Through the influence of his maternal uncle, Burchard II, Duke of Swabia, and other relatives, Ulrich was appointed bishop of Augsburg by Henry I of Germany, and was consecrated on 28 December 923.

The See of Augsburg reached the period of its greatest splendor under Ulrich; he raised the standard of training and discipline among the clergy by the reformation of existing schools and the establishment of new ones, and by canonical visitations and synods; he provided for the poor, and rebuilt decayed churches and monasteries.

[5] When in the summer of 954 father and son were ready to attack each other at Illertissen in Swabia, at the last moment Ulrich and Bishop Hartbert of Chur were able to mediate between Otto and Liudolf.

Ulrich succeeded in persuading Liudolf and Conrad, Duke of Lorraine, Otto's son-in-law, to ask the king's pardon on 17 December 954.

On the first day of the attack, Bishop Ulrich rode out to encourage the towns' soldiers in their defense of the city's gate.

While the battle raged, the bishop, dressed in his ecclesiastical robes, inspired his men, with the 23rd Psalm ("Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death").

The Bishop's men defended the gate bravely and killed the leader of the attack, forcing the Hungarians to withdraw.

[6] Ulrich subsequently contributed much to the decisive victory at the Battle of Lechfeld (10 August 955), where the invaders were finally defeated.

A hundred years after his death, a letter apparently written by him, which opposed celibacy, and supported the marriage of priests, suddenly appeared.

The forger of the letter counted on the opinion of the common people, who would regard celibacy as unjust if Ulrich, known for the rigidity of his morals, upheld the marriage of priests.

Ulrich took part in the Diet held on 20 September 972, when he defended himself against the charge of nepotism in regard to his nephew Adalbero, whom he had appointed his coadjutor on account of his own illness and desire to retire to a Benedictine abbey.

His nephew Richwin came with a message and greeting from the Emperor Otto II as the sun rose, and immediately upon this, while the clergy sang the Litany, Ulrich died.

[16] Many miracles are said to have been wrought at his grave; only 20 years after his death, Ulrich was canonized by Pope John XV on 4 July 993.

[17] The veneration of Ulrich was carried to the Western Hemisphere by the German Catholic peasant pioneers whom Francis Xavier Pierz persuade to settle in central Minnesota following the Treaty of Traverse des Sioux in 1851.

Along with Magnus of Füssen, Ulrich's intercession was credited with the defeat of the 1856-1857 Rocky Mountain locust plague, and both saints continued afterwards to be venerated in and around Stearns County, Minnesota, with pilgrimages and religious processions.