Rimbert was an early disciple of Anskar at Corbie. He accompanied his master on missions to Sweden and Denmark and was Anskar's hand-picked successor as Archbishop of Hamburg-Bremen, succeeding him on his death in 865.
He governed the see for twenty-three years, continuing the slow Christianization of Scandinavia under enormous practical difficulties — Viking attacks repeatedly disrupted his mission, and he spent much of his treasury on ransoming Christian slaves.
His Vita Anskarii, written shortly after his predecessor's death, is one of the great early medieval missionary biographies — the indispensable source for the Northern mission and a beautiful Latin prose work in its own right. Rimbert is honored as a saint at Bremen and is one of the foundational figures of Northern European Christianity, the man through whom Anskar's mission did not die with its founder.