Hugh was born in the Alpine village of Avalon, Imperial Burgundy, in what was then the Holy Roman Empire, and what is today southeastern France.

[5] [2] Hugh’s father Guillaume was the sieur d’Avalon, making him a knight enmeshed in a web of feudal obligations leading ultimately to the Holy Roman Emperor.

[6] Upon the death of Hugh's mother, his father sent him to the nearby community of Canons Regular of St. Augustine at Villarbenoît (sometimes Villard-Benoît)[7] to receive a religious education, probably in the company of other sons of the nobility.

Hugh's father, presumably brokenhearted and war-weary, also retired to the community shortly thereafter – entrusting his lands to the care of his two eldest sons (Guillaume and Pierre) who were eager to continue the martial tradition.

The care of parishes, education, nursing the sick, the refurbishing of ruined shrines and churches: these were their normal activities wherever they were found.

[6]While Hugh enjoyed ministering to the community, he ultimately sought a more contemplative existence offered only in the cloistered confines of a secluded monastery.

And, for this purpose, there was none better than the one into which he and the Prior of Villarbenoît walked one fateful day: the Grande Chartreuse (20 km north of Grenoble), the Mother House of the Carthusian order.

He realized the great opportunity it offered of living alone with God, for which aim existed the rich collection of books, the long hours devoted to reading and the unbroken silence of prayer.

After nearly a decade in this office, Hugh had (unwittingly) cultivated a reputation for efficiency and piety that reached far and wide – even across the channel to Henry II of England.

And, according to Adam of Eynsham, he was particularly lavish in his praise of Hugh:You will find united in this one individual all the patience, courtesy, courage, gentleness and other virtues possible in any mortal man.

This was a sin for which he famously suffered himself to be scourged (flogged), but part of his penance also involved the foundation of three monastic houses in England (possibly in lieu of going on crusade which he had initially promised to do).

[20] Upon arrival, he found the monks in dire straits, living in wattled huts and with no plans yet advanced for the construction of more substantial monastery buildings.

In 1186, Henry summoned a council of bishops and barons at Eynsham Abbey to deliberate on the state of the Church and on the filling of vacant bishoprics, including Lincoln.

[5] Almost immediately he established his independence of the crown, excommunicating a royal forester and refusing to seat one of Henry's courtly nominees as a prebendary of Lincoln; he softened the king's anger by his diplomatic address and tactful charm.

Eventually Hugh said, with gentle mockery, "How much you remind me of your cousins of Falaise" (where William I's unmarried mother Herleva, a tanner's daughter, had come from).

[22] An earthquake had badly damaged Lincoln Cathedral in 1185, and Hugh set about rebuilding and greatly enlarging the structure in the new Gothic style; however, he only lived to see the choir well begun.

Along with Bishop Herbert of Salisbury, Hugh resisted the king's demand for 300 knights for a year's service in his French wars; the entire revenue of both men's offices was then seized by royal agents.

Hugh's Vita, or written life, was composed by his chaplain Adam of Eynsham, a Benedictine monk and his constant associate; it remains in manuscript form in the Bodleian Library in Oxford.

At Avalon, a round tower in the Romantic Gothic style was built by the Carthusians in 1895 in Hugh's honour on the site of the castle where he was born.

[34] In 2018 St Hugh was made a subject of the BBC Radio 4 drama The Man who bit Mary Magdalene by Colin Bytheway, starring David Jason as the bishop in search of relics that would help in the construction of Lincoln Cathedral.