HIRSAU (formerly Hirschau), a village of Germany, in Wurttemberg, on the Nagold-Pforzheim railway, 2 M. N. of Calw. Pop. 1,219. Hirsau has some small manufactures, but it owes its origin and historical interest to its former Benedictine monastery, Monasterium Hirsaugiense, at one period one of the most famous in Europe. Of its ruins only the chapel with the library hall are still in good preservation. It was founded about 83o by the Count of Calw, and its first occupants (838) were a colony of 15 monks from Fulda. Under the counts of Calw, it became an important seat of learning, but towards the end of the loth century the pestilence, the rapacity of its patrons and the immorality of its inmates caused it to decay. After it had been in ruins for 6o years it was rebuilt in 1059, and under Abbot Wilhelm von Hirsau (1069-91), it more than regained its former splendour. By his Constitutiones Hirsaugienses, a new religious order, the Ordo Hirsaugiensis, was formed, the rule of which was afterwards adopted at Blaubeuren, Erfurt, Schaffhausen and many other abbeys. The friend and correspondent of Pope Gregory VII., and of Anselm of Canterbury, Abbot Wilhelm took active part in controversies, and also wrote De musica et tonis, as well as the Philosophicarum et astronomicarum institutionum libri iii. Hirsau declined about the end of the 12th century and, after the Reformation it was secularized in 1558; in 1692 it was laid in ruins by the French. The Chronacon Hirsaugiense, or, as in the later edition it is called, Annales Hirsaugienses of Abbot Trithe mius (Basel, 1559; St. Gall, 1690), though largely legendary, is an important source of information on the early history of Germany. The Codex Hirsaugiensis was edited by A. F. Gf rorer and printed at Stuttgart in