Radbod of Utrecht

Saint Radbod of Utrecht (Radboud) was Bishop of Utrecht in the Netherlands from 899 or 900 until his repose in November 917 (other sources give 918). He was born around the middle of the ninth century in a noble Frankish family near Namur; his mother descended from the Frisian king Radbod.

He studied under the care of his uncle, Archbishop Günther of Cologne, then at the court school of Charles the Bald, whose chaplain he was, and devoted much of his life to study. He is thought to have been a monk at the monastery of Saint-⁠Martin at Tours. In 899 he was elected Bishop of Utrecht. Because Utrecht had been destroyed by the Normans, he lived at Deventer. He was the chief representative of East Frankish authority in the northern Netherlands. In 914 or 915 he went to Rome, to Pope John X, over a dispute with Count Meginhard of Hamaland, which the pope settled. He was preparing to return to Utrecht and had drawn up a list of all the possessions of the diocese before the expulsion by the Normans, but he fell ill on a mission journey in Drenthe and died at Ootmarsum. He was buried in the church of Saint Lebuinus at Deventer. Several writings are attributed to him, chiefly saints' lives: of Boniface, Suitbert, Lebuinus and Servatius of Maastricht, in prose or in verse.

His veneration remained local for a long time, in the diocese of Utrecht. He is the patron of Catholic scholarship in the Netherlands; Radboud University Nijmegen bears his name. He is a saint of the undivided Church and is commemorated on 29 November (New Calendar).