Albert of Brandenburg, Archbishop of Mainz

ALBERT OF BRANDENBURG, Archbishop of Mainz. - B. in June 1490, d. at Aschaffenburg on 24 Sept. 1545. Son of John IV, elector of Brandenburg; destined for an ecclesiastical career, he studied at Frankfurt on the Oder, where he met Ulrich von Hutten. From as early as 1509 he held a benefice in the cathedral of Mainz; in Aug. 1513 he obtained the archbishopric of Magdeburg and shortly afterwards the administration of the bishopric of Halberstadt. When the electoral archbishopric of Mainz fell vacant, he was elected to that see on 9 March 1514 and was confirmed by the Pope on 18 Aug. But he had no intention of renouncing the two sees obtained earlier, and in order to pay the Apostolic Camera the taxes owed because of this accumulation of benefices, Leo X granted him permission to publish in those dioceses and in the electorate of Brandenburg the indulgence for the building of St. Peter's, which had not yet been preached in those regions. The Dominican Johann Tetzel was entrusted with this preaching in 1517, and on that occasion Luther's rebellion began. Of easy life and lax morals, A. certainly did not commend himself as a zealous bishop: nevertheless on 24 March 1518 Leo X created him cardinal of St. Chrysogonus (a title he later exchanged for St. Peter in Chains), and this in order to have in him a defender of the faith in Germany. A., however, made no scruple of keeping Ulrich von Hutten, Capito, Hedius and other notorious Lutherans with him; on 21 Dec. 1521 he even wrote to Luther, but the latter exhorted him in vain to take a wife and to secularize his principality. Hence in 1525 Luther's wrath against him; this, however, did not prevent A. from continuing to believe he could win him over to his side. A. proved very feeble in the defense of Catholicism; he allowed heretical books to be printed and priests to marry. He showed better dispositions in 1542-43, when he was in relation with Giovanni Morone, papal nuncio, and with Blessed Peter Faber, but he tried in vain to bring the city of Halle, where he resided, back to Catholicism. He was a munificent patron of the arts and of humanistic studies. He was buried in the cathedral of Mainz.