Albert de Cuyck

Albert de Cuyck (- 1200): Prince-Bishop of Liege of 1195 with 1200.

PROGRESS ACHIEVED ABOUT SO-CALLED “the charter of Albert de Cuyck”

The contents of alleged “the charter of Albert de Cuyck” are known only by one diploma lost for a very long time in mysterious circumstances, which would have been conferred to the middle-class men Liege by the Germanie king Philippe de Souabe little time before its death in 1208.

The granting of this supposed episcopal charter did not leave any trace in annals and the chronicles of the time, not more than the diploma claiming to confirm the content of privileges emanating from a bishop of Liege of the name of Albert. It is necessary to await the end of XIVe century, even the beginning of XVe, to find the first mentions of the diploma, - not of the alleged charter, and at the time of probable interpolations, - in the chronicler Jean d' Outremeuse with the reproduction of its complete text, at Jacques de Hemricourt of two of its articles only, then a few years later at Jean de Stavelot, continuator of “Master Jean d' Outremeuse”, in the form of a Romance translation.

Diploma, we meet also the use of the one of its articles in 1400 and 1405 against the Jean bishop of Bavaria. Once again it is the “imperial privilege” which is called upon. The name of “the Albert bishop” hardly seems here to have the least importance with the eyes of the writers of these acts. If not one would not have been satisfied to remain in the inaccuracy by mentioning it.

In 1613 Chapeauville, one of the “first historians inhabitant of Li2ege”, famous for his lack of criticism in its compilation of the medieval sources, - in particular of the work of the chronicler Gilles d' Orval, - by commenting on the discord of 1198 between the middle-class men and the clergy of the city about firmness, noted that one had never found in the narrative sources the least trace of a concession of privileges made by a “Albert bishop” with the Inhabitants of Li2ege. He had been informed of several copies in Romance language of the alleged diploma of Philippe de Souabe, whom he mentioned like “a supposed part”, and the famous words of the device of the diploma referring to a certain Albert bishop had held his attention, but he did not even wonder if it were of Albert de Cuyck or Albert of Leuwen, since he thought that this charter had never existed.

Obviously Chapeauville did not have interest, as an ecclesiastical dignitary with the service of the bishop, to publish no matter what it was which had been able to support the theses of the popular party, Grignoux. One was then in the time when the city of Liege was opposed to the will of the prince and the chapter cathédral to put at the step the democracy inhabitant of Li2ege. Nevertheless one can allot to Chapeauville the merit to have been the first “historian” to notice that the diploma of Philippe de Souabe claimed to be a confirmation of privileges granted initially by a bishop. In 1629, Etienne Rausin, burgomaster of Liege, member of the party of Grignoux, one of lawyers of the city to the imperial Room of Whorl in his lawsuit against the prince and the chapter of Saint-Lambert about the statute of imperial city that she asserted since 1566, made at least appear a report containing the arguments which were to convince the judges, thought it.

In this book, better known under the name shortened of Delegatio, among the parts used as evidence of the cogency of its cause, Rausin mentioned the diploma of Philippe de Souabe, who had besides in his eyes more weight than the episcopal charter of which he claimed to confirm the contents. Therefore, it was of little importance that a bishop of the name of Albert granted these “privileges”, the more so as the Inhabitants of Li2ege, to make them confirm, would have addressed in 1208 to their bishop Hugues de Pierrepont rather than to king de Germanie Philippe de Souabe. In addition, since the “diploma” was a confirmation, the Inhabitants of Li2ege would have already profited for a long time from the “privileges” in question, which was by no means proven.

