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Saint Agobard
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Saint Agobard

archbishop of Lyon
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Quick Facts
Born:
769/779, Spain
Died:
June 6, 840, Lyon

Saint Agobard (born 769/779, Spain—died June 6, 840, Lyon; feast day June 6) was the archbishop of Lyon from 816, who was active in political and ecclesiastical affairs during the reign of the emperor Louis I the Pious. He also wrote theological and liturgical treatises.

He probably traveled from the former Visigothic strip of southern Gaul (Septimania) to Frankish Gaul in 782 and then to Lyon in 792. He was ordained a priest in 804. As archbishop, he was frequently in conflict with the secular powers, attempting to free church lands from lay control. Having written a public justification of the deposition of Louis the Pious in 833, he lost his see when Louis was restored to his throne, but was reinstated at Lyon in 838.

Agobard wrote against the Adoptionist heresy (that Jesus was not the son of God by nature but by adoption) of Felix of Urgel (who was confined at Lyon from 800 to 818), against contemporary superstitions, and against the Jews. His zeal for reform led him to attack trial by ordeal and image worship and, more generally, to promote the unity of the Carolingian empire and its legal system.

This article was most recently revised and updated by Encyclopaedia Britannica.