Chapter 14

See F. R. Chesney,Euphrates Expedition(1850); W. F. Ainsworth,Personal Narrative of the Euphrates Expedition(1888); E. Sachau,Reise in Syrien, &c. (1883); D. G. Hogarth inJournal of Hellenic Studies(1909).

2. A Phrygian city, altitude 1200 ft. on the right bank of the Churuk Su (Lycus), about 8 m. above its junction with the Menderes (Maeander), situated on a broad terrace, 200 ft. above the valley and 6 m. N. of Laodicea. On the terrace rise calcareous springs, that have deposited vast incrustations of snowy whiteness. To these springs, which are warm and slightly sulphureous, and to the “Plutonium”—a hole reaching deep into the earth, from which issued a mephitic vapour—the place owed its celebrity and sanctity. Here, at an early date, a religious establishment (hieron) existed in connexion with the old Phrygian Kydrara, a settlement of the tribe Hydrelitae; and the town which grew round it became one of the greatest centres of Phrygian native life but of non-political importance. The chief religious festival was the Letoia, named after the goddess Leto, a local variety of the Mother Goddess (Cybele), who was honoured with orgiastic rites in which elements of the original Anatolian matriarchate and Nature-cult survived: there was also a worship of Apollo Lairbenos. Hierapolis was the seat of an early church (Col. iv. 13), with which tradition closely connects the apostle Philip. Epictetus, the philosopher, and Papias, a disciple of St John and author of a lost work on the Sayings of Jesus, were born there. Hierapolis is now easily reached from Gonjeli, a station on the Dineir railway about 7 m. distant. A village of Yuruks has gradually grown below the site. The native name for the place is apparentlyPambuk Kale(though doubt has been thrown on the statement), and this has always been explained by the cotton-like appearance of the white incrustations. It should be noted, however, that this name, if genuine, is curiously like that given by the Syrians to the Commagenian Hierapolis (above),Bambyce, the origin of which it has been suggested was a native name of the goddess Pambē or Mambē (whence Mabog). Considering that cotton is a comparatively modern phenomenon in Anatolia, it is worth suggesting thatPambukin this case may be a survival of a primitive name, derived from the same goddess, Pambē. The goddesses of the two Hierapoleis were in any case closely akin. If an old native name has reappeared here after the decline of Greek influence, and been given a meaning in modern Turkish, it affords another instance of a very common feature of west Asian nomenclature. Combined with the petrified terraces, the ruins of Hierapolis present the most attractive of the easily accessible spectacles in Asia Minor. They are remarkable for the long avenue of tombs, mostly inscribed sarcophagi on plinths, by which the city is approached from the W., and for a very perfect theatre partly excavated in the hill at the N. side of the site. Stage buildings as well as auditorium are well preserved. On the S., just above the white terraces and largely blocked with petrified deposit, stand large baths, into which the natural warm spring was once conducted. Behind these is a fine triumphal arch, whence runs a colonnade. Ruins of several churches survive, and also of a large basilica. There is a sulphureous pool which may represent the “Plutonium,” but it has no such deadly power as was ascribed to that pond. Ramsay thinks that the “Plutonium” was obliterated by Christians in the 4th century. Over 300 inscriptions have been collected, mostly sepulchral, whence Ramsay has deduced interesting facts about the very early Christian community which existed here. The site has been often visited and described, and was systematically examined in 1887 by parties under W. M. Ramsay and K. Humann respectively.

See K. Humann,Altertümer v. Hierapolis(1888); Sir W. M. Ramsay,Cities and Bishoprics of Phrygia, vol. i. (1895).

(C. W. W.; D. G. H.)

