Boniface (Winfrith) (c.675–754), monk, apostle of Frisia and Germany, archbishop of Mainz, martyr. Born in Devon (possibly Crediton) of free, landowning Anglo-Saxon peasants, Boniface was educated in monasteries, first at Exeter, then at Nursling (Hants) under Winbert. As a monk and schoolmaster, he wrote the first Latin grammar to be produced in England, besides some poems and acrostics in the style of Aldhelm. At the age of thirty he was ordained priest; his knowledge of Scripture enabled him to be a successful teacher and preacher. He became known outside his monastery and was chosen by Ina, king of Wessex 688–726, and his synod, to be their envoy to Burchard, archbishop of Canterbury.
But instead of following a fruitful career in England, Boniface chose to leave it and be a missionary. He went to Frisia in 716, where Wilfrid and Willibrord had been the pioneers. Political conditions, however, with militant pagans in the ascendancy, made missionary work almost impossible, so Boniface returned to Nursling. He was elected abbot in 717 but refused the charge. Instead he went to Rome in 718 to receive a definite mission from Gregory II to preach the gospel. The area designated was Bavaria and Hesse. On his way there he learnt that conditions in Frisia had changed for the better, so he went to help the aged Willibrord, who wished him to be his successor, for three years. He then went to Hesse and wrote a report to the pope, who consecrated him bishop at Rome in 722.
Helped by a papal letter to Charles Martel, who gave him protection, he evangelized Hesse. One famous incident was his felling of a sacred oak at Geismar, whose pagan gods failed to protect their followers or avenge this outrage. This led to widespread conversions and Boniface moved on to Thuringia, helped by letters of guidance from the pope and from Daniel, bishop of Winchester, about techniques of evangelization. Characteristic of this period of missionary work was the use of monasteries, staffed in part by English monks and nuns and developed as centres both of Christianity and civilization; among them were Amoneburg and Fritzlar in Hesse and Ordruf in Thuringia.
In 732 Gregory III sent him the pallium, making him archbishop with the power to consecrate bishops for Germany beyond the Rhine. He founded bishoprics at Erfurt for Thuringia, Buraberg for Hesse, and Wurzburg for Franconia, and later Eichstatt for Nordgau. Among his followers were Lull of Malmesbury, his successor, Sturm, abbot of Boniface's most important monastery of Fulda, Eoban, who died with him, Burchard, and Wigbert; the nuns included Tecla, abbess of Kitzingen-on-Main, Lioba, abbess of Tauberbischofsheim, and Walburga, abbess of Eichstatt.
In 738 Charles Martel defeated the Saxons of Westphalia; this opened up new opportunities for the Anglo-Saxon missionaries. Now Boniface wrote his famous letter to the English people, asking for their prayers and help in the conversion of those who ‘are of one blood and bone with you’. Although, as through-out his apostolate, English monasteries helped him with gifts of books, vestments, relics, and, above all, personnel, this particular opening was soon closed until years later Charlemagne reconquered the Saxons.
Once again Boniface visited Rome (738–9), where he was joined by new companions, Romans, Franks, and Bavarians besides the Anglo-Saxon brothers Winnibald and Willibald, who had just reformed St. Benedict's monastery of Monte Cassino. Using his legatine powers, he summoned a synod for all Christian Germany and established a hierarchy in Bavaria: eventually he became archbishop of Mainz while retaining legatine powers which enabled him to appoint Willibrord's successor at Utrecht. All through his apostolate Boniface had been hampered not only by pagans but also by half-converted Christians with notorious or heretical leaders: his importance lies not only in his pioneering missionary activites but also, more significantly, in his organization of the Church, inspired, in some ways, by Theodore's work in England. His close association with the papacy was equalled by one with the emperors: he himself admitted that he could do almost nothing without their help.
His next important work was the reform of the Church in France. Here no council had been held for many years, bishoprics were often vacant, sold, or given to unsuitable laymen without training or vocation. Charles Martel, who had often helped Boniface, was largely responsible. After his death in 741 Boniface was able to make progress under his successors Carloman and Pepin. Boniface presided over reforming councils between 742 and 747, at which prevailing abuses were condemned and the Rule of St. Benedict was made the basic code for all Carolingian monasteries. Boniface's achievements made him the most important monk between Benedict of Nursia and Benedict of Aniane.
