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Ratbod (archbishop of Trier)

Roman Catholic archbishop

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJun 4, 2026
Entity authorityQ324598 ↗
Source-derived summary

Radbod (or Ratbod) (died 915) was the Archbishop of Trier from 883 until his death. Under the last Carolingians he obtained a great deal of benefits and converted the archdiocese of Trier into one of the most powerful institutions in Germany.

In 898, Radbod received complete immunity from all taxes for the entire episcopal territory from Zwentibold. He obtained from Louis the Child the district and city of Trier, as well as the right to have a mint and impose customs duties. From Charles the Simple he gained the right of free election for his diocese of Trier. In this way the secular possessions of the bishops of Trier, which had sprung from the valuable donations of the Merovingian, were raised to a secular principality.

Sources

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Trier". Catholic Encyclopedia.

Editorial summary

“Ratbod (archbishop of Trier)” enters the record as roman Catholic archbishop. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Ratbod, archbishop and Trier can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1913—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 0900. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Ratbod, archbishop and Trier.
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“Ratbod (archbishop of Trier)” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Ratbod, archbishop and Trier provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 4, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q324598. VIAF identifies the subject as 95673907. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1913.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Ratbod (archbishop of Trier)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.