenschaft_ (1842); F. Reuss, _Hieronymus von Kardia_
(Berlin, 1876); C. Wachsmuth, _Einleitung in das Studium der alten
Geschichte_ (1895); fragments in C. W. Muller, _Frag. hist. Graec._
ii. 450-461.
HIERRO, or FERRO, an island in the Atlantic Ocean, forming part of the
Spanish archipelago of the Canary Islands (q.v.). Pop. (1900) 6508; area
107 sq. m. Hierro, the most westerly and the smallest island of the
group, is somewhat crescent-shaped. Its length is about 18 m., its
greatest breadth about 15 m., and its circumference 50 m. It lies 92 m.
W.S.W. of Teneriffe. Its coast is bound by high, steep rocks, which only
admit of one harbour, but the interior is tolerably level. Its hill-tops
in winter are sometimes wrapped in snow. Better and more abundant grass
grows here than on any of the other islands. Hierro is exposed to
westerly gales which frequently inflict great damage. Fresh water is
scarce, but there is a sulphurous spring, with a temperature of 102 deg.
Fahr. The once celebrated and almost sacred Til tree, which was reputed
to be always distilling water in great abundance from its leaves, no
longer exists. Only a small part of the cultivable land is under
tillage, the inhabitants being principally employed in pasturage.
Valverde (pop. about 3000) is the principal town. Geographers were
formerly in the habit of measuring all longitudes from Ferro, the most
westerly land known to them. The longitude assigned at first has,
however, turned out to be erroneous; and the so-called "Longitude of
Ferro" does not coincide with the actual longitude of the island.
HIGDON (or HIGDEN), RANULF (c. 1299-c. 1363), English chronicler, was a
Benedictine monk of the monastery of St Werburg in Chester, in which he
lived, it is said, for sixty-four years, and died "in a good old age,"
probably in 1363. Higdon was the author of a long chronicle, one of
several such works based on a plan taken from Scripture, and written for
the amusement and instruction of his society. It closes the long series
of general chronicles, which were soon superseded by the invention of
printing. It is commonly styled the _Polychronicon_, from the longer
title _Ranulphi Castrensis, cognomine Higdon, Polychronicon (sive
Historia Polycratica) ab initio mundi usque ad mortem regis Edwardi III.
in septem libros dispositum_. The work is divided into seven books, in
humble imitation of the seven days of Genesis, and, with exception of
the last book, is a summary of general history, a compilation made with
considerable style and taste. It seems to have enjoyed no little
popularity in the 15th century. It was the standard work on general
history, and more than a hundred MSS. of it are known to exist. The
Christ Church MS. says that Higdon wrote it down to the year 1342; the
fine MS. at Christ's College, Cambridge, states that he wrote to the
year 1344, after which date, with the omission of two years, John of
Malvern, a monk of Worcester, carried the history on to 1357, at which
date it ends. According, however, to its latest editor, Higdon's part of
the work goes no further than 1326 or 1327 at latest, after which time
it was carried on by two continuators to the end. Thomas Gale, in his
_Hist. Brit. &c., scriptores_, xv. (Oxon., 1691), published that portion
of it, in the original Latin, which comes down to 1066. Three early
translations of the _Polychronicon_ exist. The first was made by John of
Trevisa, chaplain to Lord Berkeley, in 1387, and was printed by Caxton
in 1482; the second by an anonymous writer, was written between 1432 and
1450; the third, based on Trevisa's version, with the addition of an
eighth book, was prepared by Caxton. These versions are specially
valuable as illustrating the change of the English language during the
period they cover.
The _Polychronicon_, with the continuations and the English versions,
was edited for the Rolls Series (No. 41) by Churchill Babington (vols.
i. and ii.) and Joseph Rawson Lumby (1865-1886). This edition was
adversely criticized by Mandell Creighton in the _Eng. Hist. Rev._ for
October 1888.
HIGGINS, MATTHEW JAMES (1810-1868), British writer over the nom-de-plume
"Jacob Omnium," which was the title of his first magazine article, was
born in County Meath, Ireland, on the 4th of December 1810. His letters
in _The Times_ were instrumental in exposing many abuses. He was a
frequent contributor to the _Cornhill_, and was a friend of Thackeray,
who dedicated to him _The Adventures of Philip_, and one of his ballads,
"Jacob Omnium's Hoss," deals with an incident in Higgins's career. He
died on the 14th of August 1868. Some of his articles were published in
1875 as _Essays on Social Subjects_.
