Albinus was orphaned at a young age,[3] and taken in by an uncle, who was a monk, and who acted as both father and mother, instructing him in religious piety, as long as he lived.

[15] He was created cardinal-deacon of Santa Maria Nuova by Pope Lucius III, in a consistory held at Velletri, during the Ember Days of December 1182.

[19] He was only allowed back to Rome at the end of October, but in mid-March 1182, having refused to grant the consuetudines conceded by earlier popes, he was forced to retreat to Velletri.

Pope Lucius took the part of the Tusculans, but as the Romans had one success after another, he called for aid from the imperial Vicar in Italy, Archbishop Christian of Mainz.

[21] The Romans, in a triumphal demonstration of their anticlericalism and their attitude to the papacy, took twenty-six clerics whom their soldiers had captured in Latium and blinded all but one.

[26] On 11 November 1185, two weeks before the pope's death he and his seventeen colleagues subscribed a bull in favor of the monastery of S. Peter Lobiensis.

[28] The successful candidate, was Humbertus Crivelli, the Archbishop of Milan and Cardinal of S. Lorenzo in Damaso, " a violent and unyielding spirit, and a strong opponent of Frederick (Barbarossa)," in the words of Ferdinand Gregorovius.

[33] In September 1187, Pope Urban was able to make his escape from the imperial blockade of Verona, and flee to Ferrara, where he died on 20 October 1187.

[38][39] Pope Celestine III (1191–1198) appointed him, along with Cardinal Gregory Galgano of Santa Maria in Porticu, as auditors (judges) in a controversy over the ordination of canons in the Church of Narni.

[40] In politics, he was on good terms with Tancred of Lecce[41] On 7 July 1191, Cardinal Albinus was in Messenia, acting as the vicar of Pope Celestine III; at his request, the King Tancred of Sicily reduced the obligation of the city of Gaeta to send him two galleys for his service, to the obligation to send one.

[43] His latest subscription to a papal document is dated 9 July 1196, and in March 1198, Pope Innocent III mentioned that he was dead.