Hugo von Digne

Hugo von Digne , also called von Barjols , (French: Hugues de Digne , Italian: Ugo di Digne ; † 1256 ), was a prominent representative of the spiritual in the Franciscan order .

Hugo was the son of the merchant Berengar from Digne in Provence , his sister was Saint Douceline , whose confessor he was at the same time. Like the general of the order, John of Parma , who was a friend of his , he was one of the supporters of the millenarian ideas of Joachim von Fiore , who had once prophesied the rule of the "eternal gospel" (Apocalypse). In the office of the minister provinciae , he ensured that it spread rapidly among his confreres in Provence. He considered the realization of a permanent state of peace and justice to be the prerequisite for paradisiacal conditions on earth.

In 1248 Hugo was visited in the Franciscan convent of Hyères by his brother Salimbene of Parma , who devoted enthusiastic passages to him in his chronicle. Above all, Hugo was able to inspire the chronicler with his sermons, which he delivered with one voice, powerfully like a “trumpet sound”. On July 10, 1254, King Ludwig IX lived. in Hyères at one of his sermons after he had disembarked on the coast of Provence a few days earlier on his return from the crusade. Hugo then turned down an offer from the king to join his entourage. At Joinville's suggestion, the king tried to change his mind a second time, but Hugo again refused and honored the royal society with his presence for only one day.

In response to the provocative writing of Gerhard von Borgo San Donnino , Pope Alexander IV condemned the theses of Joachim von Fiore in 1255. Hugo died at the beginning of 1256, before he himself could be persecuted because of his followers to the " Joachites ". He was buried next to his sister in the Franciscan church in Marseille , where his admirers reported numerous miracles, but Hugo was not canonized. He remained in high esteem among the Franciscans; Bonaventure openly adopted large parts of Hugo's commentary on the Franciscan rule of the order written by Hugo around 1252.

literature

• Anna Sisto: Figure del primo Francecanesimo in Provenza: Ugo e Douceline di Digne (Florence, 1971)
• Jacques Le Goff : Saint Louis. Gallimard, Paris 1996, ISBN 2-07-073369-6 ( Bibliothèque des histoires ), (German Ludwig the Saint . Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 2000, ISBN 3-608-91834-5 ).