The cathedral was founded as a collegiate church in 1047 by Albert II of Namur. The first dean, Frederick of Lorraine, brother-in-law of Albert II, about 1050 secured from Mainz Cathedral a portion of the head of Saint Albanus, to whose patronage the collegiate church was dedicated. In 1057, Frederick became pope under the name of Stephen IX. In 1209, Pope Innocent III formally took the Church of St. Aubin under his protection.[1]
The church became a cathedral by virtue of the papal bull of 12 May 1559 establishing the new bishoprics in the Low Countries, with the Diocese of Namur created as a suffragan see of the Archdiocese of Cambrai.[1]
In the cathedral, a marble plaque near the high altar conceals a casket containing the heart of Don Juan of Austria, governor of the Habsburg Netherlands, who died in 1578; his body lies in the Escorial near Madrid.
Between 1751 and 1767, the cathedral was almost entirely rebuilt to Italianate designs of the Ticinese architect Gaetano Matteo Pisoni.[2] A 13th-century tower at the west end of the church is the main remnant from before the rebuilding.
In 1908, a Belgian architect, Charles Ménart used the cathedral as inspiration for a church he designed, St Aloysius Church, in Glasgow.[3]