Hugh of Lincoln

“ For Hugh turned to this his first great work in the house of Martha with a peculiar relish, which was that of a lover more than of a man who had merely heaped up stones against the wind. If Lincoln was his Leah, Witham was his dear Rachael. Hither he was translated, like Enoch or Elijah, from a vexing world for a time every year. The two parts of the Charterhouse were the embodiments of “justice and innocence.” Here was “the vine of the Lord of Hosts.” His cell was kept for him, and while all the world was hotly harvesting he was laying up here his spiritual stores. ”

“ Robbers and wolves could easily demolish those whom the foresters did not choose to protect, and the forest men went through the land like a scourge. Some flagrant injustice to one of Hugh’s men brought down an excommunication upon Godfrey, who sent off to the king in fury and astonishment; and Henry was in a fine fit of anger at the news, for the Conqueror long ago had forbidden unauthorised anathemas against his men. Certain courtiers, thinking to put Hugh in the way of obliging the king, suggested that a vacant prebend at Lincoln should be given to one of themselves. ”

“ Old Abbot Geoffrey died, and at his election the Abbey had been under the See of Lincoln; but since then King Henry had claimed the gift of abbacies, a claim his son was not likely to bate. A suit with the Crown, Hugh’s friends argued, was hopeless or not worth the trouble; but this argument seemed sacrilegious to the intrepid bishop. What? Allow God and the Queen of Heaven to be robbed? Who ever agreed to let Lincoln be so pilled? He is but a useless and craven ruler who does not enlarge instead of lessen the dignities and liberties of the Holy Church. ”

“ The scholars of Paris, of all breeds, turned out in crowds to see a man, who, after St. Nicholas, had done so much good to clerks. Kisses, colloquies and invitations rained upon him, but he chose to lodge in the house of his relative Reimund. This man he had made Canon of Lincoln, and he afterwards refused to buy off King John and became an exile for conscience and the patron of exiles, and thus was in life and character a true son of St. Hugh. Among the visitors here were the Dauphin Lewis and Arthur of Brittany. ”

“ Hugh Lincoln has been a fortunate man, and his daughter will be a rich wife for the one that marries her.”
“May be so, and may be not,” said the first speaker; “one cannot tell how a man’s estate may turn out while still engaged in business. Hugh Lincoln has been a bold, daring merchant; he always incurs fearful risks, and although he has hitherto been fortunate, one turning of luck may sweep all his grandeur from him—for he perils all on every great speculation.” ”

“ We cherish a good deal of romance about the age in which St. Hugh lived. It is the age of fair Rosamond, of Crusades, of lion-hearted King Richard, and of Robin Hood. It is more soberly an age of builders, of reformers, of scholars, and of poets. If troubadours did not exactly “touch guitars,” at least songsters tackled verse-making and helped to refine the table manners of barons and retainers by singing at dinner time. ”

“ Henry made frequent visits to the monastery in his hunting expeditions in Selwood Forest. He consulted Hugh about his affairs of state, and determined to promote him to the important see of Lincoln, which had now been two years vacant. In May 1186, at a council held at Eynsham, near Oxford, he sent for the canons of Lincoln, and desired them to elect as their bishop Hugh the Burgundian. Some of these canons, men of considerable eminence and great wealth, objected to Hugh as an obscure foreign monk, but they were forced to yield to the king. ”

“ It did not require much talent to see that the first requisite of the foundation was a little money, and consequently we find ten white pounds paid from the Exchequer to the Charterhouse brethren, and a note in the Great Life to say that the king was pleased with Hugh’s modesty, and granted him what he asked for. Next there was a meeting of all who had a stake of any kind in the place, who would be obliged to be removed lest their noise and movement should break the deep calm of the community. ”

“ The anarchy of Stephen’s reign, Henry’s mastery, and Richard’s might, with Hubert Walter’s genius, resulted in a dangerous accumulation of power that did actually prove almost disastrous to the State. Consequently Bishop Hugh’s greatest contest with the Crown demands the sympathy both of men who still dream of the spiritual city in (but unsoiled by) hands of mortals, and also of those who value constitutional liberties in modern politics. The war with France kept Richard active abroad. ”

