masc. proper name, from German (the French form is Aubert), from Old High German Adalbert, cognate of Old English Æþelbeorht "Noble-bright" (which was sometimes metathesized as Æþelbriht, hence the surname Albright). Second element is from Proto-Germanic berhta- "bright," from PIE *bhereg- "to shine; bright, white" (see bright). It also figures in the names Egbert, Gilbert, Herbert, Hubert, Lambert. As a kind of watch chain, from 1861 (see Prince Albert).
antipope in 1101. He was cardinal bishop of Silva Candida when elected early in 1101 as successor to the antipope Theodoric of Santa Ruffina, who had been set up against the legitimate pope, Paschal II, by an imperial faction supporting the Holy Roman emperor Henry IV in his struggle with Paschal for supremacy. Albert's uncanonical investiture provoked rioting in Rome, and he was stripped of his insignia and briefly imprisoned in the Lateran. He was then sentenced to confinement in the monastery of San Lorenzo, north of Naples, where he remained a monk the rest of his life.