Humbert III of Savoy, Blessed

HUMBERT III OF SAVOY, Blessed. - Son of Amadeus III, born ca. 1135, died March 4, 1189, buried in the abbey church of Hautecombe.

He succeeded his father Amadeus III, who died at Nicosia (Cyprus) on April 1, 1148, while still a minor; his tutor was the blessed Amadeus of Hauterive, bishop of Lausanne. He married 4 times, and only from his last wife, Beatrice, daughter of Count Gerard of Mâcon, did he have a male heir, Thomas I (1178). Little is known of his private life, nor does the moral portrait usually given of him, on the basis of the Crognyques de Savoye of Giovanni Dorieville (D'Oronville), called Cabaret, written between 1417 and 1420 (still unpublished, the principal source of the Gestez et croniques de la mayson de Savoye of Giovanni Servion, written between 1464 and 1465; ed. F. E. Bollati, I, Turin 1879, pp. 207-26; and of the Croniques of Perrinet Dupin, compiled from the two preceding works ca. 1477; ed. F. E. Bollati, I, ibid. 1893, pp. 109-206), correspond to the reliable documentation that has come down to us. That he was a religious and beneficent prince in the manner of so many lords of that time there is no reason to doubt, but that he was unfit for government does not correspond to the truth. He was generous with donations to churches and monasteries; however, he sustained strong jurisdictional and territorial conflicts with the bishop St. Anthelm of Belley (1163-73), with whom he eventually reconciled, and with the bishops of Turin, Charles and Milo (1159-89), whose claims were protected by Frederick Barbarossa. U. nevertheless had the courage to remain, together with the bishops of Aosta, Tarentaise, Maurienne and Belley, faithful to Alexander III, while all around his State the imperial antipopes followed one another. In the political field U. had to maneuver among many and powerful enemies, first of all Barbarossa, to whom in 1161 he appealed on behalf of Milan through St. Peter, archbishop of Tarentaise. Until the moment when the fugitive Barbarossa had to come to terms in order to cross the Mont Cenis pass (Feb.-March 1168), U. maintained a distrustful and hostile attitude toward him; from 1168 until 1183 such relations were correct; which did not prevent U. from forming an alliance with Henry II of England (1171), who was hated as much by Barbarossa as by the king of France. After the Peace of Constance (June 25, 1183) Frederick, who no longer cared about U.'s friendship, sure as he was of the Communes of the league, again showed himself hostile to the Count on the occasion of the territorial dispute between U. and the bishop of Turin. Summoned in vain in 1184 and 1187 to appear before the Emperor, he was placed under the ban of the Empire by Henry VI, associated in the kingdom (1187). U. opposed even this time a passive resistance, entrenching himself in his Alpine States. Gregory XVI, on Sept. 7, 1838, confirmed his cult. Feast on March 4.

A. Pietro Frutaz