Blessed Otto of Freising

Otto of Freising (Latin: Otto Frisingensis; c. 1111 – 22 September 1158) was a German churchman of the Cistercian order and chronicled at least two texts which carry valuable information on the political history of his own time. He was the bishop of Freising from 1138. Otto participated in the Second Crusade; he lived through the journey and reached Jerusalem, and later returned to Bavaria in the late 1140s, living for another decade back in Europe. Otto was born in Klosterneuburg as the fifth son of Leopold III, margrave of Austria, by his wife Agnes of Waiblingen, daughter of Emperor Henry IV. By her first husband, Frederick I of Hohenstaufen, duke of Swabia, Agnes was the mother of the German king Conrad III and grandmother of the emperor Frederick Barbarossa. Otto's sister, Judith of Babenberg, was married to William V, Marquis of Montferrat. Otto was thus related to the most powerful families in Germany and northern Italy. The records of his life are scanty and the dates somewhat uncertain. He studied in Paris, where he took an especial interest in philosophy. He is said to have been one of the first to introduce the philosophy of Aristotle into Germany and served as provost of a new foundation in Austria. Having entered the Cistercian order, Otto convinced his father to found Heiligenkreuz Abbey in 1133, thus bringing literacy and sophisticated agriculture (including wine making) to the region that would become Vienna. He became abbot of the Cistercian monastery of Morimond in Burgundy about 1136, and soon afterwards was elected bishop of Freising. This diocese, and indeed the whole of Bavaria, was then disturbed by the feud between the Welfs and the Hohenstaufen, and the church was in a deplorable condition; but a great improvement was brought about by the new bishop in both ecclesiastical and secular matters. In 1147 Otto took part in the disastrous Second Crusade.