**ALBERT I** (ALBRECHT) of Brandenburg, called the Bear. – Count of Ballstedt, of the Ascanian family. He dedicated his life to the expansion toward the East, beyond the Elba, against the pagan people of the Wends, especially after he was invested by Lothar III (1134) with the Altmark. From there he conquered vast territories beyond the river (Crusade 1146–47), promoted the conversion of the Slavs and German colonization; he founded the bishoprics of Havelberg and Brandenburg, and from 1150 (after the death of Pribislao, prince of the Wends) he styled himself Margrave of Brandenburg. He died in 1170.
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**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 an der Oder, where he met Ulrich von Hutten. From 1509 he held a benefice in the cathedral of Mainz; in August 1513 he obtained the archbishopric of Magdeburg and shortly thereafter 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 confirmed by the Pope on 18 August. He had no intention of relinquishing the two earlier sees, and to pay the Apostolic Camera the dues required for this accumulation of benefices, Leo X granted him permission to publish the indulgence for the fabric of St Peter’s in those dioceses and in the Electorate of Brandenburg, which had not yet been preached in those regions. The Dominican Johann Tetzel was entrusted with this preaching in 1517, and it was on this occasion that Luther’s rebellion began. Of easy life and lax morals, Albert was hardly a model of zealous episcopacy; yet on 24 March 1518 Leo X created him Cardinal of S. Crisogono (a title he later exchanged for S. Pietro in Vincoli), in order to have in him a defender of the faith in Germany. Albert, however, made no scruple of harbouring Ulrich von Hutten, Capito, Hedius and other notorious Lutherans; on 21 December 1521 he even wrote to Luther, though in vain did the latter urge him to take a wife and secularize his principality. Hence in 1525 Luther’s anger against him; yet this did not prevent Albert from continuing to try to draw him to his side. He showed great zeal in defending Catholicism, allowing heretical books to be printed and priests to marry. Better dispositions were shown in 1542–43 when he was in contact with Giovanni Morone, papal nuncio, and Blessed Peter Faber, though he vainly attempted to bring 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.
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