Hubert, ST, Bishop of Liège, was son of Bertrand, Duke of Guienne, and was born in 656. He lived a luxurious and worldly life, first at the court of the Frankish king Theoderich, next under Pepin of Heristal, but after the death of his wife retired from the world into a monastery, on the advice of Bishop Lambert. Afterwards, when on a pilgrimage to Rome, he was made by Pope Sergius I. Bishop of Tongern, and in 708 succeeded his master, Lambert, in the see of Maastricht and Liège. He died in 727, and was afterwards canonised; his festival falls on November 3. He has been patron of orders of knighthood in Bavaria and Bohemia. See the books by Fétis (1846), Des Granges (1872), and Heggen (1875). In legend and in art, since the 15th century, St Hubert appears as a mighty hunter who was startled into repentance when hunting on Good Friday by the sudden appearance of a stag bearing between his horns a radiant crucifix.
At once he renounced hunting and all worldly pleasures, and became after his canonisation the patron saint of hunters. His aid is especially efficacious for persons bitten by mad dogs and those possessed with devils. See H. Gaidoz, La Rage et St Hubert (1887).