The Lives of the Saints through 100 Masterpieces

Hubert

The Lives of the Saints 116 Hubert November 3 Unlike Saint Eustace, in whose case the stag was merely a means of conversion to Christianity, the same animal played a prominent role in the story of Hubert’s life. Born in the seventh century, Hubert, a son of the Duke of Aquitaine, was obviously a Christian, but a bad Christian, blinded by his passion for the chase. When the stag appeared to him bearing a crucifix between its antlers, it was to reproach him for hunting on Good Friday. Hubert reformed his ways, becoming bishop of Maastricht and later of Liege, without, however, completely abandoning his passion for the hunt; his hounds were kept at the Abbey of Andage (from then on known as the Abbey of Saint Hubert). Not until later centuries did the popes issue several bulls forbidding members of the clergy from taking part in the chase. The saint’s hounds generated a hunting breed still used in our days, and every year throughout the Middle Ages, the monks of the abbey would offer six dogs descended from Hubert’s original hounds to the king of France. The iconography inspired by Saint Hubert admittedly often owes less to his sanctity than to his taste for hunting, especially in more recent periods of art history. Similarly, in present-day Belgium there is a confraternity of the Glorious Saint Hubert, but it is primarily a gastronomic association. Its specialty is called “hunter’s soup.” Pieter Brueghel the Younger (1564–ca. 1638) The Vision of Saint Hubert Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid ...