The Life of Bl. Hugo of Fosse (c. 1093 - 1164)

Feast Day: February 10

Introduction

Bl. Hugo (or Hugh) was a companion of St. Norbert of Xanten (c. 1080 - 1134), founder of the Premonstratensians, also called the Norbertines or the White Canons. The following life is mainly drawn from the Life of St. Norbert, traditionally ascribed to Hugo, though this authorship is rejected by modern scholars. After his death on February 10, 1164, Hugo was buried in the abbey church at Prémontré, the first church of the order, whence it took its name. However, after the French Revolution, when most of the Premonstratensian abbeys were suppressed or destroyed, his relics were moved several times, until finally coming to rest at the Abbey of Bois-Seigneur-Isaac in Belgium, in 1922. His cult was confirmed by Pope Pius XI on July 13, 1927, affirming his status as Blessed.

The Premonstratensians are an order of canons, that is, clergy who live together and follow a rule, but are not strictly monks. Canons would often live in a cathedral church; they would have many of the duties of typical diocesan priests, such as leading parishes, celebrating the Sacraments, and preaching. The level of interaction between canons and the outside world is thus much greater than among monks. The base rule for canons is the Rule of St. Augustine. In the early Middle Ages, other rules--like that of St. Chrodegang of Metz or the Rule of Aachen (or Rule of Aix)--were used; after beginning his religious life under the latter rule, St. Norbert returned to the primitive Augustinian Rule, with a few additions. Since him, almost all canons have followed the Augustinian Rule.

Originally, the Premonstratensians were concentrated in Central Europe: France, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, and the Czech Republic. After the Protestant Reformation and the French Revolution, the order lost the vast majority of its abbeys. However, in the past century, the order has started to grow again, both among its canons and its canonesses.

Life of the Venerable Hugo, Who First Succeeded Lord Norbert in the Leadership of the Premonstratensian Order

