ALBERT (1490-1545), elector and archbishop
? of
Mainz (
Germany), and
archbishop of Magdeburg
?, was the younger son of John Cicero,
elector of
Brandenburg, and was born on the 28th of June
1490.
Having studied at the university of Frankfort-on-the-Oder,
he entered the ecclesiastical profession, and in 1513 became
archbishop of Magdeburg and administrator of the diocese of
Halberstadt.
In 1514 he obtained the electorate of Mainz,
and in 1518 was made a cardinal. Meanwhile to pay for
the pallium of the see of Mainz and to discharge the other
expenses of his elevation, Albert had borrowed a large sum of
money from the Fuggers, and had obtained permission from Pope
[Leo X]? to conduct the sale of indulgences in his diocese to
obtain funds to repay this loan. For this work he procured
the services of John Tetzel, and so indirectly exercised a
potent influence on the course of the Reformation?.
When the
imperial election of 1519 drew near, the elector's vote was
eagerly solicited by the partisans of Charles (afterwards
the emperor Charles V) and by those of Francis I, king of
France, and he appears to have received a large amount of
money for the vote which he cast eventually for Charles.
Albert's large and liberal ideas, his friendship with Ulrich
von Hutten, and his political ambitions, appear to have raised
hopes that he would be won over to Protestantism; but
after the Peasants' War of 1525 he ranged himself definitely
among the supporters of Catholicism, and was among the princes
who met to concert measures for its defence at Dessau in July
1525.
His hostility towards the reformers, however, was
not so extreme as that of his brother Joachim I, elector of
Brandenburg; and he appears to have exerted himself in the
interests of peace, although he was a member of the league
of Nuremberg, which was formed in 1538 as a counterpoise to
the league of Schmalkalden.
The new doctrines nevertheless
made considerable progress in his dominions, and he was
compelled to grant religious liberty to the inhabitants
of Magdeburg in return for 500,000 florins. During his
latter years indeed he showed more intolerance towards the
Protestants, and favoured the teaching of the Jesuits in his
dominions.
Albert adorned the Stiftiskirche at Halle and
the cathedral at Mainz in sumptuous fashion, and took as his
motto the words Domine, dilexi decorem domus tuae. A generous
patron of art and learning, he counted Erasmus? among his
friends.
He died at Aschaffenburg on the 24th of September 1545.
Intial text from 1911 encyclopedia