ALBERT von STADE. - German religious writer and chronicler of the 13th century. In 1232 he was made abbot of the Benedictine monastery of St. Mary’s at Stade, but his attempt to introduce the Cistercian Rule there failed. He later entered the Franciscan Order and was elected its minister general.
His most important work, apart from a commentary on the Gospels (now lost) and a moralizing poem on a classical subject, Troilus, in 5,320 verses (ed. T. Merzdorf, Leipzig 1875), is a Chronicle from the creation of the world to the fall of the Hohenstaufen (MGH, Scriptores, XVI, pp. 283-379). Especially noteworthy is the account of the last hundred years: in depicting the harsh struggles between Empire and Papacy he strives to remain impartial, though he is clearly on the side of the latter.