Five centuries before the reformation, Hugo, Herr (meaning Lord) of Bilreid, contolled an area that included northern Switzerland that followed the Danube River from its headwaters across what is now southern Germany. This area was known as Schwabia or Schwaben. Herr Bilreid was descended from a tribe known alternatly as the Alamanni (Alemanni) or Suebi (Suabi) -- the latter is from which the name Schwabia derives. Eventually, the title of Herr became the family name and has been spelled variously Herr, Heer, Hohr, Hor, and Hare.
E.B. Vein in Register of Noble Families, with their Coat of Arms, had this to say:
The race of Herr descended from a very ancient family; is free -- that is to say, of noble origin ... Likewise from time immemorial, its knights were brave and worthy ... posessing in Schwaben vast and rich estates, the name of which was called the Schwabish Knight Hugo, Herr or Lord of Bilreid ... in the year 1009 flourished and was known to all, the family from whom that of Herr is descended ... But in the 15th century several of their race resigned their nobility and settled as citizens ... They, however, retained their noble name and their Coat of Arms, and in the year 1593 John Herr, or Lord of Bilreid, obtained from the emporer Ferdinand, in Schwabish Hall, a written testimonial, proving for his flourishing family their Coat of Arms, their free and noble descent and the posession of their race to the last generation
Before the Herr family converted to the radical Anabaptist Reformation Movement, they were ancient knights whose coat of arms existed in several forms[1]. One is a gold sheild with a red band running horizontally at the midpoint of the shield. Another, that of Sir Bilreid from Schwabish Hall and Rothernburg, is a silver sheild with an azure band [ view image].
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Footnotes
1Dr. Phillip E. Bedient, a Lancaster Penna. mathematician who has researched the Herr family for decades, states in supplemental data to the "Geneological Record of Rev. Hans Herr and His Direct Lineal Descendents" (Herr 1994) that it is doubtful a coat of arms was part of the Mennonite Herrs. Mennonite theology includes a refusal to take up military arms and other weapons of force. This tradition has existed in the Mennonite religion since the early days of the Reformation. If, in fact, a coat of arms has ever been part of the Herr family in America, it has largely been simply an object of curiosity.
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