page_title: Otto of Bamberg
section_title: Bishop
hierarchical_section_title: Otto of Bamberg / Bishop
caption_attribution_description: Polski: Kopia figury św. Ottona z Bambergu - Zamek Książąt Pomorskich w Szczecinie
context_page_description: Otto of Bamberg was Bishop of Bamberg and a missionary who, as papal legate, converted much of medieval Pomerania to Christianity.
context_section_description: In 1102, the emperor appointed and invested him as Bishop of Bamberg in Franconia (now in the state of Bavaria), and Otto became one of the leading princes of medieval Germany. He consolidated his widely scattered territories and during his tenure as bishop, Bamberg rose to great prominence.
  In 1106 Otto received the pallium from Pope Paschal II. He achieved fame as diplomat and politician, notably during the Investiture Controversy between the emperor and the papacy. It was Bishop Otto, substituting the imprisoned archbishop Adalbert of Mainz, who clothed Hildegard of Bingen as a Benedictine nun at Disibodenberg Abbey about 1112. He remained loyal to the Imperial court and, as a consequence, was suspended by a papal party led by Cuno of Praeneste at the Synod of Fritzlar in 1118. At the Congress of Würzburg in 1121, Otto successfully negotiated the peace treaty, the Concordat of Worms, which was signed in 1122. In the 1130s, he continued to arbitrate between Emperor Lothair of Supplinburg and the rising Hohenstaufens.
  As bishop, Otto led a model, simple and frugal life, but did much to improve his ecclesiastical and temporal realms. He restored and completed Bamberg Cathedral after it had been damaged by fire in 1081, improved the cathedral school, established numerous monasteries and built a number of churches throughout his territory. He greatly expanded the town of Bamberg, rebuilding the Monastery of St. Michael, which had been destroyed by an earthquake around 1117.
caption: Statue of Otto in the Pomeranian Ducal Castle, Szczecin
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