Albert of Riga or
Albert of Livonia (; ; c. 1165 in Bexhövede, a part of
Loxstedt – 17 January 1229 in
Riga) was the third
Bishop of Riga in
Livonia. In 1201 he founded Riga, the modern capital of
Latvia, and built the
city's cathedral in 1221.
Albert headed the armed forces that forcibly converted the eastern
Baltic region to
Christianity, in the nature of a
crusade that was undertaken while the
Fourth Crusade was sacking
Constantinople.
Albert and his brother
Hermann were members of the powerful Buxhoeveden family from Bexhövede, now a part of
Loxstedt,
Lower Saxony. Because of this he has also been known as
Albert of Buxhoeveden (or
Bexhövede,
Buxhövden,
Buxhöwde,
Buxthoeven,
Appeldern).
Albert was a
canon in
Bremen when his uncle
Hartwig,
Archbishop of Bremen and
Hamburg, named him Bishop of
Livonia, provided that he could conquer and hold it, and convince the pagan inhabitants to become Christians. The patent was granted 28 March 1199, and by the beginning of spring 1200 he embarked with a Baltic fleet of 23 vessels and more than 1,500 armed
crusaders. He had the support of the
Hohenstaufen German King,
Philip of Swabia, and the more distant blessing of
Pope Innocent III.
Together with merchants from the Baltic island of
Gotland, Albert founded Riga in 1201, where a small community of
Hanseatic traders from
Lübeck held a tentative trading encampment. He successfully converted many
Livs under their leader
Caupo, offering them protection against neighboring
Lithuanian and
Estonian tribes; Albert also converted some
Latvians later on. The conquest of Livonia in full occupied almost three decades of his life.
Albert created a
military order, the
Livonian Brothers of the Sword, and began to build his
cathedral in 1215. King Philip made him a Prince of the
Holy Roman Empire, with Livonia for a
fief, and thus Albert became a "
Prince-Bishop". In 1225 King
Henry VII of Germany confirmed the title of Prince for Albert and his brother, Hermann. Albert declared his diocese independent of
Bremen, and later Riga was raised to an
archbishopric.
A first-hand account of Albert is in the contemporary
Chronicle of Henry of Livonia (
Henricus Lettus').
Albert died in Riga in 1229, but, as a Catholic Bishop, left no descendants. He was venerated as a Catholic saint until the Protestant Reformation. The present-day "von Buxhoeveden" are descendants of his cousin Johannes von Buxhoeveden. Albert's brother Theodoricus is the progenitor of the family de Raupena
(de Ropa
, known today as "von der Ropp") that founded manors in Livonia and Courland.
Albert Street in Riga is named after Bishop Albert. It is known for its Art Nouveau'' apartment buildings, many of them designed by the architect
Mikhail Eisenstein.