ALBERT (ADALBERT), ANTIPOPE

Pontificate: 1101. Albert was probably made bishop and then cardinal bishop of Silva Candida by the antipope Clement III (1080–1100). After Clement died and his first successor, Theodoric (1100–01), had been imprisoned by Pope Paschal II (1099–1118), Clement's Roman followers elected Albert as the third in what was now a line of antipopes. For his part, Emperor Henry IV (1056–1106) was uninterested in supporting a Roman antipope, and riots broke out when news of Albert's election became public. Albert hid in the home of a Clementine sympathizer, who quickly turned him over to Paschal in exchange for a bribe. He was imprisoned for a time at the Lateran. Finally, like his predecessor Theodoric, Albert was sentenced to confinement in a monastery in Norman territory, in this case the monastery of St. Lorenzo at Aversa (a few miles north of Naples). Nothing more is known of his life or death.

Bibliography: l. duchesne, ed. Liber Pontificalis (Paris 1886–92; repr. 1955–57) 2.298, 345. p. jaffÉ, Regesta pontificum Romanorum (Leipzig 1885–88; repr. Graz 1956) 1.773. Monumenta Germaniae historica, Libelli de lite 2.405–07. p. kehr, "Zur Geschichte Wiberts von Ravenna (Clemens III)," Sitzungsberichte der Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin (1921) 980–88. p. brezzi, Roma e l'impero medioevale (Bologna 1947). c. servatius, Paschalis II (Stuttgart 1979) 42ff, 70ff, 339. j.n.d. kelly, The Oxford Dictionary of Popes (New York 1986) 162.

[p. m. savage]