342 herbals
Historical Value of the Rolls of Arms(Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1965); Rodney Dennys, Heraldry and the Heralds
(London: Cape, 1982); Ottfried Neubecker, Heraldry: A
Guide to Heraldry(London: Cassell, 1981, 1979); Michael
Pastoureau, Heraldry: An Introduction to a Noble Science,
trans. Francisca Garvie (New York: Harry A. Abrams,
1997); Anthony R. Wagner, Heralds and Heraldry in the
Middle Ages, 2d ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1956); Thomas Woodcock and John Martin Robinson,
eds., The Oxford Guide to Heraldry(Oxford: Oxford Uni-
versity Press, 1988).
herbals SeeBOTANY.
heresy and heresies During the Middle Ages, in
Christian belief, heresy was the holding of some hetero-
dox belief or doctrine contrary to an authoritative or
orthodox teaching, precept of the faith, or false dogma.
Whether such a belief was actually contrary to dogmatic
statement or idea or whether the person actually held the
belief in question was open to interpretation. Sensitivity
to such perceived deviations changed over time during
the Middle Ages, as did the ideas or beliefs involved and
the reaction of the church and the lay authorities. As the
papacy and the state became more authoritarian, concern
about heterodoxy, whether real or not, increased. There
were much more effort made to define and detect it and
an increased harshness in punishments in the later Mid-
dle Ages.
The documentation for all of this has overwhelm-
ingly survived only from the side of those trying to find
and correct it, thus making it difficult to determine what
the accused actually believed, or whether there really
were any genuine heretical movements or groups (there
likely were) or especially what they might have actually
believed or espoused (of which we are much more
unsure). Often “heretics” questioned the need for clerical
mediation with GODor the authority of particular priests,
bishops, or an individual pope. Both Judaism and Islam
were not tolerant of dissent in terms of certain very
explicit articles of religion. Expulsion from the commu-
nity and persecution were applied.
See alsoADOPTIONISM;ALBIGENSIANS ANDALBIGEN-
SIAN MOVEMENT;ARIANISM;BOGOMILS;CATHARS;
DONATISM; DUALISM; GNOSTICISM;HUS,JOHN; INQUISITION;
ISLAM;JEWS AND JUDAISM; MONOPHYSITISM;NICAEA,
COUNCILS OF; PELAGIANISM; SPIRITUAL FRANCISCANS;
WALDENSIANS;WYCLIFFE,JOHN.
Further reading:Walter L. Wakefield and Austin P.
Evans, eds., Heresies of the High Middle Ages (1969;
reprint, New York: Columbia University Press, 1991);
Malcolm Lambert, Medieval Heresy: Popular Movements
from Bogomil to Hus,3d ed. (1977; Oxford: Blackwell,
2002); Jeffrey Burton Russell, ed. Religious Dissent in the
Middle Ages (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1971);
Robert I. Moore, ed. The Birth of Popular Heresy(London:
Edward Arnold, 1975); Robert I. Moore, The Formation of
a Persecuting Society, 950–1250 (Oxford: Blackwell,
1987).hermetism and hermetic literature Hermetic, her-
meticism,and hermetistwere terms referring to a synthe-
sis of NEOPLATONIC and other occult philosophies,
founded on a collection of writings attributed to Hermes
Trismegistus (“Thrice-greatest Hermes,” a name given the
Egyptian god Thoth), which in fact date from the second
and third centuries C.E. Hermetic tradition favored magi-
cal, occult, esoteric, or forbidden knowledge, over what
could be more publicly revealed.
See also FICINO,MARSILO; MAGIC AND FOLKLORE;
MIRANDOLA,PICO DELLA.
Further reading:Elizabeth Ann Ambrose, The Her-
metica: An Annotated Bibliography(St. Louis: Center for
Reformation Research, 1992); Garth Fowden, The Egyp-
tian Hermes: A Historical Approach to the Late Pagan Mind
(Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1993); Brian
P. Copenhaver, Hermetica: The Greek Corpus Hermeticum
and the Latin Asclepius in a New English Translation, with
Notes and Introduction(1992; reprint, Cambridge: Cam-
bridge University Press, 1995).hermits and eremitism The term hermitwas derived
from the Greek word eremia,meaning “solitude,” and ere-
mos,meaning “desert.” Alone, a hermit was expected to
withdraw to a solitary place as an ANCHORITEto practice a
disciplined and rigorous asceticism, in contrast to the
communal and joint MONASTICISMof groups of practition-
ers. One should not posit, however, a simple dichotomy
between eremitism and cenobic MONASTICISM, as both tra-
ditionally shared a commitment to solitude, contempla-
tion, and ASCETICISM. The sayings of the early hermits
primarily in Egypt were compiled into much-studied
anthologies that were called the Sayings of the Fathers.
There were many such individual hermits, both male
and female, throughout the Middle Ages. Some were
well respected, even as living saints; others suffered the
skepticism of their contemporaries and neighbors for
their odd practices.
See also ANCHORITES AND ANCHORESSES;ATHOS,
MOUNT;AUGUSTINIAN (AUSTIN) FRIARS AND HERMITS;
BENEDICT OF NURSIA,SAINT; NUNS AND NUNNERIES;
PACHOMIUS.
Further reading:Peter Brown, Society and the Holy in
Late Antiquity(London: Faber and Faber, 1982); Douglas
Burton-Christie, The Word in the Desert: Scripture and the
Quest for Holiness in Early Christian Monasticism(Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1933); Henry Chadwick, The
Early Church (Baltimore: Penguin, 1967); Derwas J.
Chitty, The City a Desert(Oxford: Blackwell, 1966); Hen-
rietta Leyser, Hermits and the New Monasticism: A Study of