By a providential coincidence, you ask after this holy bishop on the very day the Church honors his memory. Saint Ubald (Italian Ubaldo, Latin Ubaldus) of Gubbio was one of the great pastoral bishops of the twelfth century, a model of meekness, ascetical rigor, and intrepid charity in defense of his flock.
Early Life and Formation
Ubald Baldassini was born about the year 1084 in the Umbrian town of Gubbio, of a noble family. Orphaned young, he was raised under the care of relatives and educated in the cathedral school of his native city. From his youth he showed an inclination toward sacred letters and the life of the cloister, resisting all efforts of his kinsmen to marry him off and secure the family inheritance. He embraced the clerical state and was made a canon of the cathedral.
Drawn to the reform of the clergy in his age — a movement so dear to Saint Gregory VII — Ubald undertook to introduce among his fellow canons the common life, that they might live in poverty, chastity, and obedience after the manner of the Apostles. To prepare himself for so weighty an undertaking, he journeyed to the monastery of Fonte Avellana and the community at Ravenna, where the reformer Saint Peter de Honestis governed regular canons. Returning to Gubbio with what he had learned, he successfully restored discipline among the chapter, though only after much patient suffering when a fire destroyed his nascent foundation.
Reluctant Bishop
So holy was his reputation that when the see of Perugia fell vacant, the people sought him out for their bishop; he refused, casting himself at the feet of Pope Honorius II. Yet when Gubbio itself was widowed of its pastor in 1129, the Pope commanded him under obedience to accept the burden of the episcopate. For thirty-one years he ruled his flock with extraordinary gentleness, sleeping little, fasting often, wearing the rough cilice beneath his episcopal vesture, and giving the substance of his table to the poor.
The Mason and the Mortar
The hagiographers preserve one episode that has become emblematic of his patience. A workman, repairing a wall, accidentally trespassed upon the bishop’s vineyard, doing it some damage. When Saint Ubald came to inquire after the matter, the man, in a sudden temper, seized him and hurled him into a vat of wet mortar. The holy bishop, instead of resenting the indignity, rose silently, returned home, and washed himself. When the civil magistrates condemned the wretch to severe punishment, Ubald hastened to the tribunal and pleaded for his pardon — embraced him, blessed him, and sent him away in peace. So did he fulfill the Lord’s command: Diligite inimicos vestros, benefacite his qui oderunt vos (Matt. v. 44).
The Deliverance of Gubbio
About the year 1155, the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa descended into Italy at the head of a great army and threatened to sack Gubbio for resisting his sovereignty. Saint Ubald went forth alone to meet him in his camp. By the gravity of his bearing, the persuasion of his speech, and (the tradition holds) a manifest action of grace upon the emperor’s soul, he obtained the sparing of the city. Gubbio has never forgotten this deliverance; to this day, on the eve of his feast, the famous Corsa dei Ceri — the race of the great wooden “candles” — is run in his honor up the slopes of Monte Ingino, where his basilica stands.
Holy Death and Incorruption
Worn out by long infirmities patiently borne, Ubald rendered his soul to God on the 16th of May, 1160. His body remains, even now, substantially incorrupt, enshrined above the high altar of the basilica that bears his name on Monte Ingino. Pope Celestine III solemnly canonized him in 1192. He is invoked as a patron against demonic possession and obsession, against migraines, and for the deliverance of cities from violence.
A Word for the Soul
Saint Ubald teaches a lesson that the modern temper sorely needs: that meekness is not weakness but the disciplined strength of charity. The same man who endured the indignity of the mortar-pit without resentment stood alone before Barbarossa without fear. Both acts proceeded from the same source — a heart wholly given to God and emptied of self-love.
A brief prayer: O God, who didst raise up blessed Ubald Thy confessor and bishop as a defender of Thy Church and a model of meekness, grant by his intercession that we may overcome the enemies of our soul and serve Thee in tranquility of heart. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.
If this saint draws you, I would commend two avenues of further study. Within the Lives of the Saints learning path, we might examine the great twelfth-century reforming bishops alongside him — Saint Anselm of Lucca, Saint Bruno of Segni, Saint Peter Damian — to see how the Gregorian reform bore fruit in holy episcopates. Within the Spiritual Practices path, his life invites a meditation on the virtue of meekness and the cultivation of interior peace under provocation, a study well suited to the school of Saint Francis de Sales. Tell me which way you wish to be led, and we shall continue together.