Hubertus
Hubertus or Hubert (c. 656 – 30 May 727 A.D.) was a Christian saint who became the first bishop of Liège in 708 A.D. He is the patron saint of hunters, mathematicians, opticians and metalworkers. Known as the "Apostle of the Ardennes", he was called upon, until the early 20th century, to cure rabies through the use of the traditional Saint Hubert's Key.
Saint Hubertus | |
|---|---|
Saint Hubert (Franz Mayer & Co., St. Patrick's Basilica, Ottawa, Canada) | |
| "Apostle of the Ardennes" | |
| Born | c. 656–658 Toulouse, Kingdom of the Franks |
| Died | 30 May 727 Voeren/Fourons near Liège, Kingdom of the Franks |
| Venerated in | Roman Catholic Church Anglican Church Eastern Orthodox Church |
| Feast | 3 November |
| Attributes | gear nearby; knight with a banner showing the stag's head and crucifix; stag; stag with a crucifix over its head; young courtier with two hounds |
| Patronage | patron saint of hunters, mathematicians, opticians and metalworkers |
Hubert was widely venerated during the Middle Ages. The iconography of his legend is entangled with the legend of the martyr Saint Eustace. The Bollandists published seven early lives of Hubertus (Acta Sanctorum, November 3, 759 – 930 A.D.); the first of these was the work of a contemporary, although it offers few details.
Hubertus died 30 May 727 A.D. in or near a place called (in Latin) Fura. In the later Middle Ages, this location was claimed to have been identified as Tervuren near Brussels; recent scholarship, however, considers Voeren (Fourons), a location much closer to Liège than Brussels, to be the saint's likelier resting place. His feast day is 3 November.