ST HUBERT, PATRON SAINT OF HUNTERS
THE PATRON SAINT OF HUNTERS
I J Larivers
Saint Hubert of Liège is the patron saint of dogs, mathematicians, forest workers and hunters. That’s a pretty broad mandate - so just who was he?
Hubertus, circa 656–727 AD, was made Bishop of Liège in 708 AD. He was perhaps most widely venerated during the Middle Ages, when mankind was closer to nature and hunting was a matter of life and death, and not so much a recreation.
He was born into the nobility sometime around the year 656. His father was Bertrand, Duke of Aquitane, and he was the grandson of Charibert, King of Toulouse. He was well-received into the upper echelons of Parisian society; and as with most of his contemporaries, the hunt was an integral part of his formative years and later life. Around 682, Hubertus married Floribanne, the daughter of Count Dagobert of Leuven, and their son Floribert would later literally inherit the bishopric of Liège.
Sadly, Floribanne had died giving birth to Floribert and this caused Hubertus to retire to the heavily wooded Ardennes, where in his solitude he gave himself over exclusively to hunting pursuits. Perhaps this split from civilisation - and especially the all-powerful church - working on his mind had something to do with what followed, but early one morning on a Good Friday, while most were flocking to church, Hubertus set out on the hunt. He picked up the trail of an exceptional stag, and as he closed with it, so the legend goes, it turned and he beheld a crucifix between its antlers. (And Cecil thought he was cool.) It was then that he heard a voice proclaim “Hubert, unless thou turnest to the Lord, and leadest an holy life, thou shalt quickly go down into hell!” As one would imagine, this rattled him pretty badly, being the seventh century and all. He was further divinely instructed to “Go and seek Lambert, and he will instruct you.” I’m not going to say anything about what types of mushrooms might have been growing in that forest.
Hubertus lost no time in making his way to Maastricht, and an audience with Lambert, its bishop. Hubertus was well-received and taken under the bishop’s wing; he subsequently renounced his birthright as heir of Aquitaine and bequeathed all his wealth and possessions to the poor. He took his religious orders seriously, and was soon ordained in the priesthood and became one of Lambert’s principal administrators. Lambert, however, was assassinated in Hubertus’s absence, and acting on the strength of another vision, the Pope appointed Hubertus as his successor - Bishop of Maastricht.
Hubertus was by all accounts a diligent and well-respected bishop. He was an eloquent orator from the pulpit and devoted his efforts and resources to bettering the plight of the poor; his personal faith and devotions were exemplary. He personally took his evangelical duties to the unsophisticated peasants in the Ardennes forests where he had once lived.
On 30 May, either 727 or 728, Hubertus died, probably aged around 72. Most of the available resources are sketchy as to his canonization, and his son, Floribert not only inherited his father’s bishopric, but is also historically referred to with the honorific of “saint”.
Looking into this, I learned that while the Catholic church today canonizes only those whose lives have been marked by the exercise of heroic virtue, and only after this has been proved by conclusive arguments, for several centuries the bishops could grant this ecclesiastical honour, mainly for worthies from their local territories. Only the Bishop of Rome could make these honours universally accepted. So, with no disrespect to St Hubertus at all, he is what is known as a “pre-congregation” saint. This means that he was canonized before the current Congregation for the Causes of Saints, and the date for his canonization is not known - if the date was ever recorded, it is now lost to history. It was only in 1634 that Pope Urban VII published a papal bull which reserved for the Holy See the exclusive rights to canonization and beatification. (I also learned that beatification is a recognition accorded by the Catholic Church of a dead person's ability to intercede on behalf of individuals who pray in their name, while canonization is to declare a deceased person an officially recognized saint.)
But what St Hubertus is really associated with among hunters is ethical hunting practices. About right for a saint, I guess. The idea of respecting the wildlife we hunt as valuable and necessary species in their own right - in other words, to hunt sustainably - and also to hunt humanely, making clean kills on animals selected as being surplus to their gene pool’s requirements are cornerstone tenets of today’s true hunter. As legend goes, these are concepts that were communicated to Hubertus during his encounter with the divine hirsch. Though in the aftermath of Justice Antonin Scalia’s death and the attendant publicity attached to The International Order of St Hubertus a lot of folks stared blankly and said “St who?”, Hubert’s legacy is still taught and respected among European hunters.