But the continuation of the events was not favorable to this proud Grignoux and it ends up passing in the opposite camp. It then made appear in Namur, in foreign territory, a book which was used to destroy the legal arguments of the city in its lawsuit with the imperial Room. Since the Inhabitants of Li2ege were pressed on imperial diplomas to put forward their arguments, the lawyer tried to show that these documents produced in front of the judges of the Court of Empire did not have the range which one wanted to lend to them well, or although they were quite simply forgeries manufactured by their recipients. To arrive at its ends, it tried to prove that these parts could not have been written with the chancellery from which they seemed to come. According to Rausin, king Philippe could not confirm what had granted a dead bishop eight years before, because these privileges should have died with their author; there moreover, if the diploma were authentic, Hugues de Pierrepont (successor of the “philanthropist miter” died in 1200) and the chapter of Saint-Lambert should have been mentioned in 1208, - the document not comprising any list of witnesses in addition! Moreover, it is not proven that Philippe was in Düren at the date indicated. As for Albert de Cuyck, it could have granted privileges to the Inhabitants of Li2ege because it would have been simoniaque, - what devalued the range by any charter emanating from him, since it would have been obtained at price money; moreover, member of the party opposed to the “good bishop” Albert of Leuwen, brother of the duke of the Brabant, it could only make wrong to the Church of Liege by conceding freedoms which were fatally to reduce the Inheritance of Lambert saint, this Great Saint Martyr Owner of the Country. One should not lose sight of the fact that Rausin wrote then in favor of Chiroux, the aristocratic party, combined to the sovereign Habsbourg, remote successor of the brother of the Albert bishop of Leuwen as a duke of the Brabant. Finally the burgomaster defector flattered himself to note that the various confirmations of supposed the episcopal charter had not granted any new right to their recipients, - a true diploma, and not “supposed”, should according to him have contained additional privileges being added to those which were to come from the chancellery of the bishop.

Etienne Rausin was thus the first to put the question to know which was this Albert bishop mentioned in the diploma known as “of Philippe de Souabe”, while declaring that it was oiseux to conjecture on this subject; specifying that the “historical literature” (historiography inhabitant of Li2ege of the time) made of Albert the instigator of this blasted charter, which could only be besides the work of a follower of the simony.

As for Albert of Leuwen, on the other hand, in this beginning of the XVIIe century, it passed for a very holy man, him which had given up its life of canon of Saint-Lambert to be made arm knight by the count de Hainaut Baudouin V, enemy of his father the duke of the Brabant Godefroid III. Besides this one obliged thereafter his/her son to reinstate his old state of clerk, because it had interest to rather make of him a bishop of Liege than a man of war.

Rausin had undoubtedly read the exploits of Albert of Leuwen in the book of Chapeauville, published in the 1613, year even where the worship of this bishop, killed more than four hundred years before, was confirmed by the pope Paul V, nearly one year after one had, in large pumps, at the request of the archdukes Albert and Isabelle, transferred from Rheims to Brussels, then reinterred on December 11th, 1612 in Carmel of this city, the “remainders of the Martyr”, - does of them those of the Odalric archbishop, died into 971!

The death and the miracles of the saint louvanist were besides the subject of a whole hagiographic literature at the time of its canonization and of the transfer of “its” remainders. Miræus published Vita Alberti drawn from the work of Chapeauville, then translated into Spanish by france Andres de Soto under the title of Emptied of San Alberto. Still let us quote a French translation of the extracts of Gilles d' Orval concerning the subject, carried out by Chr. Beys, who became pourtrait It vray Pasteur, or memorable history of Saint Albert, dedicated to the Archduke Albert, sovereign of the Netherlands, works of Guillaume de Rebreviettes († Brussels 1633), Sieur d' Escœuvres, then Oratio moralis and historica composed by the franciscain F. Nicolas Oranus of the convent of Avesnes. Lastly, to crown the whole, let us announce a play, the Tragedy Albert. Rebreviettes, among others, contributed to forge a very catholic image of the sovereigns of the Netherlands and to create the myth of “the archduke Albert, sovereign-model”. Why this passion for Albert of Leuwen? One cannot prevent oneself from thinking of the historical context of his canonization: it was the time of the catholic Reform, known as Counter-Reformation, and one then liked to proclaim the importance of the saints in the catholic worship, against the Protestants of all hairs which, them, had relegated them to the oubliettes. It is very clear, since precisely since 1612, one notes a renewal of the Counter-Reformation in the principality of Liege, with the come to power of Ferdinand of Bavaria. Under its episcopate occurs an efflorescence of convents and abbeys in the diocese of Liege (more than seventy religious establishments in about thirty years).

