Like his cousin Busso VIII von Alvensleben, he received an academic education at the University of Leipzig (1488) and from 1492 in Bologna, where from 1496 Nicolaus Copernicus from Thorn (registered as "Dom.

In 1514 he obtained papal approval in Rome for the election of Archbishop Albert of Magdeburg as Elector of Mainz and for the union of both archdioceses in one hand.

On the advice of Pope Leo X, he was one of the organizers of the sale of indulgences that triggered the publication of Luther's theses in Wittenberg in 1517.

As bishop, he put on a collection of relics and precious church utensils - following the example of Cardinal Albert's Halle sanctuaries.

(according to Johann Christoph Adelung: Continuation and Additions to Christian Gottlieb Jöcher's general scholarly Lexico.