Background
Hermann was a son of the earl of Altshausen. He was born July 18, 1013 with a cleft palate, cerebral palsy and is said to have had spina bifida.
composer historian mathematician musicologist theorist writer poet
Hermann was a son of the earl of Altshausen. He was born July 18, 1013 with a cleft palate, cerebral palsy and is said to have had spina bifida.
He composed the Marian prayer Alma Redemptoris Mater. He was beatified (cultus confirmed) in 1863. He was crippled by a paralytic disease from early childhood.
Based on the evidence, however, more recent scholarship indicates Hermann possibly had either amyotrophic lateral sclerosis or spinal muscular atrophy.
As a result, he had great difficulty moving and could hardly speak. He grew up in the monastery, learning from the monks and developing a keen interest in both theology and the world around him.
He spent most of his life in the Abbey of Reichenau, an island on Lake Constance. Hermann contributed to all four arts of the quadrivium.
He was renowned as a musical composer (among his surviving works are officia for Street Afra and Street Wolfgang).
He also wrote a treatise on the science of music, several works on geometry and arithmetics and astronomical treatises (including instructions for the construction of an astrolabe, at the time a very novel device in Western Europe). As a historian, he wrote a detailed chronicle from the birth of Christ to his own present day, ordering them after the reckoning of the Christian era. One of his disciples Berthold of Reichenau continued lieutenant
At twenty, Hermann was professed as a Benedictine monk, spending the rest of his life in a monastery.
He built musical and astronomical instruments and was also a famed religious poet. When he went blind in later life, he began writing hymns, the best known of which is Salve Regina (Hail Holy Queen).
Herman died in a monastery on September 24, 1054, aged 40. Three of five symphonies that were written by Russian composer Galina Ustvolskaya are based on his texts.