In 1642 the Fisen Father, with regard to Albert attribution de Cuyck of a donation of charter of freedoms to the Inhabitants of Li2ege, claimed in his history of Liege that this bishop passed “to have increased the freedom of the people”, noting however that no act subscribed by this prelate had reached us, but only mention of its name in a diploma of Philippe de Souabe.

In 1654 the Foullon Jesuit endorsed interpretation that Fisen had published, while blaming Albert de Cuyck to have granted such a charter to the Inhabitants of Li2ege. Not more than Fisen, it did not doubt the authenticity of the confirmation emanating of king Philippe.

Leaving the ground of the political struggles and social of the city, the jurisconsult Charles de Méan took again the notes copiers of his father Pierre († 1638) on the old right inhabitant of Li2ege, supplemented them by his personal studies on the Habit such as one could give himself an idea of it to the reading of the paweilhars, these old collections of judgments used by the Aldermen but who did not have the force of law. In volume 4 of the publication (1652-1663) of the results of its labor, it made a legal comment of the “diploma of 1208”, without approaching the historical aspect of the question.

In 1714, Louvrex published its Collection of the Edicts and inserted there the contents of a copy of the diploma of 1208; it made of it a comment, which was published only in the second edition of this work, after its death. Eleven years later (1725), the Carmelite friar Théodose Bouille took again on his account the assertions of Fisen and Fuller without emitting the least restriction concerning the donation of a charter of freedoms by Albert de Cuyck on the middle-class men and the veracity of the privilege of Philippe de Souabe.

During was polemics which announced the Revolution inhabitant of Li2ege of 1789, question of Albert de Cuyck and Philippe de Souabe like Pères of the Democracy inhabitant of Li2ege, announcing the Peace of Fexhe? On three publicity agents, only mysterious “the Abbot of Peace”, - makes of it the Piret lawyer, adviser of the Hoensbroeck bishop, - quotes the work of Fuller to admit that Albert de Cuyck had granted freedoms to the Inhabitants of Li2ege. As for future revolutionist N.J. Levoz, one of the protagonists of the Business of the Plays of Spa, before becoming a tenor of the mountain extremism in Liege and Paris, it was unaware of the existence of the imperial privileges,… or it did not find any interest to take argument in favor of its cause of it. It is true that its occupation of merchant had not made known to him the works of the historians inhabitant of Li2ege.

Several months of revolution (1790) did not suffice either for François Léonard Duperron, however police chief of the city and, as such, qualified as regards communal records, so that he condescended to evoke the memory of most majestic document the “of the history inhabitant of Li2ege”.

After the storm of the Revolution the Empire came. In 1812 the Baron de Villenfagne went there, him also, of his Research, for which it obtained besides a price granted by the Company of Emulation. But, contrary to its close relations precursors, it mentioned the imperial privilege,… to revoke the authenticity doubts it while basing itself on the silence of the chronicler Gilles d' Orval about it and to recall of it that Chapeauville regarded it as “a supposed part”. Moreover it doubted that Albert de Cuyck had granted freedoms to the middle-class men, asserting those which they would have already had since several tens of years. It was of good war since, in favor of the Old Mode, this baron could not be made with the idea that a bishop had been able to make concessions with the middle-class men. However in the continuation, to unknown date, it foot-note in a manuscript which was published only well later by the Knight of Theux that “Albert de Cuyck, prince de Liège, gave а its subjects, at the end of XIIe century, of great franknesses, which were confirmed in 1208 in a diploma of the Philippe emperor”. It is difficult to explain the cause of this reversal. Is it due to the political regime change occurred in 1815? Or with assagissement by the age of a formerly excited spirit against the ideas of 1789? Would it be necessary to see there, perhaps, a kind of snub disguised towards the sovereign of the time, the king of the Netherlands, of Protestant religion, insidiously pointing out the “generosity” of a catholic bishop?

Before the birth of Belgium, a former servant of the Directory, the faithful Dewez civil servant, become inspector in secondary education, improvised himself, him also, historian of our regions, in particular making appear, in 1822, a History of the country of Liege. He believed in the historical reality of freedoms granted by Albert de Cuyck to the Inhabitants of Li2ege, but thought that they had had the force of law only by their confirmation in 1208 per Philippe de Souabe. Basing itself on the history of Liege de Foullon, it depicted us illustrates it bishop like “the Friend of the People”, in remembering, undoubtedly, of Marat! ?