1. In the year after the Incarnation of Our Lord Jesus Christ 1118, a certain youth by the name of Hugo, a cleric by office, in the holy offices with Burchard, Bishop of Cambrai, ^[1] being a man of pious and holy conversation, when Saint Norbert, who had begged access to his Lord, introduced himself to him, when he discerned his Lord weeping over St. Norbert, because he saw him walk in the deepest bitterness of winter with bare feet, and since he has missed his presence for a long time, he also began to pour out tears, partly because he saw his Lord effuse with tears, partly because his mind and spirit were rapt in love for such a man, with mellifluous charity, for he had himself also wanted to relinquish the world, and to live in that way which he discerned in St. Norbert, which, after some days, he decided to pursue.
2. Therefore, he bore such love towards the man of God Norbert, that, when he was seized by a grave illness, from day to day, he solicitously asked those who took care of him whether he had improved. Then, after he learned that he had recovered his prior strength, he came to him, and opened the vow and desire of his soul to him, eager to go with him. When St. Norbert considered this, continuously stretching his hands to heaven, and giving immense thanks to God, he said: “Lord God, today I asked You to give me a companion.” He, then, when St. Norbert indicated that he wanted him to dispose of his goods first, was sad. To whom, affected by this sadness, he thus said: “Do not fear, for you have bound me to you with an indissoluble chain, father.” And so he went to dispose of his goods. But after he had returned, then he perpetually followed the man of God Norbert, working with him so earnestly in the vineyard of the Lord, that he could most patiently endure, with him, cold’s rigor, heat’s vehemence, rain, and snow, tempest, and the befalling of other adverse things.
3. Then, St. Norbert being confirmed as a Bishop and raised to the Episcopal throne, the Premonstratensian Brothers being deprived of a Father and Master, some wanted to choose another, some desired to remain with him, among whom was the venerable Hugo, whom St. Norbert kept with himself, with certain others, wanting to mark him as his successor in Prémontré. Therefore, St. Norbert instituted a law for his Premonstratensian brothers, conceding them the full faculty for choosing another Master, laying this under their own will, so that they approved Hugo by election, yet he did not intimate anything about the matter to Hugo, whom he had with him. Therefore, the brothers, acquiescing to his counsel, constitute him as rector, who most pleased him. And although St. Norbert engraved him by this, yet it was little hidden from him, what had happened to him. Then it was revealed to him by divine revelation, as, in a certain way, he later declared. For, at dawn, on that day, on which he was elected by him, he saw, standing before him, the Son of God, Jesus Christ, with his father and Master Norbert, the Lord Jesus extending His right hand and receiving that brother, chosen by the other brothers, from the hand of the man of God Norbert, saying: “I present to You, Lord, the one committed to me by Your most holy majesty.” So he now could know this without doubt, what divine providence had decreed of him.
4. Then, when that day shone, on which it pleased St. Norbert to perfect what he had begun, having called together the brothers who he had with him, he showed his counsel to them, and opened his mind to them, and, having called the elected brother, namely, Hugo, he spoke to him thus: “You,” he said, “will succeed me by your brothers’ election, in the house of our poverty,” to which he responded: “You, and especially God, the Father of all, it behooves to obey. I will go and consider the mercy of God, proceeding and succeeding: if I can effect and perfect something by them, I will give you thanks, since it is not licit for me to remain with you, whom, after God, I have chosen as father and tutor of my soul, without offense.” The man of God said to him: “God, for the hand of the Lord will be with you to the end.”
5. Therefore, having accepted the blessing, he withdrew, joining to himself two companions, of whom the man of God had given precept, so that he would constitute one as father of the Church in Antwerp, ^[2] the other in Floreffe. ^[3] And so it was done. He was placed and consecrated as father in the Premonstratensian Church, and, by him, the two in the two other churches mentioned above. But two others were consecrated in two other Churches, St. Martins of Laon, ^[4] and Viviers; ^[5] whom the venerable Hugo wanted to gather together, each year, on a stated date in a determined place, to correct anything improper to their Order, if, perhaps, something had slipped in or fallen back: but they would confirm whatever was consonant to religion and pleasing to God. Therefore, diligently, and assiduously, he labored in the vineyard of the Lord, in which he was placed: of which labors no one was in doubt, since he enjoys the sempiternal age, on with his father and master Norbert, where there is the perpetual felicity of blessed mind, with the most blessed spirits.
6. Therefore, the blessed Norbert having died, the venerable Hugo, supplicating, with all insistent prayer, prayed to God, that he would receive some vision of the mercy which He conferred on his Master and father Norbert. For he sorrowed until he found something out for certain. A certain night, he appeared to him in a most beautiful house, in which he was seen perfused by the sun’s splendor: therefore, he, recognizing his master, quickly fell prostrate at his feet, humbly asking from him, that he would deign to make him more certain of his state and of the mercy received from God. And he, raising him from the earth, and pressing his arms on his neck, spoke thus to him: “My son, you seek a difficult thing, nevertheless, it will be opened to you, who incessantly knock; come,” he said, “let us sit,” but there was a most beautiful seat prepared for him. When he had sat in it, he said to him: “He said to me: ‘Come, my sister, rest in peace and rest yourself.’” Refreshed by this mellifluous and desired response, fearing lest he, whom, through a vision, as he desired, he knew himself to see, he said, “I pray, most loving father, that you speak; now take away the distress, that I will not come to you, when, still living, you ordered me to come”; and he responded, “You will come,” and thus disappeared.
7. Of these things, the venerable Hugo wrote in the life of St. Norbert, whence we have compiled this brief history, briefly containing his life. But he wrote this, as if this vision befell another; but, as anyone can easily discern, this revelation is to be ascribed to no other than him: which is clear from those words, with which he thus finished the life of St. Norbert, when St. Norbert said to him in that final vision: “You will come.” “Then,” he said, “he left.” For he was “that brother, but, through another intervening affair, he did not come,” namely, at the time which St. Norbert had signified to him. For the Lord Jesus did not yet want to call him from life. Further, he has: “Omnipotent God made it that, according to His promise, that he would come to him, and that he would leave behind a companion and successor, and participant in the misery and affliction of this world, he made him a consort in eternal happiness, and a recipient of blessing from God.” In which words, he says himself to be the companion, successor, and participant. That this be true, is revealed above, by this, that, tolerating his miseries and troubles, he went as a pilgrim: yet, it is easy to understand that he would deem himself made his successor in the Premonstratensian monastery, out of all of them, insinuating it under another pretext, and he did this from great humility, since he did not want to aptly nominate himself. What, I pray, is to be thought of such a man, who was furnished with such a noted virtue of humility? to whose prayers, so quickly, the divine ears are open, to whom He sent His elect, in order to fulfill His desire, with them who, in the heavens (before the throne of God, those standing give thanks), live a most happy life, as they converse with the other inhabitants of the heavenly homeland, and they give him a most joyful response to his demand.

