HUGH, Bishop of Lincoln, Saint. - Carthusian, b. ca. 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 "cell" 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 request of King Henry II, H. was sent to England as prior of the first English charterhouse 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 Westminster Abbey on 21 Sept. 1181. An energetic reformer, he maintained austere discipline and resisted the oppressors of the poor; he excommunicated the chief royal forester and refused to install an unworthy courtier as a beneficiary of Lincoln. Summoned to Woodstock, with wit and good humor he won over the angry King, who admired his courage. In 1188 he was sent as ambassador to France by King Henry. Returning, in 1189, he attended the coronation of Richard I. A strenuous supporter 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 wanted the bishops to furnish the King with knights for foreign wars. In 1198 H. pacified 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 very rich reliquary, a pilgrimage destination, was plundered by Henry VIII. Feast on 17 Nov.
St. H. was also an architect. The reconstruction of Lincoln Cathedral (ruined by an earthquake in 1185) is due to him. Of the Saint's work there remain 4 bays of the choir, a most beautiful example of Gothic.
Bibliography4 works
Enrico G. Rope