Uberto (Chugoberctus, Hugbertus), Saint

UBERTO (CHUGOBERCTUS, HUGBERTUS), SANTO

Feast day: 3 November

UBERTO (Chugoberctus, Hugbertus), Saint. - Apostle of the Ardennes, he was bishop of Tongres-Maastricht (today the diocese of Liège) from about 705 to 30 May 727. Feast on 3 November.

Born around 685 into a noble family and, it seems, married, he was apparently the father of Florebert, his successor. Among the many works he carried out, special mention is due to the solemn translation of the body of his predecessor St. Lambert from Maastricht to Liège, where St. U. loved to reside (about 717). During a fishing expedition, a servant inadvertently fractured the fingers of one of his hands, from which he suffered greatly, and some time later he died at Tervuren. He was buried in the church of the Holy Apostles in Liège, and on 3 November 743 the first "elevation" of his body took place; in 825 it was transported to the then nascent monastery of Andage, today the famous shrine of St-Hubert-en-Ardenne. Patron of hunters (legend has it that he was converted on the occasion of a hunt following the apparition of a stag bearing a cross between its antlers), he is above all invoked against the disease of rabies. For this reason, in the late Middle Ages, St. U. was numbered together with Sts. Anthony, Pope Cornelius and Quirinus the martyr in the group of the "Four Marshals" (cf. Anal. Boll., 60 [1942], p. 239). Thaumaturgical effects against rabies occur upon contact with the key and the stole of St. U., preserved respectively in the church of the Holy Cross in Liège and in the shrine of St-Hubert, which legend would have it were given to St. U., the first by St. Peter, the second by an Angel. Many confraternities, guilds and the chivalric Order, instituted in 1444 by Gerard, duke of Jülich, bear the name of St. U. In iconography, St. U. is often depicted in the hunting scene with the stag, for which he is easily confused with St. Eustace (v.).

The Life of St. U. was written by one of his clerics in 743, a clumsy but sincere work (ed. W. Levison, in MGH, Script. rer. Merov., VI [1913], pp. 482-96), revised by Jonas of Orléans, by order of the bishop of Liège Walcaud, between 825 and 831 (BHL, 3994); afterwards legends flourished around the Saint.

Bibliography10 works

BIBL.: Acta SS. Novemberis, I, Brussels 1887, pp. 759-930 (study by C. De Smedt); Martyr. Romanum, p. 494; L. Van Der Essen, Etude crit. et litt. sur les Vitae des Saints méroving. de l'enc. Belgique, Louvain-Paris 1907, pp. 53-71; F. Baix, St Hubert, in Terre Wallonne, 16 (1927), pp. 106-22, 214-20; 17 (1928), pp. 348-64; 19 (1930), pp. 169-79 (good biography but unfinished); M. Coens, Une relat. inéd. de la conversion. de st Hubert, in Anal. Boll., 45 (1927), pp. 84-92; id., Notes sur la légende de st Hubert, ibid., pp. 345-63; E. de Moreau, Hist. de l'Eglise en Belgique, I, Brussels 1940, pp. 99-104 and passim. For iconography: K. Künstle, Homage. der christl. Kunst, II, Freiburg im Br. 1926, pp. 311-13; H. Martin, St Hubert (L'art et les Saints), Paris n.d.

A. Pietro Frutaz

@incollection{ec12_uberto_chugoberctus_hugbertus, author = {Frutaz, Amato Pietro}, title = {Uberto (Chugoberctus, hugbertus), santo}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {XII}, pages = {663--664}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1954}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/uberto-chugoberctus-hugbertus-santo} }

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