Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 11.djvu/847

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 HIERONYMITES, undefined, or undefined, an order of monks, originally hermits, who resolved to adopt the cenobite life under the patronage of St Jerome and the rule of St Augustine. The order first arose in the in the neighbourhood of Toledo, through the influence of a Franciscan Tertiary named Vasco, and Fernando Pecha, chamberlain of Pedro the Cruel. It soon received papal sanction (from Gregory XI. in ), and made considerable progress in Spain and Portugal, where its chief seats were at Guadalupe and Yuste (both in Caceres, the latter being the scene of the cloister-life of Charles V.), and at the Escorial, the palace-monastery of Philip IL. near Madrid ; afterwards it gained a footing in America also. From about the it rapidly decayed, and now it is wholly extinct. The dress of the order consisted of a coarse white frock with tan-coloured scapulary and cowl. About an order of nuns of St Jerome was originated by Maria Garcias de Toledo, and for a time was highly popular. As branches of the Hierony- mite order must be reckoned the Congregation of the Eremites of St Jerome of the Observance, which, originated by Lupus Olivetus, third general of the Hieronymites, was sanctioned by Martin V. in, and still subsists in some parts of Italy as the Congregation of St Jerome of Lombardy, and the Pauperes Eremitee Sancti Hieronymi, a congregation founded by Peter of Pisa in, which obtained some foothold in Tyrol and Bavaria, as well as in Italy, and subsisted until 1688. See Reinkens, Die Einsiedler des heiligen Hieronymus, Schafth., 1864.  HIGDON, or,, was a Benedictine monk of the monastery of St Werberg in Chester, in which he lived, it is said, for sixty-four , and died “in a good old age,” probably in. He was buried, we are told in a note prefixed in the to the MS. of his work belonging to the library of Christ Church, Oxford, “in St Werberg’s Church (now Chester Cathedral), on the south side of the church near the choir, not far from the door which leads into the churchyard ; an arch was made for him in the wall, and on the wall is the inscrip- tion, ‘Non hic sub muro, sed subter marmore duro.’” This monument, extant in the, seems now to have entirely disappeared. 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 instruc- tion of the society to which the compiler belonged. Its chief interest perhaps lies in the fact that it closes the loug series of general chronicles, which were soon put com- pletely out of date by the iuvention of printing. It is commonly styled the Polychronicon, from the longer title Ranulphi Castrensis, cognomine Higdon, Polychronicon (sive Historia Polycratica) ab initio mundi usque ad mortem regis Eduardt ITT. 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. The Christ Church MS. says that Higdon wrote it down to ; the fine MS. at Christ’s College, Cambridge, states that he wrote to , after , with the omission of two , John of Malvern, a monk of Worcester, carried the history on to , at  it ends. According, however, to its latest editor, Higdon’s part of the work goes no further than or  at latest, after which time it was carried on by two continuators to the end. Gale in his Quindecim Scriptores published that portion of it, in the original Latin, which comes down to ; an English translation of the whole was made by John of Trevisa, and printed by Caxton at his press in Westminster in, with the addition of an eighth book. There is also an anonymous English translation of the work. The whole is being at this time carefully edited by Professor Lumby, B.D., under the anthority of the Master of the Rolls ; six volumes have appeared, 1865-1876.  HIGHGATE, a suburb of London, county of Middlesex, is situated on an eminence on the great north road, 54 miles N.W. of the London general post-office. From various points on the hill, which reaches a height of 426 feet, striking views are obtained of London and its suburbs, The village is composed chiefly of a good class of houses surrounded by villas and gardens ; and there are a number of mansions of historical interest in a neighbourhood, 