It is of 1836 that date the very first biographical note on Albert de Cuyck. The Count de Becdelièvre, liberal writer, are the author, in his Biography Inhabitant of Li2ege. Albert passed, said it, for the author of freedoms and privileges of the Inhabitants of Li2ege, but it was more probable than it had done nothing but confirm at price money those which they had already. Moreover it was under this prince that one could place the beginning “of the fight of the democracy against the capacity peerage-book and clerical; fight which lasted without interruption until 1789, where the people, or rather the reason, triumphed over all the prejudices”. One sees in this biographer the influence of the ideas of the Age of Enlightenment and his propensity to endorse the opinion moralisatrice concerning the alleged simony of the famous prelate. The catholic historian Wurth, in his shortened History of the Inhabitants of Li2ege, very badly summarized the episode of the “donation of freedoms per Albert de Cuyck” and overlooked the “confirmation of 1208”.

In 1841, A. Ferrier, an obscure author, explained us in an amusing way the donation by Albert de Cuyck of freedoms to the Inhabitants of Li2ege: the city was propspère in XIIe century; the craftsmen thus required excessive wages, worked little and passed the remainder of their time on the public places to deal with the businesses of the State; Albert de Cuyck could not “resist their spirit anxious and stirring up; of concession in concession, it granted to them, in 1198, a charter which gave amazing freedoms at that time” .

In 1844 Polain Mathieu-Lambert, another liberal, old historian revolutionary of 1830, presented to the readers of his history of Liege the charter of Albert de Cuyck like a victory of the Middle-class in his fight against Feudality. He claimed to follow the historical method of Augustin Thierry, thanks to whom “for the first time, it is taken account of the role that the people played in our annals”. According to him, in 1198, to be perhaps made allies against the nobility, Albert de Cuyck would have confirmed and recognized with the middle-class men, - at money price, as a miserly crafty one and good simoniaque that it was, - “the principal guarantees whose middle-class was déjа then in possession”. After a summary comment of the contents of the charter, Polain concluded that it was going to become “the base of the constitution inhabitant of Li2ege”. In 1866 Polain will even specify that these freedoms inhabitants of Li2ege were almost as old as the City! The Baron Louis de Crassier published in his tower a history of Liege (1845), in which it provided us a rudimentary summary of the diploma of Philippe de Souabe, allotting to this king paternity freedoms inhabitants of Li2ege, going even until being unaware of the supposed role of Albert de Cuyck in the business. The year 1851 saw another liberal historian, Ferdinand Hénaux, to publish a kind of answer to the History of Liege of the Baron de Gerlache (1843) which, the cause of the princes against that of the cities defended to him. Champion of the political history, this famous baron made litanies of considerations partisanes on the history inhabitant of Li2ege, thinking it dominated by “the natural alliance of freedom and the religion”, believing in the existence of the charter of Albert de Cuyck and in the veracity of the diploma of Philippe de Souabe, of which it made a surface and very incomplete comment. According to him “the famous charter of Albert de Cuyck is an act of civil liberty, rather than of political emancipation; it is a proclamation of the natural guarantees which belong to all the men in company it was less one privilege which a beginning of equality. As it was only much later as people, or those which said its defenders, claimed to assume supremacy on all the trades”. He considered that “this charter, sanctioned by a quantity of others”, and in particular by the Peace of Fexhe of the year 1316, was the true base of the Constitution of the Country of Liege.

