THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
whose service he exchanged before 1090 for that of the Emperor Henry IV He seems to have become chancellor in 1101, and in the following year bishop of Bamberg. Though receiving his investiture from Henry IV., it proved impossible for him to secure consecration until 1105, when he went over to Henry V., and was consecrated at Rome in the following year. Nevertheless, Otto was never a political partizan; and not only did he gratefully acknowledge his indebtedness to Henry IV., but he also remained faithful to Henry V. despite suspension by the Synod of Fritzlar in 1118. Three years later, however, he was an earnest advocate of peace at the conference held at Wiirzburg. During the period of religious struggle Otto was employed chiefly in administering his diocese and increasing its territories, churches, castles, and especially its monasteries, of which he built or restored more than twenty. In his old age, moreover, he was called to aid in the reestablishment of religious peace; for in 1120 the treaty with Poland opened Pomerania to Christianity. After his successive efforts to establish Polish and Italian clergy in Pomerania failed, Boleslaus III. of Poland invoked German aid, and in agreement with the pope, Henry V., and the German princes, the choice fell upon Otto. In May, 1124, the bishop left Bamberg for Pomerania, and after baptizing several thousand converts near Pyritz, he reached the Pomeranian capital, Cammin, where the duchess welcomed him as cordially as the duke had done. After days of peril in the rich commercial city of Julin, Christianity found entrance there, and Otto then pressed on to Kolberg and Belgard. During his tour, he established eleven churches in nine cities, and baptized 22,165 persons, returning in Feb., 1125, from Pomerania to Bamberg. Nevertheless, paganism lingered on, and in Stettin the ancestral deities were still reverenced beside the German God. Three years later, therefore, Otto returned to Pomerania, ransoming a number of captives at Demmin on the Mecklenburg boundary, and converting all the nobles of the land by a powerful sermon at Usedom. Founding new churches at Wolgast and Giitzkow, and strengthening the faith at Stettin and Julin, he returned to Bamberg about Christmas, where he discharged his duties as bishop and prince until his death. (A. Hauck.)
Bibliography: Sources are: Eccehard, Chronicon, in MGH, Script., vi (1884), 263; Relatio de piis operibus Ottonis, in MGH, Script., xv (1888), 1151-66. Vitas and other documents are collected in MGH, Script., xii (1856), 721-919 and in ASB, July, i. 349-465. Consult: J. Zimmerman, Der heilige Otto, Bischof von Bamberg und Apostel der Pommem, Freiburg, 1875; J. Looshorn, Der heilige Otto, Munich, 1880; M. J. Hofner, Otto I. Bischof von Bamberg in seinem Verhaltnisse zu Heinrich V- und Lothar III., Giessen, 1868; L. Hoffman, Otto I. episcopus Bambergensis, Halle, 1869; J. N. Seefried, Otto des Heiligen, Bischof s von Bamberg und Apostels der Pommern, Herkunft und Heimat, Augsburg, 1886; G. F. Maclear, Apostles of Medieval Europe, London, 1888; G. Juritsch, Geschichte des Bischofs Otto I. von Bamberg, des Pommern Apostels (1102- 11 39), Gotha, 1889; A. Lahner, Die ehemalige Benedictiner Abtei Michelsberg zu Bamberg, pp. 38-122, Bamberg, 1889; W. Wiesener, Geschichte der christlichen Kirche in Pommern zur Wendenzeit, Berlin, 1889.
OTTO OF FREISING: Bishop of that city; b. between 1111 and 1115; d- at the monastery of
Morimund (at Morimont, diocese of Langres, Burgundy) Sept. 22, 1158. Of noble lineage on both sides, he was destined while still a child for the Church and was appointed abbot of Klosterneuburg near Vienna. The income thus obtained enabled him to study for several years in Paris and to acquire all the knowledge of the time; though it is not known who his teachers were, despite the evident influence exercised on him by Gilbert de la Porree, whom he must have visited at Chartres. He was also acquainted with the writings of Hugo of St. Victor, whom he may have heard at Paris. On his return from France, Otto with fifteen noteworthy clericals visited the Cistercian monastery of Morimund and there, early in 1134, all entered the order. Within a short time, though not before the latter half of 1136, Otto was chosen abbot; but on the death of Henry, bishop of Freising, Oct. 9, 1137, the canons of Freising elected Otto to be his successor. In the following year he went to Freising and was consecrated. In 1143-46, during the troubled reign of Conrad III., Otto wrote his eight books of chronicles, which he entitled De dudbus civitatibus (ed. R. Wilmans, MGH, Script., xx., 1868, pp. 83 sqq.), implying the conflict of the city of God against the city of the devil. Herein Otto followed Augustine, and his second model was Orosius. The chronicle runs from the creation to 1146 in seven books, the chief sources being Orosius, the church history of Eusebius (as translated by Rufinus), and the chronicle of Frutolf-Ekkehard to the year 1106. The unique feature of the work was the search for the cause and effect as contrasted with the mere series of events set forth by other chroniclers. An eighth book on antichrist and the last judgment is appended.
In 1147^8, Otto took part in the disastrous crusade of Conrad III., commanding a division which separated from the main army and marched through the coast countries of Asia Minor, where it was annihilated. Impoverished and undergoing the extremest hardships, the bishop escaped to a maritime town, whence he sailed to Palestine, visited Jerusalem and other sacred places, and apparently returned to France with Louis VII. It is certain, at all events, that he was with Bernard of Clairvaux in 1150, from whom he carried a letter to Conrad. After Otto's return to Germany, war with the Guelphs broke out anew, but with the accession of Frederick I., in 1152, the long struggle was ended; and Otto, who had worked zealously for peace, was employed in the cares of state even more frequently than in the preceding reign. From 1157 until his death Otto wrote the two books of the history of his nephew, the Emperor Frederick I.; the first book narrating the events from the beginning of the struggle between emperor and pope under Henry IV to the death of Conrad III., and the second extending from 1152 to the autumn of 1156; the whole forming a work of distinct value.
When, in the summer of 1158, the emperor went with a great army through Italy, he detached Otto, who went to France to attend the general council of the Cistercians. On the way he visited his old monastery of Morimund, where he fell sick and died. His Gesta Friderici I. (ed, G, Waitz in Scriptores