St Hubert, Patron Saint of Mathematics, and a Devilish Puzzle
Wednesday 14 October 2026 at 22:49
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Edited by Richard Walker, Wednesday 14 October 2026 at 22:51
Something prompted to wonder : Does mathematics have a patron saint?
So I looked it up and was quite surprised to find it does. St Hubert of Liège is the traditional patron saint of mathematics.
He was a real person, a 7th century Frankish nobleman, who was passionately fond of hunting (and hunting is also part of his patronage). One day while out hunting, so the legend goes, he encountered a stag with a crucifix between its antlers and was converted to Christianity on the spot, going on to become an important church leader and widely venerated in the Middle Ages.
Here is a much later (ca. 1470) picture of the conversion scene. I have enlarged the illustration. I can't really make the text out but I could see 'S. Hubert' there.
St. Hubert of Liège with a hunting horn, the stag with the crucifix at his feet. National Library of the Netherland, Public Domain.
Why the connection with mathematics? Well to be honest there is no contemporary link in the literature and the most likely explanation is that a group of mathematicians adopted his as their patron, perhaps because he was so well-respected. But a rather nice legend has grown up, one that I rather like.
St Hubert's great piety was taken by the Devil as a challenge. So the latter posed Hubert a fiendishly difficult mathematical problem, in the hope he would be distracted from his prayers. But Hubert managed to calculate the answer to the problem without allowing himself to be diverted from his religious observances, and so the Devil's plan was thwarted.
Only a story... but if only we could know what the devilish puzzle was!
St Hubert, Patron Saint of Mathematics, and a Devilish Puzzle
Something prompted to wonder : Does mathematics have a patron saint?
So I looked it up and was quite surprised to find it does. St Hubert of Liège is the traditional patron saint of mathematics.
He was a real person, a 7th century Frankish nobleman, who was passionately fond of hunting (and hunting is also part of his patronage). One day while out hunting, so the legend goes, he encountered a stag with a crucifix between its antlers and was converted to Christianity on the spot, going on to become an important church leader and widely venerated in the Middle Ages.
Here is a much later (ca. 1470) picture of the conversion scene. I have enlarged the illustration. I can't really make the text out but I could see 'S. Hubert' there.
St. Hubert of Liège with a hunting horn, the stag with the crucifix at his feet. National Library of the Netherland, Public Domain.
Why the connection with mathematics? Well to be honest there is no contemporary link in the literature and the most likely explanation is that a group of mathematicians adopted his as their patron, perhaps because he was so well-respected. But a rather nice legend has grown up, one that I rather like.
St Hubert's great piety was taken by the Devil as a challenge. So the latter posed Hubert a fiendishly difficult mathematical problem, in the hope he would be distracted from his prayers. But Hubert managed to calculate the answer to the problem without allowing himself to be diverted from his religious observances, and so the Devil's plan was thwarted.
Only a story... but if only we could know what the devilish puzzle was!