ALBERT VON STADE. - Thirteenth-century German religious writer and chronicler. Appointed abbot of the Benedictine monastery of St. Mary at Stade in 1232, he unsuccessfully attempted to introduce the Cistercian rule there. He later joined the Order of Friars Minor, in which he was elected general.
His most important work, besides a commentary on the Gospels, which has not survived, and a moralizing poem on a classical subject, Trollus, in 5,320 verses (ed. T. Merzdorf, Leipzig 1875), is a Chronicle from the creation of the world to the fall of the Staufen (MGH, Scripto, XVI, pp. 283-379). Particularly interesting is the chronicle of the last hundred years: in his account of the fierce struggles between the Empire and the Papacy, he seeks to remain impartial, although he is clearly on the side of the latter.