Saint Albert of Riga

Albert of Riga or Albert of Livonia (c. 1165 – 17 January 1229) was the third Catholic Bishop of Riga in Livonia. As the Bishop of Livonia, in 1201, he founded Riga, the modern capital city of Latvia, and the city was later made a bishopric. The building of the Riga Cathedral started during his tenure there in 1221. Albert headed the armed forces that forcibly converted the pagan indigenous population of the eastern Baltic region to Christianity as a result of the Northern Crusades. Albert was born in Bexhövede, a part of Loxstedt, Lower Saxony, Germany. He and his brother Hermann were members of the powerful Buxhoeveden family from Bexhövede. 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 on 28 March 1199, and in the beginning of spring 1200 he embarked for Livonia with a fleet of 23 vessels and more than 1,500 armed crusaders. He had the support of the Hohenstaufen German king, Philip of Swabia, as well as an implicit blessing of Pope Innocent III. In 1200, Bishop Albert led a crusade in Livonia, providing the starting point to create an ecclesiastical State. Albert arrived in his diocese in Ikšķile (Üxküll) with a sizeable army. He was able to send reinforcements without asking permission from the Pope. These rights led him to create an annual summer expedition from Lübeck to Livonia called the "perpetual crusade". When Albert realized that the diocese of Uexküll was located far away from the Daugava river to be effective, he founded a castle nearer the sea, where a small stream joined the Daugava creating a natural harbor. This castle would be the start of the foundation of Riga.