As archbishop, Arnold was accounted a capable ruler, by turns thrifty and generous, with a genuine concern for his church and his domain.

[2] Born into the Rhenish nobility of the upper Lorraine[2] (probably in Vaucourt, near Lunéville[3] in the modern French département of Meurthe-et-Moselle), Arnold was most likely the child of the Lord (Seigneur, Ritter) Wirich of Vaucourt (the founder of a (no longer extant) Cistercian abbey at Freistroff[2] and builder of the Château Saint-Sixte),[4] and thus related to several celebrated personalities of the time (e.g. Hildegard of Bingen, with whom Arnold corresponded[3]).

[3] In 1169 he was elected as Archbishop of Trier at the wish of the Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa, to whom Arnold proved a clever counselor and a loyal and doughty partisan throughout his life, accompanying his master on several campaigns into Italy.

[3] In 1180, Arnold granted permission to the Vogt of Merzig[3] (as it happened, his cousin, Arnulf de Walecourt), to reconstruct the fortress on the Sciva ("Ship") fell on the Saar River near Mettlach, calling the new castle Montclair.

[2] Upon Arnold's death in Trier in May 1183,[3] the succession to the Archbishopric fell into dispute between Folmar of Karden and Rudolf of Wied.