Born at Fouilloy, Hugo received an education from Benedictines before becoming a religious himself--probably Benedictine. He began at the priory of St.-Laurent-au-Bois while still young, later becoming founding prior of St.-Nicholas-de-Regny in 1332 and eventually returning to St.-Laurent as prior in 1152. There he died, and little else is known of his life.
Though biographical information is sparse, we have a number of his writings. Though often overshadowed--or absorbed--by his co-named contemporary, Hugo of St. Victor (1096-1141), some still read his works. Like Hugo of St. Victor and his student Richard of St. Victor (d. 1173), Hugo of Fouilloy wrote mystical theology, particularly focusing on mystical allegories. His most well-known work is De avibus (On Birds) which is both a bestiary and a collection of moral and mystical treatises about each bird. Along with the De medicina animae (Of the Medicine of the Soul), he is also known for De claustro animae (Of the Cloister of the Soul), from which the following selection is taken. The work describes the soul using the allegory of a monastery and its various parts; the first section, though, is on more general moral topics and the benefits of religion. This selection--Book I, Ch. XII--is on how good religion is to those who are ill. It is "bountiful": the Latin word (larga) is connected with the French largesse. I added some paragraph divisions, as the original text had this entire chapter as one paragraph.
Religion is bountiful to the infirm. But there are four types of infirmity. For there are some who are infirm from old age, others, then, from a lesion of members, others from an infirmity in recent times, others, then, are detained in continuous languor. But they are others whose old age is garrulous, irate, full of proverbs, with empty fables, and although their eyes, going blind, darken, although their hand, trembling, ceases to work, although their foot forgets its office, although the whole body and soul begin to curve, yet, as blessed Augustine says in the book On the Twelve Abuses of the World, when he speaks of the irreligious old man, “his heart and tongue do not grow old.”[1] These are those who glory when they do ill, who glory in becoming rich, call the prince of the worldly beautiful, not the peace of saints, they want to be called for lawsuits, since they know what came before. Such accuse Susannah, if you want to praise them, and they praise Jezebel the fornicating woman, and therefore their judgment will return upon their head: and the angel of the Lord will descend and cut them asunder (cf. Dan 13:59). There are also those who, when they do not see the earth with their eyes, consider heaven with their mind, who, although they stumble with their feet, although they nod with the whole body, yet they do not offend with their tongue, they do not nod in soul, they are silent about noxious things, they narrate what instructs, they support the interior man’s labor, when they cannot support the exterior. They stand in prayer, they recount all their years in the bitterness of their soul, and, therefore, their youth will be renewed like the eagle’s (cf. Ps 102:5).
Then, those who have suffered lesion of members or a molestation of their body, or a languor: they, indeed, are carrying an anxiety of the body through illness, they consult the doctor, if they do not immediately get well, they grow angry at the infirmity, they despair of health. But what do I say, brethren, of these? They do not suffer headache well, and how will they sustain head-torture for Christ? They fear the whip, and how will they suffer the cutting-off of the head for Christ? There are others who do not serve the flesh, but will that the flesh serve the spirit, who seek no doctor but Christ, they call out with the prophet: Heal me, Lord, and I will be healed (Jer 17:14): they alone bear their infirmity, since they do not disquiet anyone with grievances, they are not querulous, as those of whom we spoke above. There are four things by which the infirm are conquered, namely, by infirmity, by medicine, by food, by order. By infirmity, therefore, some are conquered, since they bear the weight of infirmity unwillingly. Others, then, are those who are conquered, since they do not want to interfere in the brethren’s labor. By medicine, then, since fraternal charity does not help them, as they say, some are conquered. Others, since they suffer distance from the Church through their infirmity, are saddened. But of food some make a grievance, that it is not ministered to them sufficiently or how or when they want it. Others, then, suffer since they eat delicate things, doing nothing, and since someone serves them and they serve no one.
But by order some are conquered, imputing to a heavy order the cause of their infirmity, and so, since they fulfilled it well, they waste away evilly. But there are others who, therefore, are conquered by order, since, separated from the convent of brethren, they are treated more delicately. But if, from the bed, they hear the psalming voices of brethren in choir, then they ruminate the psalms, praying in the cubicle of the heart, with closed doors: and, although they spend the whole night in vigil, agitated by their pains, yet they judge those blessed who, through part of the night, labor, serving God. They do not leave the bed willingly: and yet those who handle the tedium of the cloister well, they consider to be happy, they think nothing of fulfilling the order; but, unless I am wrong, they fulfill all. They are crushed together in the cloister of infirmity, they are disciplined by the rod of anxieties and the thorns of pains; they fast, they keep vigil, they labor; since infirmity denies food, sleep, quiet: and yet, if the bed is prepared smoothly, if they think of sleeping without shoes, as if they did something criminal, they fear perishing in such a life. Such are indignant at consolation, lest they fail through molestation of the body or affliction of the interior man. Let them hear what the angel says to Peter: Gird yourself, and put on your shoes (Acts 12:8). Whence Bede, on the Acts of the Apostles: “Peter,” he says, “loosened the ties of his tunic because of the rigor of the prison at that hour, so that, the tunic, lowered around his feet, would temper the cold of that night, showing an example to the infirm, that, when we are tempted by a bodily molestation or human injuries, it is licit for us to relax some of our proposed rigor.”[2] Therefore, let them use the counsel of the wise, lest they fail, for these things were written for our instruction. These are those of diverse infirmities, as we said; now, how religion is bountiful to the infirm, let us briefly show. Blessed Benedict says: “Above all and before all, the care of the infirm is to be performed.”[3] Behold how bountiful religion is to the infirm. “Before all” he says: that is, more quickly than something for all the other brethren ought the infirm brother be provided with what he asks for. “Above all,” that is, more abundantly than the rest, so that, if necessities are lacking for the others, more and more delicate things are sought for the infirm; more, so that, out of many, something may please them, more delicate, so that, when they eat, they may be refreshed by something.
Footnotes: [1]There is a book attributed to St. Augustine On the Twelve Grades of Abuse, and Grade II is on “the old man without religion”; the closest thing to what Hugo quotes is, “Therefore, two particular parts of man are to be heeded, which do not grow old in his flesh, and draw the whole man with them to sin, namely, the heart and the tongue” (PL 40:1080). Migne’s edition also extends the quote to cover the next sentence, but I cannot find anything similar in the work attributed to Augustine.
[2]The Venerable Bede, Exposition on the Acts of the Apostles, Chapter 12 (PL 92:972C).
[3]See St. Benedict of Nursia, Rule XXXVI (PL 66:581C): “The care of the infirm is to be adhered to, before all and over all.”
Source: Patrologiae Cursus Completus...Series Secunda, ed. J.-P. Migne, Tomus CLXXVI (Paris: J.-P. Migne, 1854), 1037AD-1038D. [PL 176:1037A-1038D]