HERMANN OF REICHENAU (HERIMANNUS AUGIEN sis), commonly distinguished as Hermannus Contractus, i.e., the Lame (1OI3—I054), German scholar and chronicler, was the son of Count Wolferad of Alshausen, Swabia. Hermann became a monk of the famous abbey of Reichenau and exercised a great personal and intellectual influence on the scholars that gathered round him. He died on Sept. 24, 10J4, at the family castle. Be sides the ordinary monastic studies, he devoted himself to mathe matics, astronomy and music, and constructed watches and various instruments.
His chief work is a Chronicon ad annum 1oS4 (continued down to io66 by his pupil Bertold) which furnishes important original ma terial for the history of the emperor Henry III. The first edition, from a MS. no longer extant, was printed by J. Sichard at Basel in 1529. A critical edition is given in Pertz's Monumenta Germaniae historica (vol. v.) , and a German translation by K. F. A. Nobbe in Die Geschichtsschreiber der deutschen Vorzeit (end ed., Leipzig, 1893). The separate lives of Conrad II. and Henry III., often ascribed to Hermann, appear to have perished. His De mensura astrolabii and De utilitatibus astrolabii (to be found, on the authority of Salzburg MSS., in Pez, Thesaurus anecdotorum novissimus, iii.) being the first important European contributions to this subject, Hermann was for a time considered the inventor of the astrolabe. A didactic poem by him, De octo vitiis principalibus, is printed in Haupt's Zeitschrift fur deutsches Alterthum (vol. xiii.) ; and he is sometimes credited with the composition of the Latin hymns Veni Sancte Spiritus, Salve Regina, and Alma Redemptoris. A martyrologium by Hermann, discovered by E. D immler in a MS. at Stuttgart, was published by him in "Das Martyrologium Notkers and seine Verwandten" in Forschungen zur deutschen Geschichte, xxv. (Gottingen, 1885).
See H. Hansjakob, Herimann der Lahme (Mainz, 1875) ; Potthast, Bibliotheca med. aev.; and J. R. Dieterich, Die Geschichtsschreibung der Abtei Reichenau (1926).