Otto of Bamberg (1060 or 1061 – 30 June 1139) was a German missionary and papal legate who converted much of medieval Pomerania to Christianity.

[1] According to contemporary sources, Otto was born into a noble (edelfrei) family which held estates in the Swabian Jura.

As his elder brother inherited their father's property, Otto prepared for an ecclesiastical career and was sent to school,[3] probably in Hirsau Abbey or one of its filial monasteries.

When in 1082 the Salian princess Judith of Swabia, sister of Emperor Henry IV, married the Piast duke Władysław I Herman, he followed her as a chaplain to the Polish court.

In 1102, the emperor appointed and invested him as Bishop of Bamberg[5] in Franconia (now in the state of Bavaria), and Otto became one of the leading princes of medieval Germany.

It was Bishop Otto, substituting for the imprisoned archbishop Adalbert of Mainz, who clothed Hildegard of Bingen as a Benedictine nun at Disibodenberg Abbey about 1112.

[6] 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.

[7] Among his great accomplishments was his peaceful and successful missionary work among the Pomeranians, after several previous forcible attempts by the Polish rulers and the Spanish bishop Bernard to convert Pomerania to Christianity had failed.

[9] As the official papal legate, he converted a large number of Pomeranians, notably in the towns of Pyritz, Cammin, Stettin, and Jomsborg, and became known as the "Apostle of Pomerania."