“ The bishop's unflinching courage was completely successful, and excited the king's admiration. Not long afterwards he was involved in another quarrel with Richard, who had made a heavy demand on the canons of Lincoln. Hugh again went abroad to settle matters, and arrived just before the death of Richard. He took part in the funeral rites of the king at Fontevrault, and immediately afterwards had many colloquies with John, who was very anxious to secure the great influence of Hugh in his support. ”

“ The De Avalons had two other boys both older than Hugh: William, who inherited the lands, and Peter, who was settled by his brother Hugh at Histon, in Cambridge, but he does not seem to have made England his home. Hugh had also at least one cousin, William, on his mother’s side, who attended upon him at Lincoln, and who (unless there were two of the same name) developed from a knight into an holy Canon after his great relative’s decease. ”

“ No one of the bishops or abbots would stir out for their detected dead fellow, but “to desert him in his last need” was impossible to his saintlier brother. He must be off to bury the man, council or no council. The body had been clad in an alb and chasuble. Its face was bare and black, and the gross frame was bursting from its clothes. Every one else had a gum, an essence or incense; but Hugh, who was peculiarly sensitive to malodours, showed nothing but tenderness for the corrupt mortality, and seemed to cherish it as a mother a babe. ”

“ The bishop answered humbly, “Martin kissed the leper and cured his body, but the leper’s kiss has cured my soul.”
Of Hugh’s courage several instances are cited (but impossible now to date) . He went several times unarmed against threatening bands of men who flourished naked swords. In Lincoln Church, in Holland as aforementioned, and in Northampton, he faced angry clerks and laymen, knights and men at arms, and burgesses with equal vigour, and excommunicated them. ”

“ Richard’s opinion was that “if all the other bishops were like him, no king or prince would dare to rear his neck against them.” Such salutary treatment now-a-days is the sole perquisite of the very poor. The higher up men get on the social scale, the less they need such honest dealing, it now appears.
But Hugh was not quite out of the toils. The king’s counsellors suggested that he should carry back letters to the barons demanding aid and succour, letters which it was known would be well weighted by the authority of the postman, and would ensure their bearer continuance of the royal favour. ”

“ He loved and honoured no other man so much, for he had found a man who sympathised with him without slavishness, and whose good opinion was worth having. This close friendship, combined with physical likeness, made it generally believed that Hugh was Henry’s own son. Hugh did not always agree with the king, and if he felt strongly that any course was bad for king and kingdom would say so roundly in direct words of reproof, but withal so reasonably and sweetly that he made “the rhinoceros harrow the valleys” after him, as his biographer quaintly puts it, glancing at Job. ”

“ Thomas, living, never did; but Hugh had small favour with the king at this time. By these successive battles the Bishop of Lincoln had come to be looked upon as the leader of the Church and the champion of her liberties. To us those “liberties” seem a strange claim, beyond our faith and our ken, too. It seems obvious to us that men, whether clerks or laymen, who eat, drink, wear, build, and possess on the temporal plane, should requite those who safeguard them in these things with tribute, honour, and obedience ”

“ A sturdy upholder of what he believed to be right, he let neither royal nor ecclesiastical influence interfere with his conduct, but fearlessly resisted whatever seemed to him an infringement of the rights of his church or diocese. But with all his bluff firmness Hugh had a calm judgment and a ready tact, which almost invariably left him a better friend than before of those whom he opposed; and the astute Henry, the impetuous Richard, and the cunning John, so different in other points, agreed in respecting the bishop of Lincoln. ”

“ Hugh thought it an unworthy and intolerable thing that our Lady’s Church and he, as its warder, should be under tribute at all, and he was prepared to do anything to end the “slavery.” However little we can share this notion, at least it was a generous one. The demand came after the Saladin taxes, the drain for the Crusade, for the king’s ransom, and during the building of the cathedral. It came to a man who gave a third of his money in alms and who lived from hand to mouth, often borrowing on his revenues before he got them. ”