As for Hénaux, in the first edition (1851) of its book, it allotted to the bishop Albéron Ier of Leuwen the freedoms stated in the diploma of Philippe de Souabe, going back them to 1124! According to him the original text of the act was not to comprise that the letter “has” as name of the bishop whose king Philippe confirmed the donation of privileges to the Inhabitants of Li2ege and who it is Chapeauville which would have seen in it “has”, or in the Aubiers C-W communication of the Romance translations of the act, Albert de Cuyck itself, - while specifying that Albéron is sometimes, in the diplomatic sources, called “Adalbéron,… Adalbert, Abiert, Sapwoods, etc”. Not is not here, in this chapter, the place to analyze the contents of the diploma, but it is necessary nevertheless to highlight the mark of the design of Hénaux on the history. Seriously commenting on an article of the diploma which, if it had been correctly translated, would prove enough that all the middle-class men of the city were not equal in right, this author declares us without humor: “Being Frank from origin, Citain of Liege was received to deposit for or against the Free man”!

Since 1842, in its Description of the town of Liege, Hénaux the “charter of Albert de Cuyck had mentioned”, but it went back it to 1199! In the second edition of its History of Liege (1856), he hesitated over the date of very first “freedoms inhabitants of Li2ege”: they were to exist in 1147, thought it, “since in this year the middle-class men of Saint-Trond concluded similar alleged charter from it from Albert de Cuyck with the bishop”; they were to even be former to 1066, according to Hénaux, since an article of the charter of Huy, emitted on this date, would refer there! He concluded that it was necessary to place “at the year the 1050 drafting of the Privileges of the City”. Finally in the third edition of its work of history inhabitant of Li2ege (1872), we see it also going back to 1198 the “charter of Albert de Cuyck”, like Polain in 1844. It attached it without the least proof to the episode of the quarrel of the chapter of Saint-Lambert and the middle-class men of the city about the firmness, which it met at this year in Annals of Saint-Jacob under the feather of the Renier monk, quite informed, contemporary author events, like in the work of Chapeauville.

For Hénaux the charter of Albert de Cuyck was one of the concessions made by the bishop with the middle-class men so that all returned in the order. Since Liege had enjoyed for several years the privileges stated in the diploma 1208, the mention according to which Albertus episcopus civibus contulit is a pure formula of style of the imperial chancellery.

Why Hénaux had it changed opinion about the dating of the “charter of Albert de Cuyck”? Probably because it had been informed of the opinion of the German scholar Wohlwill, whose book was appeared in 1867. Wohlwill, also, thus believed him in the existence of a charter of freedoms given by Albert de Cuyck in 1198, thus denouncing the nonsense of the thesis of Hénaux on the attribution of this charter with Albéron. But he thought that Albert had done nothing but recognize with the Inhabitants of Li2ege of freedoms which they had enjoyed already for several years. In 1859, echoing the opinion of Hénaux all while taking as a starting point Polain, the lawyer Edouard Gérimont, in his popular History of the Inhabitants of Li2ege, him which wanted to be popularizer, mentioned and commented like having existed the “charter of Albert de Cuyck”, without quoting the “diploma of 1208”; but in footnote it provided to the reader the interpretation of his precursor allotting to Albéron the donation freedoms inhabitants of Li2ege!

Another popularizer, François Tychon, with his History of the Country of Liege told with the children: he believes in the existence of the “charter of Albert de Cuyck”, but does not mention either the “diploma of Philippe de Souabe”. Among the historians admitting the existence of a episcopal charter which would have given place to confirmation on behalf of Philippe de Souabe, it is also necessary to arrange the scholar Stanislas Bormans. In a study published in 1865, among the “privileges of the city in 1176”, it made place with the “freedoms granted or confirmed by Albert de Cuyck”, specifying however that there were reasons to doubt their written setting, without us to say some more. Thirteen years later it published the diploma, with a summary comment, in the Collection of the Ordinances of the Principality of Liege.

Edition of the diploma also commented on, in the Habits of the Country of Liege, works of the Raikem magistrate and his collaborator, above-named Polain, in 1870.

To 1873 a second biographical note goes back on Albert de Cuyck. It was composed by Emile Varenbergh, for the National Biography. This historian, who said to have used for the occasion the Biography Inhabitant of Li2ege of Becdelièvre, did not teach us anything more than his source and seemed to cash take for money the content of the remarks that it had drawn there.

