ULRIC (UDALRIC), bishop of AUGSBURG, saint. — Of the family of the counts of Dillingen, son of Ucbaldo and Ditberga, born in Augsburg (Bavaria) in 800, died there on 4 July 973.
He studied at St Gall and, on the death of Bishop Hiltin in 923, succeeded him on the see of Augsburg through the favourable intervention of Burchard, duke of Swabia. With zeal he enforced discipline among his clergy in annual synods, kept watch over the religious life of his people through pastoral visits, devoted himself to preaching and cared for the poor and monasteries, restoring that of St Afra and building that of St Stephen (968).
The name of U. is also closely linked with the history of the Empire. He gave strong support to Otto I the Great against the autonomist tendencies of the dukes, backed him in the rebellion of his son Liudolf, duke of Swabia, and succeeded in bringing about the peace of Illertissen (954). During the siege of the Hungarian army in 955, present at the battle, he encouraged the defenders, and after the final victory on the Lechfeld (10 August) he surrounded the city with walls. On his return from a third journey to Rome in 972, U. met Otto I at Ravenna and resigned the see in favour of his nephew Adalbero, moved, according to his biographer, by the desire to retire to a monastery and to keep the see of Augsburg within his family. This constituted a violation of canon law, and U., despite the veneration in which he was held, together with his nephew, who had already assumed the episcopal insignia without being consecrated, were violently attacked at the Synod of Ingelheim (20 September 972). Adalbero, forestalled by death, was unable to succeed his uncle, who shortly afterwards followed him to the tomb. He was buried in the collegiate church of St Afra, later a Benedictine church under the title of SS. Ulrich and Afra. He was solemnly enrolled in the catalogue of saints by John XVI (31 January 993); the bull of canonisation of February of that same year is the first to have been issued for such a circumstance (Jaffé-Wattenbach, 3848). He is the principal patron of the city and diocese of Augsburg, and his feast is celebrated on 4 July.
A work attributed to him, a Sermo synodalis (PL 135, 1071-74), and an Epistola de continentia clericorum against clerical celibacy (Anal. Bolland., 27 [1908], pp. 474-75), are erroneously ascribed to him. His correspondence is now lost.