Liemar


Liemar was archbishop of Hamburg-Bremen from 1072 to 1101, and an important figure of the early Investiture Contest.
He was a supporter of Emperor Henry IV from 1073. In 1074 the papal legates Gerald of Ostia and Hubert of Palestrina put pressure on him to hold a local synod; he resisted, was suspended, and by 1075 his views against papal interference with bishops had hardened. With Benno II of Osnabrück he commissioned the anti-papal polemic of Wido of Osnabrück, around 1085. Liemar was one of many bishops who was irked by Gregory VII's encroachment of episcopal autonomy. In a letter to Bishop Hezilo of Hildesheim, Liemar complained that Pope Gregory VII was ordering his bishops about 'as though they were his bailiffs'.