Gunther

Gunther or Gunthar (; died 8 July 873) was Archbishop of Cologne in Germany from 850 until he was excommunicated and deposed in 863. Life Gunther belonged to a noble Frankish family and the maternal uncle of Radboud of Utrecht. According to the poet Sedulius Scottus, Gunther was a man of great ability. He was consecrated Archbishop of Cologne on 22 April 850. For a long time he refused to cede his suffragan Diocese of Bremen to St. Ansgar who, in order to facilitate his missionary labours, desired to unite it with his Archdiocese of Hamburg. The affair was finally settled (c. 860) by Pope Nicholas I in favour of St. Ansgar, and Gunther reluctantly consented. According to Johann Peter Kirsch, in 856 Ingiltrud, wife of Count Boso the Elder, had left her husband for one of his vassals. Henry Hart Milman says that the Count abandoned his wife. Nicholas commanded the bishops in the dominions of Charles the Bald to excommunicate her unless she returned to her husband. As she paid no attention to the summons to appear before the Synod of Milan in 860, she was put under the ban. Boso and Ingiltrud's daughter was Teutberga; she married Lothair II in 855. It is very likely that at the time of his marriage, Lothar II already had a mistress named Waldrada. According to historian Baron Ernouf, Gunther was Waldrada's uncle and Thietgaud, Archbishop of Trier was her brother. According to the Annales Novienses, Waldrada was Gunther's sister. The Vita Sancti Deicoli says that Waldrada was related to Eberhard II, Count of Nordgau (included Strasbourg) family of Etichonids.