HIGGINSON, THOMAS WENTWORTH (1823-1911), American author and soldier,
was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on the 22nd of December 1823. He
was a descendant of Francis Higginson (1588-1630), who emigrated from
Leicestershire to the colony of Massachusetts Bay and was a minister of
the church of Salem, Mass., in 1629-1630; and a grandson of Stephen
Higginson (1743-1828), a Boston merchant, who was a member of the
Continental Congress in 1783, took an active part in suppressing Shay's
Rebellion, was the author of the "Laco" letters (1789), and rendered
valuable services to the United States government as navy agent from the
11th of May to the 22nd of June 1798. Graduating from Harvard in 1841,
he was a schoolmaster for two years, studied theology at the Harvard
Divinity School, and was pastor in 1847-1850 of the First Religious
Society (Unitarian) of Newburyport, Massachusetts, and of the Free
Church at Worcester in 1852-1858. He was a Free Soil candidate for
Congress (1850), but was defeated; was indicted with Wendell Phillips
and Theodore Parker for participation in the attempt to release the
fugitive slave, Anthony Burns, in Boston (1853); was engaged in the
effort to make Kansas a free state after the passage of the
Kansas-Nebraska Bill of 1854; and during the Civil War was captain in
the 51st Massachusetts Volunteers, and from November 1862 to October
1864, when he was retired because of a wound received in the preceding
August, was colonel of the First South Carolina Volunteers, the first
regiment recruited from former slaves for the Federal service. He
described his experiences in _Army Life in a Black Regiment_ (1870). In
politics Higginson was successively a Republican, an Independent and a
Democrat. His writings show a deep love of nature, art and humanity, and
are marked by vigour of thought, sincerity of feeling, and grace and
finish of style. In his _Common Sense About Women_ (1881) and his _Women
and Men_ (1888) he advocated equality of opportunity and equality of
rights for the two sexes.
Among his numerous books are _Outdoor Papers_ (1863); _Malbone: an
Oldport Romance_ (1869); Life of _Margaret Fuller Ossoli_ (in
"American Men of Letters" series, 1884); _A Larger History of the
United States of America to the Close of President Jackson's
Administration_ (1885); _The Monarch of Dreams_ (1886); _Travellers
and Outlaws_ (1889); _The Afternoon Landscape_ (1889), poems and
translations; _Life of Francis Higginson_ (in "Makers of America,"
1891); _Concerning All of Us_ (1892); _The Procession of the Flowers
and Kindred Papers_ (1897); _Henry Wadsworth Longfellow_ (in "American
Men of Letters" series, 1902); _John Greenleaf Whittier_ (in "English
Men of Letters" series, 1902); _A Reader's History of American
Literature_ (1903), the Lowell Institute lectures for 1903, edited by
Henry W. Boynton; and _Life and Times of Stephen Higginson_ (1907).
His volumes of reminiscence, _Cheerful Yesterdays_ (1898), _Old
Cambridge_ (1899), _Contemporaries_ (1899), and _Part of a Man's Life_
(1905), are characteristic and charming works. His collected works
were published in seven vols. (1900).
HIGHAM FERRERS, a market town and municipal borough in the Eastern
parliamentary division of Northamptonshire, England, 63 m. N.N.W. from
London, on branches of the London & North-Western and Midland railways.
Pop. (1901), 2540. It is pleasantly situated on high ground above the
south bank of the river Nene. The church of St Mary is among the most
beautiful of the many fine churches in Northamptonshire. To the Early
English chancel a very wide north aisle, resembling a second nave, was
added in the Decorated period, and the general appearance of the
chancel, with its north aisle and Lady-chapel, is Decorated. The tower
with its fine spire and west front was partially but carefully rebuilt
in the 17th century. Close to the church, but detached from it, stands a
beautiful Perpendicular building, the school-house, founded by
Archbishop Chichele in 1422. The Bede House, a somewhat similar
structure by the same founder, completes a striking group of buildings.
In the town are remains of Chichele's college. Higham Ferrers shares in
the widespread local industry of shoemaking. The town is governed by a
mayor, 4 aldermen and 12 councillors. Area, 1945 acres.