As with most historical detective journeys, the life of the man is the key to the story. Hubertus being born into the aristocracy there was plenty of information available, and this also probably had a lot to do with his not being burned at the stake for conversing with supernatural deer (though the story of Hubert’s vision was first linked with him in the 15th century, long after the fact).
Knowing something of Hubertus the man, it was easy to see how he would be the natural icon for something like The International Order of St. Hubertus, which has become a worldwide knightly order of hunters and wildlife conservationists whose tenets are most closely aligned with traditional hunting ethics and practices. Count Franz Anton von Sporck, a German-speaking intellectual from Bohemia in what is now the Czech Republic, founded the order in 1695. This immediately jumped out at me, because it pre-dates the formation of the Masonic Grand Lodge of England - regarded as the first grand lodge - by 22 years. The count brought together aristocratic hunters from Austria, Bohemia, and other countries throughout the Habsburg empire, and the motto of the order became Deum Diligite Animalia Diligentes, or "Honoring God by Honoring His Creatures". Today the International Order of St Hubertus claims just under a thousand members, about a quarter of whom live in the United States. Like traditional Masonic orders, it is a male-only organisation.
The order exists to “promote sportsmanlike conduct in hunting and fishing, and foster good fellowship among sportsmen from all over the world; to teach and preserve sound traditional hunting and fishing customs; encourage wildlife conservation and to help protect endangered species from extinction; promote the concept of hunting and fishing as an intangible cultural heritage of humanity; endeavour to ensure that the economic benefits derived from sports hunting and fishing support the regions where these activities are carried out; and strives to enhance respect for responsible hunters and fishermen”. Given the current plague of animal rightists masquerading as “conservationists” and “environmentalists” - which by definition implies appropriate educational qualifications in the natural sciences which are usually lacking - the media focus on the International Order of St Hubertus following the death of US Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia seems most timeous.
If done with journalistic integrity, that is. Sadly, “secret societies” sell more newspapers than ethical hunting practices. As a Freemason myself, whose lodge is mainly concerned with the welfare of the elderly, I got a kick out of the whole “Run and hide, it’s a secret society!” bent adopted by much of the media, including some otherwise credible publications like the Washington Post. But there was more emphasis on the fact that “members of the worldwide, male-only society wear dark-green robes emblazoned with a large cross” and the revelation that some members of the order “hold titles, such as Grand Master, Prior and Knight Grand Officer” than there was on the rather less dramatic actuality that the order’s raison d'être is the promotion of ethical and law-abiding hunting conventions.
It was reported that the owner of Cibolo Creek Ranch where Scalia died, John Poindexter, and C Allen Foster - a Washington attorney who has been heralded in the media as Scalia's “mystery travelling companion” - were members of the International Order of St Hubertus. There is no “mystery” about either man. John Poindexter is a third-generation Texan with an MBA and a PhD in Economics and Finance. He is a highly decorated former special forces soldier - two Bronze Stars, two Silver Stars and two Purple Hearts - and his business empire is worth over a billion dollars. Foster is a summa cum laude graduate of Princeton University with a law degree from Harvard and an MA from Oxford, which he gained as a Fulbright Scholar. These are respectable things.
Their website states that “The Order is under the Royal Protection of His Majesty Juan Carlos of Spain, the Grand Master Emeritus His Imperial and Royal Highness Archduke Andreas Salvator of Austria and our Grand Master is His Imperial and Royal Highness Istvan von Habsburg Lothringen, Archduke of Austria, Prince of Hungary”. Apart from my own enlightenment I think I know what I want to know - the International Order of St Hubertus is a “secret” society that anyone can learn about off the Internet, like Freemasonry. And also like Freemasonry it exists to promote ethical conduct among its members. Specifically concerned with hunting, it endorses the concept of sustainable use, sponsors conservation initiatives that benefit local communities, and safeguards the natural history heritage where it is active.
Really, isn’t that what is really important?
PHOTOS
1 St Hubertus and the stag.
2 A statue of St Hubertus.
3. The logo of the International Order of St Hubertus.
4. The 2013 Investiture of the International Order of St Hubertus.
5. The American tabloid approach following Justice Antonin Scalia’s death.
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