HIERARCHY(Gr.ἱερός, holy, andἄρχειν, to rule), the office of a steward or guardian of holy things, not a “ruler of priests” or “priestly ruler” (see Boeckh,Corp. inscr. Gr.No. 1570), a term commonly used in ecclesiastical language to denote the aggregate of those persons who exercise authority within the Christian Church, the patriarchate, episcopate or entire three-fold order of the clergy. The wordἱεραρχία, which does not occur in any classical Greek writer, owes its present extensive currency to the celebrated writings of Dionysius Areopagiticus. Of these the most important are the two which treat of the celestial and of the ecclesiastical hierarchy respectively. Defining hierarchy as the “function which comprises all sacred things,” or, more fully, as “a sacred order and science andactivity, assimilated as far as possible to the godlike, and elevated to the imitation of God proportionately to the Divine illuminations conceded to it,” the author proceeds to enumerate the nine orders of the heavenly host, which are subdivided again into hierarchies or triads, in descending order, thus: Seraphim, Cherubim, Thrones; Dominations, Virtues, Powers; Principalities, Archangels, Angels. These all exist for the common object of raising men through ascending stages of purification and illumination to perfection. The ecclesiastical or earthly hierarchy is the counterpart of the other. In it the first or highest triad is formed by baptism, communion and chrism. The second triad consists of the three orders of the ministry, bishop or hierarch, priest and minister or deacon (ἱεράρχης, ἱερεύς, λειτουργός); this is the earliest known instance in which the title hierarch is applied to a bishop. The third or lowest triad is made up of monks, “initiated” and catechumens. To Dionysius may be traced, through Thomas Aquinas and other Catholic writers of the intervening period, the definition of the term usually given by Roman Catholic writers—“coëtus seu ordo praesidum et sacrorum ministrorum ad regendam ecclesiam gignendamque in hominibus sanctitatem divinitus institutus”1—although it immediately rests upon the authority of the sixth canon of the twenty-third session of the council of Trent, in which anathema is pronounced upon all who deny the existence within the Catholic Church of a hierarchy instituted by divine appointment, and consisting of bishops, priests and ministers.2(SeeOrder,Holy).

1Perrone,De locis theologicis, pt. i., sec. i. cap. 2.2Si quis dixerit in ecclesia catholica non esse hierarchiam divina ordinatione institutam, quae constat ex episcopis, presbyteris, et ministris: anathema sit.

1Perrone,De locis theologicis, pt. i., sec. i. cap. 2.

2Si 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.ἱερατικὀς, ἱερὀς, 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 (seeEgypt, §Language).

HIERAX,orHieracas, 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(strictlyHieron), the name of two rulers of Syracuse.

Hiero I.was the brother of Gelo, and tyrant of Syracuse from 478 to 467/6B.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. Lübbert,Syrakus zur Zeit des Gelon und Hieron(1875); for his coins seeNumismatics(sectionSicily).

HIERO II., tyrant of Syracuse from 270 to 216B.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) entitledλόγοι φιλαλήθεις πρὸς τοὺς Χριστιανούςin 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 entitledἈντιῤῥητικὸς πρὸς τὰ Ἱεροκλέους.

HIEROCLES OF ALEXANDRIA,Neoplatonist writer, flourishedc.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 theCarmina Aureaof 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 ofἱστορικοὶ λόγοι, are quoted or referred to by Photius and Stobaeus. The collection of some 260 witticisms (ἀστεῖα) calledΦιλόγελως(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 theElements of Ethics(Ἠθικὴ στοιχείωσις) 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 inBerliner Klassikertexte, iv. 1906; see also C. Prächter,Hierokles der Stoiker, 1901).

There is an edition of the commentary by F. W. Mullach inFragmenta 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, calledΣυνέκδημος(“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’sBibliotheca Graeca(ed. Harles), i. 791, sixteen persons named Hierocles, chiefly literary, are mentioned.

Another Hierocles, who flourished during the reign of Justinian, was the author of a list of provinces and towns in the Eastern Empire, calledΣυνέκδημος(“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’sBibliotheca Graeca(ed. Harles), i. 791, sixteen persons named Hierocles, chiefly literary, are mentioned.

HIEROGLYPHICS(Gr.ἱερός, sacred, andγλυφή, 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.ἰδέα, idea, andγράφειν, to write),e.g.the Chinese characters.

SeeEgypt,Language;Cuneiform;InscriptionsandWriting.

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. § 70; and art. “Hieronymiten” in Herzog-Hauck,Realencyklopädie(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 (323-272B.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. Brückner, “De vita et scriptis Hieronymi Cardii” inZeitschrift für die Alterthumswissenschaft(1842); F. Reuss,Hieronymus von Kardia(Berlin, 1876); C. Wachsmuth,Einleitung in das Studium der alten Geschichte(1895); fragments in C. W. Müller,Frag. hist. Graec.ii. 450-461.

HIERRO,orFerro, 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° 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(orHigden),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 thePolychronicon, from the longer titleRanulphi 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 hisHist. Brit. &c., scriptores, xv. (Oxon., 1691), published that portion of it, in the original Latin, which comes down to 1066. Three early translations of thePolychroniconexist. 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.

ThePolychronicon, 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 theEng. 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 inThe Timeswere instrumental in exposing many abuses. He was a frequent contributor to theCornhill, and was a friend of Thackeray, who dedicated to himThe 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 asEssays 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 inArmy 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 hisCommon Sense About Women(1881) and hisWomen and Men(1888) he advocated equality of opportunity and equality of rights for the two sexes.

