St. Hubert's Day
Wilhelm Carl Rauber, Conversion of St. Hubert, 1892.
Tradition holds that Hubert was a 7th Century heir to a Frankish dukedom and as a young man was excessively fond of Hunting. In fact, quite impiously Hubert went out stag hunting on Good Friday, when good Christians were supposed to be in church. Hubert came upon a magnificent stag, and was just about to shoot it with his bow, when between the stag’s great antlers appeared a glowing gold crucifix, and Hubert heard a voice warning him to repent or he would surely burn in Hell.
Hubert went home and renounced his inheritance to a younger brother, and went to the bishop of Maastricht, seeking absolution and religious instruction. He ultimately received Holy Orders, became a priest, made a pilgrimage to Rome, and was made successor by the pope to the bishop of Maastricht who had ordained him.
Hubert, in some traditions, continued hunting, but with good sportsmanship and restraint, and Hubert widely promoted the insistence upon ethical standards and conservation practices in sporting circles that have come down to us today.
Hubert, tradition has it, also bred the legendary Saint Hubert hounds, variously described as black or white or blue-ticked, which were favorites of the French kings and from which descend reputed variously, bloodhounds, Grand Bleus de Gascogne, or (according to Richard A. Wolters) Labrador Retrievers.
St. Hubert was a popular figure of veneration in the Middle Ages, and was chosen as patron of military and chivalric orders of knighthood in Bavaria, Bohemia, Cologne, and Jülich and Berg.
St. Hubert is the patron saint of hunters and huntsmen, archers; dogs; forest workers; opticians; mathematicians; metal workers; smelters and the city of Liège.
His feast day is still celebrated in Belgium, France, and in Germany, and much of Central Europe. On November 3, in hunting regions, a Hubertus-Mass is commonly celebrated to the accompaniment of choruses of hunting horns.