HUGH OF LINCOLN, ST. (c. bishop of Lincoln, was born of a noble family at Avalon, in Burgundy. He entered the canons regular at Villard-Benoit and about 1160 was appointed prior of a dependent cell. Later, however, he joined the monks of the Grande Chartreuse, and rising to the important office of procurator, he acquired a reputation for energy and tact which led Henry II. of England to request his assistance in establishing at Witham in Somersetshire the first English Carthu sian monastery. Hugh became the first prior, and under him the Charterhouse, a copy of the Grande Chartreuse, was completed. In 1186 Henry procured his election to the see of Lincoln. There he let neither royal nor ecclesiastical influence interfere with his conduct, but fearlessly resisted any infringement of the rights of his church or diocese. Though himself an ascetic, he was noted for his kindness to the poor, to lepers and to Jews. In 1200 Hugh revisited his native country and on the return journey was seized with an illness, of which he died at London on Nov. 16, 1200. He was canonized by Honorius III. and his feast is celebrated on Nov. 17.
The Magna vita S. Hugonis was edited (1864) by J. F. Dimock, who also edited a Metrical Life of St. Hugh of Avalon (186o) and a Vita by Giraldus Cambrensis (1877) . See the Vie de St. Hugues, eveque de Lincoln (114o-120o) par un religieux de la Grande Chart reuse (Montreuil, 189o, Eng. trans. by H. Thurston, S.J., with valuable notes 1898) ; C. L. Marson, Hugh, bishop of Lincoln (19o1) ; R. M. Woolley, St. Hugh of Lincoln (1927). A complete bibliography is given in U. Chevalier, Bio-bibliographie (1905) ; see also A. Potthast, Bibliotheca med. aev., 1380.
Another ST. HUGH OF LINCOLN was a child about ten years old when he was found dead on premises belonging to a Jew. It was said that the boy had been scourged and crucified in imita tion of the death of Christ, and many Jews were punished. The incident is referred to by Chaucer in the Prioresses Tale and by Marlowe in the Jew of Malta.
See J. Jacobs, Little St. Hugh of Lincoln (1884) .