Saint of the Day
Summary: St Boniface, (2) , martyr: an English monk from Exeter, he evangelised first among the Frisians (Holland), then visited Pope Gregory II in Rome, and then had a very successful apostolate across north-western Europe.
Desmond O’Grady tells his story
In the spring of AD 718 a blonde emaciated, pale-complexioned monk in a Benedictine habit reached the Pope’s Roman residence, the Lateran, seeking an audience. The visitor, called Wynfrith, who had entered the monastery in Exeter at the age of seven was to be one of the makers of Christian Europe. After studying in Exeter he became an eminent teacher in the monastery, where he composed poetry and innumerable riddles and wrote a Latin grammar, but, at the age of forty, conscious of his Saxon descent, he felt called to minister to the Saxon pagans in their German homeland.
Mission to the Dutch
But first, for a few months, the lad joined another Anglo-Saxon monk, Willibrord, in his mission to the Frisians (the Dutch). That mission had not been very fruitul, partly because the Frisians were warring with the Catholic Franks. When Wynfrith returned to his monastery in Wessex a bishop convinced him that he needed papal backing to have missionary success.
Pope Gregory II probed the Benedictine’s scriptural knowledge and political acumen for months before approving his mission. It meant a new life and Gregory gave the monk a new name, Boniface. Boniface set to work in Thuringa and Hesse where some missionaries had already been in action but he reported to Rome that the Church was lax and that the priests he met, many of them Anglo-Saxon, were ignorant. Some sacrificed to the pagan god, Thor; some baptized in the name of the Fatherland, the Daughter and the Holy Spirit. Many of them had concubines.
Signs of Corruption
After four years Gregory asked Boniface to return to Rome where he made him, at the age of fifty, bishop for all Germany and directly responsible to the Pope. Snow blocking the Brenner Pass prevented his return until spring. When he left he took a papal letter to Charles Martel, the most powerful figure among the Franks who had recently beaten the Muslms at Poitiers, threatening Western Europe.
Boniface was well received by Martel but was shocked by the crudity of his soldiers and far more by the avaricious, immoral court prelates. More interested in hunting and fighting than in priestly duties, they sometimes celebrated Mass in hunting garb. By exploiting the poor and using Church property, these gluttonous, drunken men lived sumptuously and amused themselves by playing dice, which was expressly forbidden. Some had mistresses and had fathered illegitimate children.
Efforts at reform
Shortly after leaving Martel’s court, Boniface came across some pagans lying prostrate before a sacred giant oak on a mountain in Hesse. Boniface held a cross high as two monks felled the tree. The pagans warned of the wrath of the god, Thor, but he remained silent. From the tree’s wood Boniface built a chapel dedicated to St Peter and shortly after built nearby a monastery, one of a series which were centres of learning but also economic powerhouses because of the monks’ agricultural know-how.
In response to Boniface’s queries Rome supplied answers on what should be done with food offered to idols, the remarriage of widows, whether a spouse’s sickness affected marital rights and how to handle ‘unworthy bishops and priests full of vice’.
Gregory II died in AD 731. His successor, Gregory III, supported Boniface against those bishops who opposed him because he was too rigorous. Gregory III’s successor, Zachary, gave Boniface a free hand to hold a synod of the lax Frankish church (In many places, he had written to Zachary, ‘episcopal sees are assigned to greedy laymen or corrupt clergy’) and depose unworthy bishops and priests. Boniface held a synod but clerical hostility to him continued.
On the death of Charles Martel, his son Pepin asked Pope Zachary’s assent to a coup d’etat. The inept King Childeric III was packed off to a monastery and in November A.D. 751, at Soissons near Paris, Boniface as papal legate poured oil on the head of Pepin to show he was King of the Franks ‘with the Lord’s aid’. Pepin was the first Westerner to receive such a consecration.
Archbishop of Mainz
It meant a strong power well-disposed to the Church in the vast area from the Atlantic to the Elbe, from the Pyrenees to the Danube. It also meant that Rome had an ally against the threatening Lombard King, Astolf. It probably meant also that some of the Franks’ enemies could not distinguish between them and the Church.
Boniface, who was by this stage Archbishop of Mainz (opposition from local clergy prevented him from being appointed Archbishop of Cologne) kept asking Pope Zachary for guidance on questions such as the attitude to lepers, what made it possible to ordain priests under the normal age of thirty and what should be done about a new people who had arrived at the frontier asking to live in Christian lands – the Slavs.
Zachary said he wanted time to think about that but he did not have much time left: he died on 15th March 752. His successor, Stephen II, received a tardy letter of homage from Boniface who explained that thirty churches and monasteries had been destroyed by barbarians. Perhaps they identified the Church with the civil power.