Higham (Hecham, Heccam, Hegham Ferers) was evidently a large village
before the Domesday Survey. It was then held by William Peverel of the
king, but on the forfeiture of the lordship by his son it was granted in
1199 to William Ferrers, earl of Derby. On the outlawry of Robert his
grandson it passed to Edmund, earl of Lancaster, and, reverting to the
crown in 1322, was granted to Aymer de Valence, earl of Pembroke, but
escheated to the crown in 1327, and was granted to Henry, earl of
Lancaster. The castle, which may have been built before Henry III.
visited Higham in 1229, is mentioned in 1322, but had been destroyed by
1540. It appears by the confirmation of Henry III. in 1251 that the
borough originated in the previous year when William de Ferrers, earl of
Derby, manumitted by charter ninety-two persons, granting they should
have a free borough. A mayor was elected from the beginning of the reign
of Richard II., while a town hall is mentioned in 1395. The revenues of
Chichele's college were given to the corporation by the charter of 1566,
whereby the borough returned one representative to parliament, a
privilege enjoyed until 1832. James I. in 1604 gave the mayor the
commission of the peace with other privileges which were confirmed by
Charles II. in 1664. The old charters were surrendered in 1684 and a new
grant obtained; a further charter was granted in 1887.
HIGHGATE, a northern district of London, England, partly in the
metropolitan borough of St Pancras, but extending into Middlesex. It is
a high-lying district, the greatest elevation being 426 ft. The Great
North Road passes through Highgate, which is supposed to have received
its name from the toll-gate erected by the bishop of London when the
road was formed through his demesne in the 14th century. It is possible,
however, that "gate" is used here in its old signification, and that the
name means simply high road. The road rose so steeply here that in 1812
an effort was made to lessen the slope for coaches by means of an
archway, and a new way was completed in 1900. In the time of
stage-coaches a custom was introduced of making ignorant persons believe
that they required to be sworn and admitted to the freedom of the
Highgate before being allowed to pass the gate, the fine of admission
being a bottle of wine. Not a few famous names occur among the former
residents of Highgate. Bacon died here in 1626; Coleridge and Andrew
Marvell, the poets, were residents. Cromwell House, now a convalescent
home, was presented by Oliver Cromwell to his eldest daughter Bridget on
her marriage with Henry Ireton (January 15, 1646/7). Lauderdale House,
now attached to the public grounds of Waterlow Park, belonged to the
Duke of Lauderdale, one of the "Cabal" of Charles II. Among various
institutions may be mentioned Whittington's almshouses, near Whittington
Stone, at the foot of Highgate Hill, on which the future mayor of London
is reputed to have been resting when he heard the peal of Bow bells and
"turned again." Highgate grammar school was founded (1562-1565) by Sir
Roger Cholmley, chief-justice. St Joseph's Retreat is the mother-house
of the Passionist Fathers in England. There is an extensive and
beautiful cemetery on the slope below the church of St Michael.
HIGHLANDS, THE, that part of Scotland north-west of a line drawn from
Dumbarton to Stonehaven, including the Inner and Outer Hebrides and the
county of Bute, but excluding the Orkneys and Shetlands, Caithness, the
flat coastal land of the shires of Nairn, Elgin and Banff, and all East
Aberdeenshire (see SCOTLAND). This area is to be distinguished from the
Lowlands by language and race, the preservation of the Gaelic speech
being characteristic. Even in a historical sense the Highlanders were a
separate people from the Lowlanders, with whom, during many centuries,
they shared nothing in common. The town of Inverness is usually regarded
as the capital of the Highlands. The Highlands consist of an old
dissected plateau, or block, of ancient crystalline rocks with incised
valleys and lochs carved by the action of mountain streams and by ice,
the resulting topography being a wide area of irregularly distributed
mountains whose summits have nearly the same height above sea-level, but
whose bases depend upon the amount of denudation to which the plateau
has been subjected in various places. The term "highland" is used in
physical geography for any elevated mountainous plateau.