Footnotes: [1] Burchard (d. 1130) was Bishop of Cambrai, in France, from 1114 until his death. He was a friend of St. Norbert from his youth, and Hugo worked for him; it was a chance meeting of Burchard and Norbert that led to Hugo's vocation. St. Norbert was offered the episcopate of Cambrai as a youth, but he was not yet converted; when he rejected it, Burchard was chosen. Burchard also attended the First Lateran Council in 1123.

[2] St. Michael’s Abbey in Antwerp was a previously-existing church with canons; however, St. Norbert reformed it in 1124, installing Waltmannus as the first abbot. An important Norbertine writer and scholar, Johannes Chrysostomus vander Sterre (1591-1652) was the fourtieth abbot. Peter Paul Rubens painted his Adoration of the Magi (1624) for the altarpiece. The abbey was closed and taken over during the French Revolution, and it was demolished in 1831.

[3] The Flos Mariae abbey at Floreffe, in Belgium, was the second abbey, chronologically, of the Norbertines; the church and house for the abbey were given to St. Norbert by Godfrey, Count of Namur, and his wife Ermensendis on November 27, 1121. The abbey’s chronicles record that once, when St. Norbert was celebrating Mass there, he saw a drop of blood issuing from the Host onto the paten; the altar stone from that Mass is still preserved in Floreffe. The first abbot was named Richard. This abbey still remains, though it was closed during the French Revolution.

[4] The Abbey of St. Martin in Laon was considered one of the senior houses of the order, as it was among the first founded, through the cooperation of St. Norbert and Barthélemy of Jur, Bishop of Laon. As with St. Michael’s in Antwerp, there was a prior house of canons there, founded in the Carolingian period, but it was empty, and the church had fallen into decay. Like many others, it was closed during the French Revolution, though the church is still in use as a parish, and the abbey itself is now a hospital. Its first abbot was Galterus.

[5] It seems that this abbey was originally located in Viviers, when it was found in 1121, but, in 1153, it moved to Valsery, or Vallis Serena, as the abbey is called. The first abbot was Henry. It is no longer an active abbey; it was possibly closed during the French Revolution, like many others, though I haven’t confirmed this. Most of the buildings were destroyed during World War I, though the ruins are classified as historic monuments in France.

Source: Sigismund Kohel, Præmonstratensis Ordinis Nonnullorum Patrum vitæ ex variis Authoribus collectæ (Typis Lucensibus ad fluuvium Dia, 1608).

Introduction Source: St. Norbert Abbey, "Feast of Bl. Hugh of Fosse,O. Praem.," https://www.norbertines.org/event/feast-of-bl-hugh-of-fosse-o-praem-2017-02-10/ (accessed February 22, 2018).

Notes Source: Charles-Hyacinthe Hugo (Louis-Charles Hugo), Sacri et Canonici Ordinis Præmonstratensis Annales..., 2 tom. (Nancy, France: Jean-Baptiste Cusson and Abel-Denis Cusson, 1734).

Wikipedia, in various languages, also provided a host of details.

Back