Saint Hugh of Grenoble

Hugh was born in Châteauneuf-sur-Isère, in the Dauphiné, in 1053. He was a canon of the cathedral of Valence when, in 1080, he was elected bishop of Grenoble: he would stay there fifty-two years. The work of that century’s great reform fell to him, and he took it seriously: against simony, that is, the buying and selling of Church offices, and against Nicolaitism, that is, priests who lived with a woman as if they were married. These were battles that made real enemies, not theoretical ones. Then there was the question of property. Hugh waged a long dispute with Guigues III, count of Albon, to recover the lands that, as he saw it, the Albon family had taken from the diocese. To strengthen that claim he had the story of Bishop Isarn written down — the bishop who, centuries earlier, had wrested Grenoble from the Saracens by force of arms: from that came the series of documents we call the Cartularies of Saint Hugh, which for today’s historians are worth more than the outcome of the dispute. The agreement came in 1099: Guigues returned the territories, and in exchange his temporal authority around Grenoble was recognized. In 1084 he did the thing he is best remembered for. A man named Bruno came to him with six companions, looking for a solitary place to live. Hugh gave him a piece of land in the mountains, rugged and silent: it was called the Chartreuse. From there the Carthusian Order was born. He also founded the monastic Order of Chalais. He died in Grenoble on April 1, 1132. If your name is Hugh, today is your name day.