UBERTO (Chugoberctus, Hugbertus), Saint. Apostle of the Ardennes, he was Bishop of Tongres-Maastricht (now the Diocese of Liège) from about 705 until 30 May 727. Feast day: 3 November.
Born around 685 into a noble family and apparently married, he is said to have been the father of Floreberto, his successor. Among the many works he accomplished, special mention must be made of the solemn translation of the body of his predecessor, St Lambert, from Maastricht to Liège, where St Uberto liked to reside (c. 717). During a fishing trip, a servant accidentally broke the fingers of one of his hands, which caused him great suffering and from which he died shortly afterwards at Tervueren. He was buried in the church of the Holy Apostles in Liège, and on 3 November 743 his body was first elevated; in 825 it was transferred to the then newly founded monastery of Andage, now the famous sanctuary of St-Hubert-en-Ardenne. Patron of hunters (legend has it that he was converted during a hunting trip following the appearance of a stag bearing a cross between its antlers), he is especially invoked against rabies. For this reason, in the late Middle Ages, St Uberto was included with Sts Anthony, Pope Cornelius, and Quirinus the Martyr in the group of the Four Marshals (cf. Anal Boll., 60 [1942], p. 239). Such powerful effects against rabies are attributed to contact with the key and stole of St Uberto, preserved respectively in the church of the Holy Cross in Liège and in the sanctuary of St-Hubert; legend claims that the former was given to him by St Peter and the latter by an angel. Many confraternities, guilds, and the chivalric Order, founded in 1444 by Gerard, Duke of Juliers, bear his name. In iconography, St Uberto is often depicted in the hunting scene with the stag, which easily leads to confusion with St Eustace (v.).
The Life of St Uberto 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 at the behest of Bishop Walcaud of Liège between 825 and 831 (BHL. 3994); later legends grew up around the saint.