Among his numerous books areOutdoor Papers(1863);Malbone: an Oldport Romance(1869); Life ofMargaret 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; andLife and Times of Stephen Higginson(1907). His volumes of reminiscence,Cheerful Yesterdays(1898),Old Cambridge(1899),Contemporaries(1899), andPart 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 (seeScotland). 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 distributedmountains 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 thealtitudoandcelsitudoof the Latin and theὑψηλότηςof 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, inTrans. 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 Impériale,Royale,Kaiserliche,Königliche Hoheit) respectively. In Germany the reigning heads of the Grand Duchies bear the title of Royal or Grand Ducal Highness (KöniglicheorGross-Herzogliche Hoheit), while the members of the family are addressed asHoheit, Highness, simply.Hoheitis 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,” forγαληνότηςandἡμερότηςwere titles borne by the Byzantine rulers, and serenitas andserenissimusby the emperors Honorius and Arcadius. The doge of Venice was also styledSerenissimus. 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 Sérénissime) is used as the equivalent of the GermanDurchlaucht, a stronger form ofErlaucht, illustrious, represented in the Latin honorificsuperillustris. Thackeray’s burlesque title “Transparency” in the court at Pumpernickel very accurately gives the meaning. The title ofDurchlauchtwas granted in 1375 by the emperor Charles IV. to the electoral princes (Kurfürsten). In the 17th century it became the general title borne by the heads of the reigning princely states of the empire (reichsländische Fürsten), asErlauchtby those of the countly houses (reichständische Grafen). In 1825 the German Diet agreed to grant the titleDurchlauchtto 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 (Fürst) in the secondary meaning of that title (seePrince) are also styledDurchlaucht. In 1829 the title ofErlaucht, which had formerly been borne by the reigning counts of the empire, was similarly granted to the mediatized countly families (seeAlmanack de Gotha, 1909, 107).

HIGH PLACE,in the English version of the Old Testament, the literal translation of the Heb.bāmāh. 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 prosebāmāhis 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 thebāmāhwas 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 wasbāmāh, which is synonymous withmiḳdāsh, 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 stelè (maṣṣēbāh), the seat of the deity, and a wooden post or pole (ashērāh), 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 rock1or built of unhewn stones (Ex. xx. 25; seeAltar), on which offerings were burnt (mizbēḥ, lit. “slaughter place”); a cistern for water, and perhaps low stone tables for dressing the victims; sometimes also a hall (lishkāh) 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 thebāmāhof 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 621B.C., destroyed and desecrated the altars (bāmōth) 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 wordbāmōthconnotes “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 ofJudah are censured for tolerating their existence. The reaction which followed the death of Josiah (608B.C.) restored the old altars of Yahweh; they survived the destruction of the temple in 586, and it is probable that after its restoration (520-516B.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 centuryB.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, “Höhendienst,”Protestantische Realencyklopädie³ (viii. 177-195); Hoonacker,Le Lieu du culte dans la législation rituelle des Hébreux(1894); v. Gall,Altisraelitische Kultstädte(1898).

1Several altars of this type have been preserved.

HIGH SEAS,an expression in international law meaning all those parts of the sea not under the sovereignty of adjacent states. Claims have at times been made to exclusive dominion over large areas of the sea as well as over wide margins, such as a 100 m., 60 m., range of vision, &c., from land. The action and reaction of the interests of navigation, however, have brought states to adopt a limitation first enunciated by Bynkershoek in the formula “terrae dominium finitur ubi finitur armorum vis.” Thenceforward cannon-shot range became the determining factor in the fixation of the margin of sea afterwards known as “territorial waters” (q.v.). With the exception of these territorial waters, bays of certain dimensions and inland waters surrounded by territory of the same state, and serving only as a means of access to ports of the state by whose territory they are surrounded, and some waters allowed by immemorial usage to rank as territorial, all seas and oceans form part of the high sea. The usage of the high sea is free to all the nations of the world, subject only to such restrictions as result from respect for the equal rights of others, and to those which nations may contract with each other to observe. An interesting case affecting land-locked seas was that of theEmperor of Japanv.The Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company, in which a collision had taken place in the inland sea of Japan. The British Supreme Court at Shanghai declared this sea to form part of the high sea. On appeal to the privy council, the appellants were successful. Though the decision of the Shanghai court on the point in question was not dealt with by the privy council, Japan continues to treat her inland sea as under her exclusive jurisdiction.

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