§ 25. Boniface, the Apostle of Germany.
I. Bonifacius: Epistolae et Sermones, first ed. by Serrarius, Mogunt. 1605, then by Würdtwein,
1790, by Giles, 1842, and in Migne’s Patrol. Tom, 89, pp. 593–801 (together with Vitae, etc.).
Jaffe: Monumenta Moguntina. Berol. 1866.
II. Biographies of Bonifacius. The oldest by Willibald, his pupil and companion (in Pertz, Monum.
II. 33, and in Migne, l.c. p. 603); by Othlo, a German Benedictine monk of the eleventh cent.
(in Migne, p. 634); Letzner (1602); Löffler (1812); Seiters (1845); Cox (1853); J. P. Müller
(1870); Hope (1872); Aug. Werner Bonifacius und die Romanisirung Von Mitteleuropa. Leipz.,
1875; Pfahler(Regensb. 1880); Otto Fischer (Leipz. 1881); Ebrard: Bonif. der Zerstörer des
columbanischen Kirchenthums auf dem Festlande (Gütersloh, 1882; against Fischer and very
unjust to B.; see against it Zöpffel in the "Theol. Lit. Zeitg," 1882, No. 22). Cf. the respective
sections in Neander, Gfrörer, Rettberg (II. 307 sqq.)
On the Councils of Bonif see Hefele: Conciliengeschichte, III. 458.
Boniface or Winfried^117 surpassed all his predecessors on the German mission-field by the
extent and result of his labors, and acquired the name of the Apostle of Germany. He was born
about 680 from a noble family, at Kirton in Wessex the last stronghold of paganism among the
Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. He was brought up in the convent of Nutsal near Winchester, and ordained
priest at the age of thirty. He felt it his duty, to christianize those countries from which his
Anglo-Saxon forefathers had emigrated. It was a formidable task, requiring a heroic courage and
indomitable perseverance.
He sacrificed his splendid prospects at home, crossed the channel, and began his missionary
career with two or three companions among the Friesians in the neighborhood of Utrecht in Holland
(715). His first attempt was a failure. Ratbod, the king of Friesland, was at war with Charles Martel,
and devastated the churches and monasteries which had been founded by the Franks, and by
Willibrord.
But far from being discouraged, he was only stimulated to greater exertion. After a brief
sojourn in England, where he was offered the dignity of abbot of his convent, he left again his
native land, and this time forever. He made a pilgrimage to Rome, was cordially welcomed by Pope
Gregory II. and received a general commission to Christianize and romanize central Europe (718).
Recrossing the Alps, he visited Bavaria and Thuringia, which had been evangelized in part by the
disciples of Columban, but he was coldly received because he represented their Christianity as
insufficient, and required submission to Rome. He turned his steps again to Friesland where order
had been restored, and assisted Willibrord, archbishop of Utrecht, for three years. In 722 he returned
to Thuringia in the wake of Charles Martel’s victorious army and preached to the heathen in Hesse
who lived between the Franks and the Saxons, between the middle Rhine and the Elbe. He founded
a convent at Amanaburg (Amöneburg) on the river Ohm.
In 723 he paid, on invitation, a second visit to Rome, and was consecrated by Gregory II.
as a missionary bishop without a diocese (episcopus regionarius). He bound himself on the grave
(^117) One that wins peace. His Latin name Bonifacius, Benefactor, was probably his monastic name, or given to him by
the pope on his second visit to Rome. 723.