Boniface VIII, Pope 119N.J.: St. Anthony Guild Press, 1964); John F. Quinn, The
Historical Constitution of St. Bonaventure’s Philosophy
(Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1973);
Joseph Ratzinger, The Theology of History in St. Bonaven-
ture,trans. Zachary Hayes (Chicago: Franciscan Herald
Press, 1971).
Boniface, Saint(Winfrith, Wynfrid) (ca. 675–754)
English monk, apostle of Germany
Named Winfrith by his well-to-do English parents, Boni-
face was probably born near Exeter in Devon about 675.
As a boy, he studied in BENEDICTINEmonastery schools
and became a monk himself, in the process. For 30 years
he lived in relative peace, studying, teaching, and pray-
ing. In his early 40s he left the seclusion of the
monastery to do missionary work on the Continent.
Because his first efforts in FRISIAin 716 were unsuccess-
ful, Winfrith traveled to ROMEin search of direction.
Pope Gregory II (r. 715–731) renamed him Boniface,
“doer of good,” and sent him to preach the gospel mes-
sage east of the Rhine River.
In 719 the missionary monk had begun a successful
venture, producing converts by the thousands. The most
famous story of his career was one in which he cut down
a giant sacred oak at Geismar to convince the pagan peo-
ple of Hesse that there was no effective spiritual power in
nature. In 722 the pope consecrated him bishop for all of
Germany. For 30 years Boniface worked to expand the
church there and link the local communities with ROME.
He enlisted the help of his fellow English monks and
nuns to help him in Germany. He founded the Monastery
of FULDAin 753. About 746/747 Boniface was appointed
archbishop of Mainz, where he settled for several years as
head of all the German churches.
Over the years he kept up an extensive correspon-
dence, asking questions of popes, giving information
about the many Christian communities, and relaying the
popes’ wishes. In 751, as the pope’s emissary to the
Franks, he assisted in the consecration of PÉPINIII king of
the FRANKS. In his 80s and still filled with zeal, Boniface
returned to preach the gospel in Frisia. There perhaps on
June 5, 754, near the town of Dokkum, Boniface and
some 50 companions were waylaid by a group of locals
and put to death. His remains were later taken to Fulda,
where he was revered as a martyr to the Christian faith.
Further reading:Boniface, The Letters of Saint Boni-
face,trans. Ephraim Emerton with a new introduction
and bibliography by Thomas F. X. Noble (1940; reprint,
New York: Columbia University Press, 2000); Timothy
Reuter, ed., The Greatest Englishman: Essays on St. Boni-
face and the Church at Crediton(Exeter: Paternoster Press,
1980); C. H. Talbot, trans. and ed., The Anglo-Saxon
Missionaries in Germany: Being the Lives of SS. Willibrord,
Boniface, Sturm, Leoba, and Libuin, together with the
Hodoeporicon of St. Willibald and a Selection from the
Correspondence of St. Boniface(New York: Sheed & Ward,
1954); E. W. F. Tomlin, The World of St. Boniface(Exeter:
Paternoster Press, 1981).Boniface VIII, Pope(Benedict, Benedetto Caetani,
Gaetani)(ca. 1235–1303)participant in Italian political
and dynastic struggles
The son of Roffredo and Emilia Caetani, Benedetto Cae-
tani was born at Anagni about 1235/40. His family had
important political and ecclesiastical connections, and
during the 1250s Benedetto was sent to live with his
uncle, the bishop of Todi. There he probably began the
study of LAW, which he continued at Spoleto and,
between 1263 and 1274, at the University of BOLOGNA,
the center of legal studies in Christendom. In 1264
Benedetto received his first ecclesiastical appointment, a
junior secretarial post in the legation of Cardinal Simon
of Brie, later Pope Martin IV (r. 1281–85), to FRANCE.In
1265 Benedetto joined another legation, led by Cardinal
Ottoboni Fieschi, later Pope Adrian V (r. 1276), to EN-
GLAND, where he remained probably until 1268. In 1276
Benedict’s old master Ottoboni, now pope, assigned him
the important duty of collecting ecclesiastical and Cru-
sade taxes in FRANCE. Benedetto continued to obtain
increasingly more responsible employment in the admin-
istrative and diplomatic bureaucracy of the late-13th-
century papacy. In 1281, not yet a priest, Benedetto
became Cardinal Deacon of Saint Nicholas in Carcere
Tulliano. In 1290 he became papal legate to France. In
1291 he was finally ordained a priest and in the same
year became Cardinal of Saint Martin in Montibus, one of
the richest appointments in the church.THE PAPACY
After the six-month pontificate of CELESTINEV ended
with his resignation in December 1294, Benedetto Cae-
tani was elected pope on December 24 and took the name
Boniface VIII. Celestine’s brief pontificate and the unique
circumstances of his resignation had created chaos in the
administration of the church. Boniface first had to restore
order in the papal system of government and deal with
the legality of his predecessor’s resignation and the legiti-
macy of his own. Boniface had to defend himself against
attacks by disaffected cardinals, particularly members of
the powerful Colonna family, and by those ecclesiastical
groups who had regarded Pope Celestine V as a living
saint. They accused Boniface of having tricked the old
man into resigning. He managed to smooth all this over,
at least temporarily. In 1298 he promulgated his great
canon law collection, the Liber sextus,in which, among
many other matters, he naturally recognized the legiti-
macy of papal resignation.
In 1296 the question of collecting ecclesiastical taxa-
tion became critical. The church had long authorized, in
certain cases, the collection of taxes on its income and