Blessed Notker of Liège

Notker (or Notger) of Liège (Latin: Notgerus; c. 940 – 10 April 1008 AD) was a Benedictine monk, bishop (972–1008) and first prince-bishop (980–1008) of the Bishopric of Liège (now in Belgium). Notker was born around 940 and probably belonged to a noble Swabian family. He is mentioned in the Annales Hildesheimenses as Provost of Saint Gall in Switzerland, but he is not mentioned by the otherwise prolix historians of St Gall. In 969 he was appointed imperial chaplain in Italy, and in 972 he was nominated by Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor as bishop of Liège, a suffragan of the Archbishop of Cologne. When he received the countship of Huy in 980, he simultaneously obtained secular power for the See and thus became the first Prince-Bishop of Liège. He travelled to Rome for the coronation of Otto II by Pope Gregory V, and later negotiated a peace treaty between Henry II and Robert, the king of France. He adhered faithfully to the cause of the emperor Otto III, whom he accompanied to Rome. He also brought Otto's corpse back to Germany and prayed at his funeral in 1002. After receiving secular power from Otto II, Notker transformed the episcopal city into the capital of an ecclesiastical principality in the Holy Roman Empire. He built a new cathedral, Saint Lambert's, seven collegiate churches, including St. John's in Liège, after the model of Aachen Cathedral, two abbeys and a city wall. He laid the foundation of the fame of the Liège Schools, to which studious youths soon flocked from all Christendom. By procuring the services of Leo the Calabrian and thus making possible the study of Greek, Notker gave notable extension to the Liège curriculum.