Introduction

Biography

Herbert was or­dained a priest of the Breth­ren’s Un­i­ty in 1562, be­came a mem­ber of the Se­lect Coun­cil in 1567, and was Con­sen­ior of the Un­i­ty.

He was sent as a de­pu­ty to con­fer with John Cal­vin, and in 1562 to ar­range with Duke Chris­toph of Würt­tem­berg for the edu­ca­tion at Tü­bing­en of young men from the Bo­he­mi­an Breth­ren.

In 1564, he was one of the de­pu­ties sent to Vi­en­na to pre­sent the re­vised form of the Breth­ren’s Con­fess­ion of Faith to the Em­per­or Max­i­mil­i­an II, and in 1566 to pre­sent their new Ger­man hymn book.

Works

Herbert was one of the prin­ci­pal com­pil­ers of the en­larged edi­tion of the 1566 hymn book pub­lished as Kirch­en­ge­seng, and con­trib­ut­ed some 90 hymns to it (in the 1639 edi­tion, 104 hymns are marked as his).