The following year appeared the eminent one and bulky work of Edmond Poullet on the old criminal right inhabitant of Li2ege. This author, who believed in the existence of the charter of Albert de Cuyck and in his confirmation by Philippe de Souabe, made constant loans with the “diploma of 1208” to justify his assertions of historian of the right. Influenced by the reading of Wohlwill, he concluded that the “freedoms” confirmed in writing into 1198 reflected a former state of affairs, basing himself on a privilegium civitatis from Frederic Barberousse of 1152, on the existence of the charter of Huy of 1066 and on that of Brusthem of 1172. But this privilegium of Barberousse does not relate to “freedoms inhabitants of Li2ege granted to the middle-class men”. As for the charters of Huy and Brusthem, their anteriority compared to “that of Albert de Cuyck” does not prove anything, quite to the contrary: these two cities, far away from the bishop, had more chances than Liege to be able to release itself from the influence of its iron hand. Chicken as considered, like Wohlwill, as by putting on the same foot the habits and freedoms, the franknesses and the rights, the act “of 1208” referred “in a preexistent state of affairs”, but it did not go therefore until going back to 1124 the “first privileges inhabitant of Li2ege” like had made Hénaux in 1851.

December 17th, 1888 the Town council of Liege, dominated by the catholic party, decided to allot the name of Albert de Cuyck to a new street located on the site of an old coal mining. One wanted to thus perpetuate the memory of a Great man of the Nation Inhabitant of Li2ege, a Bishop whose Generosity announced the Belgian Constitution of 1831. In the political struggles between catholics and liberals, who made rage at that time celebration of the Centenary of the Revolution inhabitant of Li2ege of 1789, emerges a polemist of high flight, the canon Joseph Daris, professor with the Seminar of Liege. Attacking the liberal opinions on the past of the Principality, it published in 1890 a synthesis of history inhabitant of Li2ege. It affirmed there that Albert de Cuyck, “to stick the middle-class men of the city more”, had confirmed their old privileges and had granted the new ones to them. But he did not say any to us more. Which were the old ones? And the new ones? On what was based it to accept the existence of this confirmation, of this donation?

We should here furtively mention a black spot with the prize list of our “famous benefactor”. The Belgian biographer Pavard did not even condescend to place it at the row of his Famous Inhabitants of Li2ege!

In 1892 Camille de Borman, in its masterly study on the Aldermen of Liege, admitted the existence of a written charter emanating from Albert de Cuyck, confirmed by Philippe de Souabe. As opposed to what by error Feu professor Jean Lejeune in his thesis of doctorate claimed later, which confused a criticism of the allowed theses concerning the origins of the “town council inhabitant of Li2ege” with an alleged standpoint on behalf of Borman against the existence of a charter of Albert de Cuyck put in writing. But perhaps Lejeune it took De Borman for Bormans! ?

But to finish some with the inconsistency of all these opinions, let us come to the opinion most generally allowed since its publication (1905), and by far apparently most serious. It emanates from Godefroid Kurth, illustrates it medievist inhabitant of Li2ege, large destroyer of the French revolution, one of the pillars of incipient historical criticism. The goal of its work is to try to prove that the Belgian institutions of 1831 rise naturally from those of this Christian Republic of the Middle Ages which was, according to him, the city mosane; and that the ideas of 1789 and their disastrous consequences did not bring anything to give birth to the Belgian Democracy resulting from the events from 1830, which would be attached thus to the various reforms obtained peacefully, without revolution, by the Middle-class since XIIe century, through historical episodes like those of the episcopate of Albert de Cuyck, of the Henri powerful orator of Dining, the Paix of Fexhe, the birth and the evolution of institutions limiting the episcopal capacity, like the Court of the XXII.

In the origins of the Commune of Liege, then four years later in its synthesis on the City of Liege to the Middle Ages, after having painted a picture of what was to constitute, according to him, the beginnings of a communal political life in Liege in the last quarter of XIIe century, Kurth explained us why Albert de Cuyck, at the beginning of its episcopate (1196), to dissipate the hatred of its adversaries (the partisans of its former rival Simon de Limbourg, which had been those of Albert of Leuwen), had conceded in the city a charter which gave the seal of legality in certain articles of the Habit of Liege and to new commitments undertaken by itself. This charter, lost, it saw of it the complete text in its confirmation by Philippe de Souabe in 1208. According to him, united with that of Brusthem (1175), it constituted a summary of the civil law and political privileges of the city at the dawn of XIIIe century. He also insisted on his importance taken in the continuation of the history of the Principality, as well with the Middle Ages as at Modern times, asserting multiple confirmations whose diploma had been the object.

