Saint Norbert

Bishop

Feast Day

June 6

Life

1080–1134

Canonized

1582

Order

Order of Premontre (Premonstratensians, Norbertines, O.Praem.)

Born

Xanten, Lower Lorraine (modern Germany)

Saint Norbert was born about 1080 at Xanten in the Rhineland of a noble family related to the imperial house. He served as a court chaplain and held canonries at Xanten and at the imperial court of Henry V. After a near-fatal accident on horseback during a thunderstorm about 1115, he experienced a profound conversion, was ordained priest, and gave away his possessions.

For several years he lived as an itinerant preacher of penance in Germany and France with the approval of Pope Gelasius II and Pope Callistus II. In 1121, on Christmas night, he founded a community of canons regular at Premontre in the diocese of Laon, France, observing the Rule of Saint Augustine. The Order of Premontre, also called the Premonstratensians or Norbertines, combined the contemplative life of canons regular with active priestly ministry, and grew rapidly through Western Europe.

In 1126 he was named Archbishop of Magdeburg in eastern Saxony, where he reformed clergy and laity, evangelized the Slavs of the Wendish frontier, and defended the rights of the Church against lay encroachment. He supported Pope Innocent II during the schism of Anacletus II and accompanied King Lothair III to Rome in 1133. He died at Magdeburg on June 6, 1134.

Pope Gregory XIII canonized Norbert on July 28, 1582. His relics, transferred from Magdeburg during the Thirty Years' War, rest at the Norbertine abbey of Strahov in Prague.