Notger of Liège

Notker of Liège
Prince-Bishop of Liège
A late 19th-century image of Notker of Liège, by Louis Gallait
Diocese	Liège
See	Saint Lambert's Cathedral, Liège
Elected	972
Predecessor	Eraclus
Successor	Baldric II
Personal details
Born	940 Jonschwil, Second Kingdom of Burgundy (now in St Gallen, Switz.)
Died	10 April 1008 (aged 67–68)

Notker (or Notger) of Liège (Latin: Notgerus; 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. It was also who he brought back his corpse 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.