HIGHNESS, literally the quality of being lofty or high, a term used, as
are so many abstractions, as a title of dignity and honour, to signify
exalted rank or station. These abstractions arose in great profusion in
the Roman empire, both of the East and West, and "highness" is to be
directly traced to the _altitudo_ and _celsitudo_ of the Latin and the
[Greek: hypselotes] of the Greek emperors. Like other "exorbitant and
swelling attributes" of the time, they were conferred on ruling princes
generally. In the early middle ages such titles, couched in the second
or third person, were "uncertain and much more arbitrary (according to
the fancies of secretaries) than in the later times" (Selden, _Titles of
Honour_, pt. i. ch. vii. 100). In English usage, "Highness" alternates
with "Grace" and "Majesty," as the honorific title of the king and queen
until the time of James I. Thus in documents relating to the reign of
Henry VIII. all three titles are used indiscriminately; an example is
the king's judgment against Dr Edward Crome (d. 1562), quoted, from the
lord chamberlain's books, ser. 1, p. 791, in _Trans. Roy. Hist. Soc._
N.S. xix. 299, where article 15 begins with "Also the Kinges Highness"
hath ordered, 16 with "Kinges Majestie," and 17 with "Kinges Grace." In
the Dedication of the Authorized Version of the Bible of 1611 James I.
is still styled "Majesty" and "Highness"; thus, in the first paragraph,
"the appearance of Your Majesty, as of the Sun in his strength,
instantly dispelled those supposed and surmised mists ... especially
when we beheld the government established in Your Highness and Your
hopeful Seed, by an undoubted title." It was, however, in James I.'s
reign that "Majesty" became the official title. It may be noted that
Cromwell, as lord protector, and his wife were styled "Highness." In
present usage the following members of the British Royal Family are
addressed as "Royal Highness" (H.R.H.): all sons and daughters, brothers
and sisters, uncles and aunts of the reigning sovereign, grandsons and
granddaughters if children of sons, and also great grandchildren (decree
of 31st of May 1898) if children of an eldest son of any prince of
Wales. Nephews, nieces and cousins and grandchildren, offspring of
daughters, are styled "Highness" only. A change of sovereign does not
entail the forfeiture of the title "Royal Highness," once acquired,
though the father of the bearer has become a nephew and not a grandson
of the sovereign. The principal feudatory princes of the Indian empire
are also styled "Highness."
As a general rule the members of the blood royal of an Imperial or Royal
house are addressed as "Imperial" or "Royal Highness" (_Altesse
Imperiale_, _Royale_, _Kaiserliche_, _Konigliche Hoheit_) respectively.
In Germany the reigning heads of the Grand Duchies bear the title of
Royal or Grand Ducal Highness (_Konigliche_ or _Gross-Herzogliche
Hoheit_), while the members of the family are addressed as _Hoheit_,
Highness, simply. _Hoheit_ is borne by the reigning dukes and the
princes and princesses of their families. The title "Serene Highness"
has also an antiquity equal to that of "highness," for [Greek:
galenotes] and [Greek: hemerotes] were titles borne by the Byzantine
rulers, and serenitas and _serenissimus_ by the emperors Honorius and
Arcadius. The doge of Venice was also styled _Serenissimus_. Selden
(_op. cit._ pt. ii. ch. x. 739) calls this title "one of the greatest
that can be given to any Prince that hath not the superior title of
King." In modern times "Serene Highness" (_Altesse Serenissime_) is used
as the equivalent of the German _Durchlaucht_, a stronger form of
_Erlaucht_, illustrious, represented in the Latin honorific
_superillustris_. Thackeray's burlesque title "Transparency" in the
court at Pumpernickel very accurately gives the meaning. The title of
_Durchlaucht_ was granted in 1375 by the emperor Charles IV. to the
electoral princes (_Kurfursten_). In the 17th century it became the
general title borne by the heads of the reigning princely states of the
empire (_reichslandische Fursten_), as _Erlaucht_ by those of the
countly houses (_reichstandische Grafen_). In 1825 the German Diet
agreed to grant the title _Durchlaucht_ to the heads of the mediatized
princely houses whether domiciled in Germany or Austria, and it is now
customary to use it of the members of those houses. Further, all those
who are elevated to the rank of prince (_Furst_) in the secondary
meaning of that title (see PRINCE) are also styled _Durchlaucht_. In
1829 the title of _Erlaucht_, which had formerly been borne by the
reigning counts of the empire, was similarly granted to the mediatized
countly families (see _Almanack de Gotha_, 1909, 107).
