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Biography

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Saint Hubert (also called Hubertus) was a Frankish bishop of the early eighth century, historically attested as a member of the Austrasian aristocracy at the court of Pepin of Herstal and as successor of Saint Lambert in the see of Maastricht, which he transferred to Liège. He is remembered as the first bishop of Liège. Later medieval hagiography, especially a recasting of his life composed centuries after his death, claimed that he was born at Toulouse in Aquitaine in the mid-seventh century and that he was a son of Bertrand, Duke of Aquitaine. Those particulars do not appear in the earliest Life, written at Liège within about a generation of his death (around the 740s), and are treated by historians as legendary rather than documented fact. A precise year of birth is not verifiable from reliable early sources.

What can be said with more confidence is that Hubert lived as a married lay noble before entering the clerical state. Tradition, supported by the succession in the see, holds that he was married and that he fathered a son, Floribert, who later became bishop of Liège. His wife died, in some accounts in childbirth, after which Hubert withdrew from court. The famous story that he was converted while hunting on Good Friday by a vision of a crucifix between the antlers of a stag, and that a voice then sent him to Saint Lambert, is a later medieval legend closely modeled on the older tale of Saint Eustace; it is absent from the eighth-century vita. Historically, Hubert became a disciple and assistant of Lambert, bishop of Maastricht. After Lambert was murdered at Liège around 705, Hubert was chosen to succeed him.

As bishop he moved the episcopal seat from Maastricht to Liège, the site of Lambert’s martyrdom, and promoted Lambert’s cult. He evangelized districts of the Ardennes and Toxandria that were still partly pagan, opposed idol worship, and founded or organized churches. He is credited with shaping the diocese that later became the prince-bishopric of Liège. He remained a member of the secular clergy rather than of a religious order, and he was neither pope nor patriarch. He died on 30 May 727 (some medieval notices give 728) at Fura, identified with Tervuren in Brabant, while on a pastoral journey, and was buried in the church of Saint Peter at Liège. In 825 his relics were translated to the monastery of Andage in the Ardennes, thereafter known as Saint-Hubert, which became a major pilgrimage shrine.

Veneration of Hubert spread through the Low Countries, the Rhineland, and hunting cultures of western Europe. His principal feast is 3 November. Because of the later stag legend he became the patron of hunters, huntsmen, foresters, trappers, and dogs; folk practice also invoked him against rabies, notably through the so-called Key of Saint Hubert. He is likewise named as patron of mathematicians, opticians, and metalworkers, and of the city of Liège and the town of Saint-Hubert. Formal papal canonization did not exist in his age; his cult is of the pre-congregation type, established by local veneration and by the episcopal translation of his relics.

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