"There apparently were two views by Radbertus and Ratramnus that must have been substantially different. Different enough that the council in 12?? made some kind of major decision and selection. Also the difference must have been significant for the Council of Trent to BAN Ratramnus' writings until 1900s.
"If there wasn't any difference there wouldn't have been all this fuss."
First, you err in assuming there are only "two positions" -the Catholic position of transubstantion and your Baptist tradition of mere memorialism Hence, my logic makes perfect sense. Ratramnus' position, for lack of a simple yet complete way to say it, was somewhere 'in between.' Essentially, from what I can gather from my reading(and, yes, I've already been to newadvent.org as well as consulting several other sources)Ratramnus was arguing the Eucharist WAS the Body and Blood of Christ, just not His historical Body and Blood. This is a far cry from just a symbolic view of the Eucharist.
Moreover, there is reason to believe his usage of 'figura' and 'veritas' was not all that far after all from the 'accidents' and 'substance' of Aquinas. However, early in the Reformation, Protestants seized on Ratramnus to try to overthrow the theology of transubstantion. Hence its banning.
You may have noticed I complemented your article selection. That should tip you off that, in the main, the author -albeit from a Protestant viewpoint- is at least trying to fairly address just what Ratramnus' really was.
So here's how the historical record really plays out. For the first eight hundred years or so, the Church Fathers held to the view the Eucharist was, in some mysterious fashion, the true Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Then, as theologians contemplated the matter more deeply, disputes arose over just how the Eucharist was the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Our Lord. Finally, from the Catholic position, the issue is resolved with Aquinas' transubstantion -though there is much in the early Church Fathers congruent with Aquinas' thought, even though the word itself was not used. In many ways this is the same process which occurred with the development of Trinitarian doctrine.
No, Harley, the real innovation comes after the beginning of the Reformation, for it is then, for the first time in Christian history, that Christians assert a theology which holds the Eucharist is nothing more than symbolic, is only symbolic, and in no way constitutes the actual Body and Blood of Our Lord. Granted, there were heretics as early as Ignatius who disputed the Eucharist, but then, no one holds the represent the views of the early Church Fathers, the same Church Fathers who developed the doctrine of the Trinity, formulated the canon, etc.