HIGH PLACE, in the English version of the Old Testament, the literal
translation of the Heb. _bamah_. This rendering is etymologically
correct, as appears from the poetical use of the plural in such
expressions as to ride, or stalk, or stand on the high places of the
earth, the sea, the clouds, and from the corresponding usage in
Assyrian; but in prose _bamah_ is always a place of worship. It has been
surmised that it was so called because the places of worship were
originally upon hill-tops, or that the _bamah_ was an artificial
platform or mound, perhaps imitating the natural eminence which was the
oldest holy place, but neither view is historically demonstrable. The
development of the religious significance of the word took place
probably not in Israel but among the Canaanites, from whom the
Israelites, in taking possession of the holy places of the land, adopted
the name also.
In old Israel every town and village had its own place of sacrifice, and
the common name for these places was _bamah_, which is synonymous with
_mikdash_, holy place (Amos vii. 9; Isa. xvi. 12, &c.). From the Old
Testament and from existing remains a good idea may be formed of the
appearance of such a place of worship. It was often on the hill above
the town, as at Ramah (I Sam. ix. 12-14); there was a stele
(_massebah_), the seat of the deity, and a wooden post or pole
(_asherah_), which marked the place as sacred and was itself an object
of worship; there was a stone altar, often of considerable size and hewn
out of the solid rock[1] or built of unhewn stones (Ex. xx. 25; see
ALTAR), on which offerings were burnt (_mizbeh_, lit. "slaughter
place"); a cistern for water, and perhaps low stone tables for dressing
the victims; sometimes also a hall (_lishkah_) for the sacrificial
feasts.
Around these places the religion of the ancient Israelite centred; at
festival seasons, or to make or fulfil a vow, he might journey to more
famous sanctuaries at a distance from his home, but ordinarily the
offerings which linked every side of his life to religion were paid at
the _bamah_ of his own town. The building of royal temples in Jerusalem
or in Samaria made no change in this respect; they simply took their
place beside the older sanctuaries, such as Bethel, Dan, Gilgal,
Beersheba, to which they were, indeed, inferior in repute.
The religious reformers of the 8th century assail the popular religion
as corrupt and licentious, and as fostering the monstrous delusion that
immoral men can buy the favour of God by worship; but they make no
difference in this respect between the high places of Israel and the
temple in Jerusalem (cf. Amos v. 21 sqq.; Hos. iv.; Isa. i. 10 sqq.);
Hosea stigmatizes the whole cultus as pure heathenism--Canaanite
baal-worship adopted by apostate Israel. The fundamental law in Deut.
xii. prohibits sacrifice at every place except the temple in Jerusalem;
in accordance with this law Josiah, in 621 B.C., destroyed and
desecrated the altars (_bamoth_) throughout his kingdom, where Yahweh
had been worshipped from time immemorial, and forcibly removed their
priests to Jerusalem, where they occupied an inferior rank in the temple
ministry. In the prophets of the 7th and 6th centuries the word _bamoth_
connotes "seat of heathenish or idolatrous worship"; and the historians
of the period apply the term in this opprobrious sense not only to
places sacred to other gods but to the old holy places of Yahweh in the
cities and villages of Judah, which, in their view, had been
illegitimate from the building of Solomon's temple, and therefore not
really seats of the worship of Yahweh; even the most pious kings of
Judah are censured for tolerating their existence. The reaction which
followed the death of Josiah (608 B.C.) restored the old altars of
Yahweh; they survived the destruction of the temple in 586, and it is
probable that after its restoration (520-516 B.C.) they only slowly
disappeared, in consequence partly of the natural predominance of
Jerusalem in the little territory of Judaea, partly of the gradual
establishment of the supremacy of the written law over custom and
tradition in the Persian period.
It may not be superfluous to note that the deuteronomic dogma that
sacrifice can be offered to Yahweh only at the temple in Jerusalem was
never fully established either in fact or in legal theory. The Jewish
military colonists in Elephantine in the 5th century B.C. had their
altar of Yahweh beside the high way; the Jews in Egypt in the Ptolemaic
period had, besides many local sanctuaries, one greater temple at
Leontopolis, with a priesthood whose claim to "valid orders" was much
better than that of the High Priests in Jerusalem, and the legitimacy of
whose worship is admitted even by the Palestinian rabbis.
See Baudissin, "Hohendienst," _Protestantische Realencyklopadie_^3
(viii. 177-195); Hoonacker, _Le Lieu du culte dans la legislation
rituelle des Hebreux_ (1894); v. Gall, _Altisraelitische Kultstadte_
(1898).