For Kurth the catholic faith was cement and the justification of the existence of Belgium. Its theory on the origin of freedoms inhabitants of Li2ege strongly marked the teaching of the history in “our country” and it is not astonishing, consequently, that very few historians were ventured to criticize it. Without critical spirit, by solution of facility and careerism, almost all based their work on the ghostly existence of the alleged charter of Albert de Cuyck and of the so-called diploma of Philippe de Souabe. As for Pirenne, glorious pupil of Kurth, I will hardly speak about it, since it did not publish anything of nine on the subject: it accurately follows the opinion of its catholic Master, but hastens to avoid studying itself of too close the history of the Principality of Liege, pretending to scorn it, treating it with condescension, preferring the Flanders to him, because it embarrasses it in its professorial and patriotic attempt to make us accept his own theory of the predestination of the birth of Belgium.

In 1943, in its study on the social struggles in Liege in XIIIe and XIVe centuries, Fire professor Fernand Vercauteren, while following the thesis of Kurth, was the first modern historian to put the question to know if “the bishop Albert”, this generous giver of privileges, were well Albert de Cuyck… or Albert of Leuwen. But more recently, in 1972, Mr. Despy, professor at the University of Brussels, published an article in which he criticized the thesis of Kurth highly. Not only Albert de Cuyck would not have conceded a charter with the middle-class men of Liege, but moreover the confirmation of 1208 would be a forgery which would have been manufactured by its recipients with an aim of obtaining an authentic diploma, the confirmation of 1230, - granted by the king Henri VII, wire of the emperor Frederic II, - now lost it also, confirmation of the habits, freedoms and rights whose truths authors, of the forgers, would have thus made go up the donation with the episcopate of Albert de Cuyck, the Albert bishop; specifying bearing that it was necessary to reopen the file in the plan of the diplomatic one.

Finally in 1991 Mr. Jean-Louis Kupper, professor of medieval history at the University of Liege, wrote in one of the last syntheses on the history of the Country of Liege which it rather holds for highly probable that between 1196 and 1200 Albert de Cuyck confirmed, than it did not grant, a whole of “habits”, “freedoms” and “rights” which enjoyed, for a long time déjа, the middle-class men of the city. This eminent author, faithful to the thesis of Kurth, explicitly refuses to enter the controversy concerning the veracity of the so-called diploma of Philippe de Souabe. He does not say to us why he baits himself to consider that Albert de Cuyck was fatally to confirm or grant freedoms to the middle-class men: indeed, Albert did not have to release ballast, as opposed to what tells us Mr. Kupper, being in strong position thanks to the count de Hainaut Baudouin V.

As for the best current specialist in the episcopal policy inhabitant of Li2ege to XIIIe and XIVe centuries, Mr. Alain Marchandisse, faithful disciple of Mr. Kupper, it preferred not to study the question in her thesis of doctorate however rich and interesting: after having mentioned between quotation marks the charter of Albert de Cuyck, confirmed in 1208 per Philippe de Souabe and having returned the reader with the article of Mr. Despy (whom I have just evoked) about the doubts as for the authenticity of our famous document, it proves in the following page that it believes in the existence of the aforesaid the charter.

Since only the “diploma of Philippe de Souabe” speaks to us about a bishop of the name of Albert like giver of freedoms to the Inhabitants of Li2ege, the essence of the problem lies in a study of its editorial forms and its handwritten tradition, inseparable from the political context of XIIe century and continuation of the history inhabitant of Li2ege at the various times which gave place to confirmations of privileges and their reproduction in the form of vidimus or of copies.

But before presenting to the reader the various chapters of the critical study of the so-called diploma of Philippe de Souabe and the conclusions to be drawn as for falsification from the history and that from the Belgian historical literature, I must say who was really Albert de Cuyck, bishop of Liege of 1194 to 1200.

See too

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