Hugh de Benin

infobox bishopbiog
name = Hugh de Benin


religion=Roman Catholic Church
See = Diocese of Aberdeen
Title = Bishop of Aberdeen
Period = 1272–1282
consecration = March 27 and July 23 1272, at Orvieto
Predecessor = Richard de Potton
Successor = Henry le Chen
post = Chancellor of Aberdeen| ordination =
bishops =
date of birth = Mid or early 1200s
place of birth =Benholm, the Mearns, Scotland.
date of death = 1282
place of death = Aberdeenshire, 1282

Hugh de Benin [Benham] (d. 1282) was a 13th century bishop. If his name represents Benholm, then he may have come from an English or Anglo-Norman family recently settled in the Mearns (i.e. Kincardineshire),Summerson, "Bennum, Hugh of (d. 1281/2)".] as the name is linguistically English, unusual in settlement names for the area in this period; the other possibility is that the name "Benholm" is an anglicized corruption of a Gaelic name in "Beinn", a possibility strengthened by the spellings "Benne" and "Benin" found in the cartulary of Arbroath Abbey.Keith, "Historical Catalogue", p. 108.] He may have been related to the Christiana Benin who married into the Lundie family of Fife.

Hugh chose an ecclesiastical career and by 1266, if not before, he was Chancellor of the diocese of Aberdeen. [Watt, "Fasti Ecclesiae", p. 12.] His career moved forward further in the early 1270s when, after the death of the previous bishop, the chapter and dean of Aberdeen elected him as the new Bishop of Aberdeen. The decree of election was relayed to the pope by Hugh's proctors Thomas de Benin, a likely brother or relative of Hugh and his successor as Chancellor, and Roger de Castello. [Dowden, "Bishops of Scotland", pp. 106-7; Keith, "Historical Catalogue", p. 108; Watt, "Fasti Ecclesiae", p. 12.] Hugh was consecrated at Orvieto by Pope Gregory X between March 27 and July 23 1272. [Summerson, "Bennum, Hugh of (d. 1281/2)"; Watt, "Fasti Ecclesiae", p. 12.]

After returning to Scotland, Hugh was back in Continental Europe in 1274 as one of the bishops of Scotland attending the Council of Lyons. [Dowden, "Bishops of Scotland", p. 107; Summerson, "Bennum, Hugh of (d. 1281/2)".] Hugh was a trusted figure with both Pope Gregory and Pope Nicholas III, and was appointed several times to judge for the Pope the fitness of different Scottish bishops-elect. [Dowden, "Bishops of Scotland", p. 107.] He was one of the most active of contemporary Scottish bishops, heading a provincial council at Perth, enjoying a good relationship with the Earl of Buchan, Alexander Comyn, and commencing new work on Aberdeen Cathedral. He died early in 1282 on an island in "lacus de Gowlis" ["lacu de Goyle"; "lacu Goule"] , an unidentified loch; according to one account he choked ("suffocatus fuit"), to another he died of the cold ("catarrho exundate subito interiit") and another by an ambush or to some other kind of treachery ("insidiis occubuit"). [Dowden, "Bishops of Scotland", pp. 107-8; Summerson, "Bennum, Hugh of (d. 1281/2)"; it may be the loch now called Bishop's Loch, see Dowden and also Keith, "Historical Catalogue", p. 108.]

Notes

References

* Dowden, John, "The Bishops of Scotland", ed. J. Maitland Thomson, (Glasgow, 1912)
* Keith, Robert, "An Historical Catalogue of the Scottish Bishops: Down to the Year 1688", (London, 1924)
* Summerson, Henry, "Bennum, Hugh of (d. 1281/2)", in the "Oxford Dictionary of National Biography", Oxford University Press, 2004 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/2094, accessed 21 Feb 2007]
* Watt, D.E.R., "Fasti Ecclesiae Scotinanae Medii Aevi ad annum 1638", 2nd Draft, (St Andrews, 1969)