He was a monk of the Michaelsberg Abbey, Bamberg and former chaplain to Bolesław III Wrymouth of Poland, whence he knew the Pomeranian language of the temporarily Polish-subjugated West Slavic population, whereas the Joms Vikings and other Germanic inhabitants of the Pomeranian coast understood his old German language.
[1] The territory was put under the jurisdiction of the archbishopric of Magdeburg by Holy Roman emperor Otto I, King of Germany.
In 1133 the Magdeburg archbishop Saint Norbert received verification by the pope of his jurisdiction over a number of dioceses, including those in Pomerania.
Otto did not succeed during his lifetime in founding a diocese, due to a conflict between the archbishops of Magdeburg and Gniezno about ecclesiastical hegemony in the area.
Adalbert and Ratibor I founded Stolpe Abbey at the side of Wartislaw I's assassination by a pagan in 1153, the first monastery in Pomerania.