On the basis of an entry in the confraternity book of Reichenau Abbey, the historian Gerd Althoff suggests that Gozbald belonged to the Hattonian family.
[3] During his tenure as abbot, Gozbald arranged the copying of Augustine’s De civitate Dei and the acquisition of a good number of books for the library of the cathedral of Würzburg, among which are Bibles, commentaries, patristic works and classics.
[7] At Nijmegen on 14 June 838, an imperial assembly under Emperor Louis the Pious decided a dispute between Gozbald and Hraban Maur, abbot of Fulda, in favour of the latter.
As Gozbald was a familiaris and fildelis ("faithful follower") of Louis the German, this case may be the proximate cause of the ensuing rift between him and the emperor.
[9] Gozbald owned a church at Kleinochsenfurt in 838,[10] and in June 841 Louis rewarded him "for his most devoted service" with a gift of land at Ingolstadt.
[12] Gozbald was one of the frontier bishops who received the right to conduct land transactions with the local noblemen during the king's stay at Regensburg in 851–52.