Saint Albert

                     Cardinal, Bishop of Liège, d. 1192 or 1193. He was a son of Godfrey III, Count of
                     Louvain, and brother of Henry I, Duke of Lorraine and Brabant, and was chosen
                     Bishop of Liège in 1191 by the suffrages of both people and chapter. The
                     Emperor Henry VI violently intruded his own venal choice into the see, and Albert
                     journeyed to Rome to appeal to Celestine III, who ordained him deacon, created
                     him cardinal, and sent him away with gifts of great value and a letter of
                     recommendation to the Archbishop of Rheims, where he was ordained priest and
                     consecrated bishop. Outside that city, soon after, he was set upon by eight
                     German knights of the Emperor's following, who took advantage of the confiding
                     kindness of the saintly bishop, and stabbed him to death. The date of his
                     martyrdom is given variously as 24 November, 1193 (Moroni), 23 November, 1192
                     (Hoefer), while the Bollandists, placing it in the latter year, give 21 November as
                     its precise date, this being also the day on which the saint's feast is kept. His
                     body reposed at Rheims until 1612, when it was transferred by the Archduke
                     Albert of Austria to the church of the Carmelite convent, which he had just
                     founded at Brussels. The relics of this strenuous defender of ecclesiastical liberty
                     were, by permission of the Holy See, shared with the cathedral of Liège, in 1822.

                     GILES OF LIEGE, Gesta Episcoporum Leodiensium (Liège, 1613), 134-186; BARONIUS, Annales
                     (Bar-le-duc, 1869), XIX, 640; ROHRBACHER, Histoire de l'Eglise catholique (Paris, 1872), VIII,
                     671-673.

                     Thomas J. Shahan
                     Transcribed by Laura Ouellette

                                       The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume I
                                    Copyright © 1907 by Robert Appleton Company
                                    Online Edition Copyright © 1999 by Kevin Knight
                                  Nihil Obstat, March 1, 1907. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor
                                 Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York

The Catholic Encyclopedia:  NewAdvent.org