(ca. 1195–1263). Nothing is known of Hugues’s origins, except that he was born in Saint-Cher, not far from Vienne in the south of France. He had become a doctor of canon law and a bachelor of theology even before he joined the Dominicans at Paris in 1225, where he studied under Roland of Cremona, the first Dominican to hold a chair in theology at the University of Paris. Hugues soon set upon a vocation that would make him one of the most prominent churchmen of his day. He first served in an administrative capacity as provincial of the Order for France from 1227 to 1229. Subsequently, he took up the posts of master of theology (1230–36) at the university and prior of the Dominican convent of Saint-Jacques (1233–36). After leaving his posts at the university and the convent, he resumed his duties for the next eight years as provincial-general of the Order of Preachers for the French province, while continuing to maintain a lively interest in the scholarly activities of his order in Paris. He became vicar-general of his order in 1240 and attained his highest administrative post with his selection as the first Dominican cardinal on May 28, 1244.
Hugues played a central role in the study of the Bible and theology in the 13th century. At Saint-Jacques, he assembled a team that produced three works that served as essential starting points for the theologians and preachers of his day: an expanded commentary on the Bible; a version of the Latin Vulgate incorporating a vast series of linguistic notes “correcting” the contemporary version of the text; and the first alphabetical concordance to the Bible. His set of commentaries, known as Postillae, use as their starting point the Glossa ordinaria, itself a digest of patristic and Carolingian exegesis, and add to it the fruits of the study of the Bible produced from the middle of the 12th century to his own time. His “corrected” Vulgate, the Correctoria, gives as full a sense of the literal meaning of the text as was possible for the 13th century, and his Concordantia greatly facilitated the task of preaching, allowing a relative novice to find his way around in the Bible without having to commit the entire text to memory.
Hugues began his work on the Correctoria as early as 1227, although the latest versions of this work date from his years as cardinal (1244–63). The Postillae date from his years as master (1230–36), and his Concordantia from 1238–40—a work to which some 500 friars contributed. Although the Bible had been given standard chapter divisions by Stephen Langton at the end of the 12th century, Hugues was the first to introduce subdivisions (a, b, c, d, e, f, g), an essential element for his correctoria and concordance.
His Commentary on the Sententiae of Peter Lombard, dating from his early years as master of theology, was among the first to employ the form of the quaestio in preference to a running commentary. In effect, this form signaled a shift away from simply commenting on Lombard’s text to rewriting it, a process that was to reach its perfected form a generation later in the Summa theologica of Thomas Aquinas.
Among Hugues’s more original contributions to theology was his teaching of the “treasury of merits” that held that the superabundance of the merits and good works of Christ, the Virgin, and the saints are at the disposal of the church, in the office of the pope, to distribute to the faithful. With the articulation of the treasury of merits, the theology of indulgences became integral to the practice of private penance.
As cardinal, Hugues worked closely with three popes and served on papal commissions that heard the controversies over Joachim of Fiore, the posthumous champion of the Spiritual Franciscans, in 1255 and William of Saint-Amour, the most vocal critic of the mendicant orders, in 1256. Hugues’s eucharistic devotion is epitomized in the feast of Corpus Christi, which he authorized in Liège while legate there between 1251 and 1253 and which was placed in the calendar of the universal church in 1264 by Pope Urban IV, whom Hugues had served.
Kaeppeli, Thomas. Scriptores ordinis praedicatorum medii aevi. 3 vols. Rome: Ad S.Sabinae, 1975–80, Vol. 2, pp. 269–81.
Lerner, Robert E. “Poverty, Preaching, and Eschatology in the Revelation Commentaries of Hugh of Saint-Cher.” In The Bible in the Medieval World: Essays in Memory of Beryl Smalley, ed. Catharine Walsh and Diana Wood. Oxford: Blackwell, 1985.
Principe, Walter. The Theology of the Hypostatic Union in the Early Thirteenth Century. 4 vols. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1970, Vol. 3: Hugh of Saint-Cher’s Theology of the Hypostatic Union.
Smalley, Beryl. The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages. 3rd ed. Oxford: Blackwell, 1983.
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