Uberto (Chugoberctus, Hugbertus), Saint (UBERTO (CHUGOBERCTUS, HUGBERTUS), SANTO)

Machine translation of the 1948–1954 Italian original. The original text is authoritative.

UBERTO (Chugoberctus, Hugbertus), saint. — Apostle of the Ardennes, he was bishop of Tongres-Maastricht (today the diocese of Liège) from ca. 705 until 30 May 727. Feast day 3 November.

Born ca. 685 into a noble family and apparently married, he is said to have been the father of Floreberto, his successor. Among his many achievements, particular remembrance is due to the solemn translation of the body of his predecessor, St Lamberto, from Maastricht to Liège, where St U. liked to reside (ca. 717). During a fishing expedition, a servant inadvertently fractured the fingers of one of his hands, causing him great suffering; some time later he died at Tervueren. He was buried in the Church of the Holy Apostles at Liège, and on 3 November 743 the first “elevation” of his body took place; in 825 it was transported to the then newly founded monastery of Andage, today the celebrated sanctuary of St-Hubert-en-Ardenne. Patron of hunters (legend has it that he converted on the occasion of a hunt following the apparition of a stag bearing a cross between its antlers), he is chiefly invoked against rabies. For this reason, in the late Middle Ages, St U. was numbered with Sts Anthony, Pope Cornelius, and the martyr Quirinus among the group of the “4 Holy Marshals” (cf. Anal. Boll., 60 [1942], p. 239). Miraculous effects against rabies are obtained through contact with the key and stole of St U., preserved respectively in the Church of Santa Croce at Liège and in the sanctuary of St-Hubert; according to legend, the former was given to St U. by St Peter and the latter by an Angel. Many confraternities, corporations (gildes), and the chivalric Order founded in 1444 by Gerardo, duke of Juliers, bear the name of St U. In iconography, St U. is often depicted in the hunting scene with the stag, and is Eustachio (v.).

The Vita 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), and revised by Jona of Orléans, at the command of Valtcaudo, bishop of Liège, between 825 and 831 (BHL, 3994); later, legends flourished around the Saint.

BIBL.: Acta SS. Novemberis, I, Bruxelles 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, Lovanio-Parigi 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 but incomplete biography); 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, Bruxelles 1940, pp. 99–104 and passim. For the iconography: K. Künstle, Homage. der christl. Kunst, II, Friburgo in Br. 1926, pp. 311–13; H. Martin, St Hubert (L'art et les Saints), Parigi s. a.

A. Pietro Frutaz