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Biography

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Adalbert of Magdeburg, sometimes called Adalbert of Trier after the monastery in which he was formed, was a tenth-century Benedictine monk, missionary bishop, chronicler, and the first archbishop of Magdeburg. He is a different person from Saint Adalbert of Prague, the slightly later bishop and martyr. Contemporary sources do not record a precise place or year of birth. Later tradition describes him as of noble family and places his origins in Alsace or in the Moselle country of Lotharingia, in the East Frankish world. He entered the abbey of Saint Maximin at Trier, a major Benedictine house closely tied to the Ottonian court, received a Latin education there, and was ordained. His subsequent career unfolded in the service of King, later Emperor, Otto I.

In 961 Otto I, answering an embassy from Princess Olga of Kiev, who had accepted baptism and sought a bishop from the Western Empire, had Adalbert consecrated as a missionary bishop and sent him to the Rus'. The mission failed. Olga's son Sviatoslav remained attached to the traditional cults, and conditions in Kiev made a Latin mission untenable. Adalbert and his companions were forced to withdraw; later accounts state that some of the party were killed and that Adalbert himself escaped with difficulty. After his return he was given the abbacy of Wissembourg (Weissenburg) in Alsace, where he is credited with restoring monastic observance and encouraging learning. He also composed a continuation of the chronicle of Regino of Prüm, covering events from the early tenth century into the 960s. That continuation is an important narrative source for the reign of Otto I and includes Adalbert's own notice of the unsuccessful Rus' mission.

Otto I had long intended Magdeburg, a favoured residence on the Elbe frontier, to become the metropolitan centre for the conversion of the Slavs beyond the river. After obtaining the consent of Pope John XIII, the emperor in 968 erected the archbishopric of Magdeburg, and Adalbert was appointed its first archbishop. The new province included the suffragan bishoprics of Brandenburg, Havelberg, Merseburg, Zeitz, and Meissen. Adalbert organized the cathedral chapter from the existing monastery of Saint Maurice, founded or reformed other houses, and sought to provide clergy for work among the Wends and neighbouring Slavic peoples. He remained a figure at the Ottonian court and a supporter of imperial ecclesiastical policy on the eastern frontier.

Adalbert died on 20 June 981 at Zscherben, near Halle in Saxony, and was buried in the cathedral church at Magdeburg. Two years later the great Slavic revolt of 983 overran several of the suffragan sees and interrupted the missionary programme he had helped to launch; lasting Christianization of the region came only in later centuries. He was nonetheless venerated as a saint, especially in Magdeburg, and his feast is kept on 20 June. He is remembered as the founder of the Magdeburg church and as a missionary to the Slavs of the Elbe frontier.

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