“ He paid a warm tribute to Hugh in words of this kind, “My lord king, there is only one sure way of getting free from these straits. There is in the Charterhouse a certain monk, of high birth but far higher moral vigour. His name is Hugh of Avalon. He carries on him all the grace of the virtues; but besides, every one who knows him takes to him and likes him, so that all who see him find their hearts fairly caught. ”

“ His brain and bowels were buried at Charroux, his heart at Rouen, and his body at his father’s feet, in penitence, in the nunnery of Fontevrault. Hugh was on his way to the Cathedral at Angers to take duty the next day, Palm Sunday, when Gilbert de Lacy, a clerk, rode up to him and told him of the king’s death and of the funeral next day in Fontevrault. Hugh groaned deeply and announced at Angers that he should set out at once for that place. Every one begged and prayed that he would do no such thing. The mere rumour of the king’s death had as usual let loose all the forces of disorder. ”

“ Consequently the Hereford Canons with those of Angers and of the Lincoln Chapter laid their heads together to compose the strife between king and bishop: and the readiest way was of course for the latter to compound with a round sum and get off home.
The wars made the whole country dangerous for travelling, and it was neither safe to stay at home nor to move afield. But Job was not more persistent against his three friends than Hugh against the three unanimous Chapters, and his main argument was that the peace of the church must never be bought with money or this would endow its disturbers. ”

“ The fatal temptations of forty, being usually unexpected, are apt to upset the innocent more surely than are the storms of youth; and poor Hugh was now so badly tried that the long life of discipline must have seemed fruitless. He just escaped, as he told his too-little reticent biographer, from one nearly fatal bout by crying out, “By Thy passion, cross, and life-giving death, deliver me.” But neither frequent confession, nor floggings, nor orisons, seemed to bring the clean and quiet heart. He was much comforted by a vision of his old prior Basil, who had some days before migrated to God. ”

“ And now Hugh is made, wincingly, the procurator or bursar of the Grande Chartreuse, after he has spent eight years there, and is plunged in a sea of worldly business. The prior makes good use of his tact, business capacity, and honourable nature. He had thought and read to some purpose, for he ruled the lay brothers with diligence, and instructed the monks with great care, stirring up the sluggish and bitting the heady into restfulness. He did his worldly work vigorously, and turned it swiftly to spiritual gain. ”

“ But most of all he was the apple of the eye to his old scholarly father prior, who loved him as his own soul. It is not wonderful that when one of the scanty brotherhood was called upon to take charge of a small country living, the “cell of St. Maximin,” the zealous deacon was chosen to administer the same. The tiny benefice could hardly support one, with small household, but Hugh insisted upon having an old priest to share the benefice. A little parcel of glebe and a few vines, tended by honest rustics, were his. They were able by pious frugality to nourish the poor and grace the rich. ”

“ Next Sunday the court was at Rouen and Archbishop Walter was investing John with the sacred emblems of the Duchy of Normandy during the High Mass. A banner on a lance was handed to the new duke. John advanced, amid cheers, and the foolish cackle of laughter of his former boon companions. He looked over his shoulder to grin back at the fools, his friends, and from his feeble grasp the old banner fell upon the pavement! But Hugh had left him for England before this evil omen. When the bishop reached Flêche on Easter Monday, he went to church to vest for Mass. ”

“ The king embraced him, asked for his prayers, gave the forester to his mercy. Godfrey and his accomplices were all publicly flogged and absolved, and the enemy, as usual, became his faithful friend and supporter. The courtiers ceased to act like kites and never troubled him again. On the contrary, some of them helped him so heartily that, if they had not been tied by the court, he would have loved to have beneficed them in the diocese. But non-residence was one of the scandals of the age and Hugh was inflexible in this matter. Salary and service at the altar were never to be parted. ”