November 17th. St. Hugh of Lincoln.

He was born in about 1140 near Grenoble in the foothills of the French Alps, and at the age of 25 became a Carthusian monk at the nearby Grande Chartreuse, which had been founded some 80 years previously by St. Bruno. From there he was extracted by King Henry II of England, who asked him to take charge of the Charterhouse (i.e. the Carthusian monastery) at Witham in Somerset, which had been founded in reparation for the murder of St.Thomas Becket, and which was struggling to survive. In 1186 he was chosen to be Bishop of Lincoln (then an enormous diocese, reaching from the Humber to the Thames) and proved to be a bishop of massive energy: he refounded the famous Lincoln theology school, visited extensively, took responsibility for rebuilding Lincoln Cathedral after an earthquake (and did some of the work himself), tended the sick, calmed an anti-Jewish riot and nearly lost his life in the process, and in addition was frequently called upon as an administrator of justice. He rebuked kings (on one occasion shaking King Richard I) and royal officers when necessary. He died in 1200 in London and was canonised in 1220. In 1280 his relics were enshrined in the "Angel Choir" of Lincoln Cathedral, but were scattered at the Reformation. He is usually portrayed in art with a swan, for at the Bishop of Lincoln’s manor at Stow he had one which was a pet.