HUGH, Bishop of LINCOLN, Saint. — Carthusian, b. c. 1140 at Avalon in Burgundy, d. in London on 16 Nov. 1200. A religious in the priory of Villard-Benoît and ordained priest, he was made prior of the dependent “cella” of St-Maximin. Then, with the prior of Villard-Benoît, he visited the Grande Chartreuse, where he was received as a novice, took his vows, and was appointed procurator.
In 1180, at the instance of King Henry II, H. was sent to England as prior of the first English Carthusian house at Witham in Somerset. In May of the same year a council of bishops at Eynsham, convoked by the king, chose him as bishop of Lincoln, and he was consecrated in the abbey of Westminster on 21 Sept. 1181. A vigorous reformer, he maintained strict discipline and resisted oppressors of the poor; he excommunicated the king’s first royal forester, refused to install an unworthy courtier as a beneficiary of Lincoln. Summoned to Woodstock, with wit and good humour he disarmed the angry king, who admired his courage. In 1188 he was sent as ambassador to France by King Henry. On his return in 1189, he attended the coronation of Richard I. A staunch upholder of justice, he defended Geoffrey, archbishop of York (1194–95), and protected the Jews against popular fanaticism and unjust accusations. In 1198 he resisted the justiciar Hubert Walter, who wished the bishops to supply knights for the king’s foreign wars. In 1198 H. placated the angry king at Château-Gaillard in Normandy. Sent again on an embassy to France in 1200, he revisited the Grande Chartreuse and died on his return to England. In 1220 H. was canonized by Honorius III. His richly adorned reliquary, a goal of pilgrimage, was plundered by Henry VIII. Feast, 17 Nov. S. H. was also an architect. He is credited with the rebuilding of Lincoln Cathedral (damaged by an earthquake in 1185). Of his work there remain four bays of the choir, a magnificent example of Gothic.