It was one thing to make decrees and another to have them executed. Although Boniface crowned Pepin in 751 after the retirement of Carloman to a monastery, it was probably Pepin who made some of Boniface's decrees, especially concerning bishops, ineffective. By now Boniface was nearly eighty years of age and left the leadership of the reform movement to Chrodegang of Metz, and the care of the diocese of Mainz to Lull. He himself returned to Frisia to end his days among the people of his first missionary enterprise. He not only reclaimed the part of the country earlier evangelized, but also penetrated with some success into the pagan north-east Frisia. When he was awaiting some neophytes for confirmation, on the banks of the river Borne near Dokkum, a band of pagans attacked and killed him and his companions. His body was taken to Fulda.
Soon after his death, letters concerning him were written by Milret, bishop of Worcester, and Cuthbert, archbishop of Canterbury, to Lull. An English synod decided on the annual celebration of his feast; they regarded him as their special patron beside Gregory and Augustine. But he never became a principal saint in England, even in the 10th or 11th century, although his feast was widely celebrated at a comparatively low rank. His name was in the York Menology but not in the 9th-century English Martyrology: out of his numerous letters only the one describing the vision of the Monk of Much Wenlock was translated into OE. The real centre of his cult was and is Fulda, where his body rests. In present-day Germany and Holland he is widely venerated as a monk, a reforming bishop, and as a very influential man of letters.
His ancient iconography is surprisingly slight. The oldest painting is in a 10th-century Sacramentary of Fulda (now at Bamberg), while a 12th-century Passionary of Stuttgart shows him dying, but holding in self-defence his already damaged gospel-book (such a book survives at Fulda). Later Boniface was often depicted, with mitre and staff, by artists of the 16th–18th centuries.
There has been a well-deserved revival of interest in him in the 19th–20th centuries, reflected by C. Dawson's judgement that he had a deeper influence on the history of Europe than any other Englishman. This should be understood, not only in terms of Christian conversion but also in those of the alliance he made between popes and emperors, fundamental to Europe's future, and in the educational and literary influence of his monasteries. His own character, reflected in his fluent Latin correspondence, was notable for courage, affection, loyalty, foresight, and determination. He deserves to be better known and appreciated by his own countrymen.
Feast: 5 June; translation (at Fulda), 1 November; ordination, 1 December.
Bibliography
Click here for a list of abbreviations used in this bibliography.
- AA.SS. Iun. 1 (1695), 452–504; Works of Boniface, ed. J. A. Giles, 1844 and in P.L., lxxxix. 597–892; his letters in Epistulae Selectae I, M.G.H., ed. M. Tangl (1916); Eng. tr. by E. Kylie (1911) and E. Emerton (1940). Early Lives of Boniface are in W. Levison, Vitae S. Bonifatii archiepiscopi Moguntini (1905), tr. with selected letters by C. H. Talbot, The Anglo-Saxon Missionaries in Germany (1954); Modern studies by G. F. Browne, Boniface of Crediton (1910); G. Kurth, S. Boniface (1902, Eng. tr. 1935); W. Levison, England and the Continent in the Eighth Century (1946); E. S. Duckett, Anglo-Saxon Saints and Scholars (1947); T. Schieffer, Winfrid-Bonifatius und die christliche Grundlegung Europas (1954); C. Weber (ed.), Sankt Bonifatius, Gedenkgabe zum zwölf-hundertsten Todestag (1954); G. W. Greenaway, Saint Boniface (1955); see also M. Coens, ‘Saint Boniface et sa Mission Historique’, Anal. Boll., lxxiii (1955); 462–95; J. M. Wallace Hadrill, Early Medieval History (1976); D. H. Farmer (ed.), Benedict's Disciples (1980); T. Reuter (ed.), The Greatest Englishman (1980); H. Mayr-Harting, The Coming of Christianity to Anglo-Saxon England (
3rd edn. , 1996). T. Noble and T. Head, Soldiers of Christ (1995)