Stephen himself came to what is now France to obtain Pepin’s military support against the Lombards and recognition of what were to become the papal States. Boniface had made an essential contribution to the alliance with the Franks. But this scrupulous, dedicated monk, who was later called the Apostle of the Germans, did not retire to rest on his laurels and await his death at the huge monastery he had established at Fulda.
Martyrdom at eighty
At the age of eighty, after forty years as a missionary, he set out again along the Rhine with fifty-two men: priests, monks, deacons, novices; servants and ten soldiers. Nothing if not tenacious, he wanted to complete the conversion of the Frisians and of his Saxons. In Frisian territory, he arranged a big meeting of converts near the Zuidersee but, just before they arrived, Boniface’s camp was overrun by brigands who slaughtered him and his many companions.
This article first appeared in The Messenger (June 1998), a publication of the Irish Jesuits.
Summary: St Boniface, martyr Born in Devon (England) about 675; died in the Netherlands on this day in 754. A monk and teacher who went to evangelise the Germanic peoples. He was ordained bishop and given wide-ranging papal commissions throughout Germany and Gaul. He founded monasteries and established dioceses, presided at synods, and maintained close associations with various emperors. He was honoured as a determined missionary and as a Church organiser and reformer whose work shaped the future of Europe. He is buried at his abbey of Fulda (near Frankfurt).
Patrick Duffy tells his story.
Early life as a monk
Born and baptised Winfrid about 673 in Crediton, Devon, England, and educated at Exeter, he entered the Benedictine abbey at Nursling near Southampton. As a monk he studied, expounded the Bible and compiled the first Latin grammar written in England. He went to preach the gospel in Holland, Germany and France where he had significant influence in establishing the Church.
First mission to the Frisians
In 716 Winfrid went on a mission to the Frisians (the Dutch), where the language was similar to his own Anglo-Saxon, but war between King Charles Martel of the Franks and King Radbod of the Frisians forced him to return to Nursling.
Commissioned by Pope Gregory II
In 718 he went to Rome where Pope Gregory II (715-731) commissioned him to preach the gospel and organise the Church in Germany and latinised his name to Boniface.
Expansion of his mission in north Germany
The Church in Germany had lapsed into paganism and Boniface worked here for a short time until death of the Frisian King Radbod allowed him work among the Frisians alongside his fellow Englishman, St Willibrord (See 7th November). After four years Pope Gregory called him back to Rome and ordained him bishop with jurisdiction over all of Germany, directly dependent on the Holy See. He also gave him letters to Charles Martel, King of the Franks, asking for protection. Martel and his Carolingian successors did indeed afford him support and because of this he was enabled to reorganise the Church in Hesse, Thuringia, and Frisia.
The Thor oak
At the town of Fritzlar in Hesse he came across many pagans prostrating themselves before an ancient tree sacred to the God Thor. To show the people how powerless their gods were, Boniface began to cut down the tree, calling on Thor to strike him down if this was really his holy tree. When Boniface was not struck down, and a mighty wind helped him finish off the job, many of the people converted to Christianity. Probably because of this, tradition has credited Boniface with inventing the Christmas tree. From the wood of the tree he had a chapel built which he dedicated to St Peter.(c/f image right)
Expansion in south Germany
Boniface went to Rome again in 732 and the next pope, Gregory III (731-741), made him an archbishop, giving him Bavaria as a new mission territory. During the next nine years he worked there setting up the dioceses of Salzburg, Regensburg, Freising and Passau, all east of the Rhine and he had his own see as archbishop at Mainz. In 741 through one of his disciples, Sturm, he founded the famous abbey of Fulda. This later became and still is today a meeting place for the German bishops. Boniface appointed his own followers as bishops and in this way tried to maintain independence of the Carolingians.
Last mission and martyrdom
In 754 at the age of eighty, after forty years as a missionary, Boniface set out for Frisia again along the Rhine with fifty-two men: priests, monks, deacons, novices, servants and ten soldiers, desiring to complete the conversion of the Frieslanders. In Frisian territory, he arranged a meeting of converts near the Zuidersee, intending to administer confirmation to them. But just before they arrived, Boniface’s camp at Dokkum was overrun by a hostile force. They slaughtered him and his many companions.
Buried at Fulda
Boniface’s body was taken to Fulda. Although he had enlisted many English men – Saints Lull and Willibald – and women – Saints Walburga and Lioba – to work with him as missionaries, he is much better remembered in Germany than among his fellow countrymen. Many of his letters written in Latin still survive.
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Memorable Saying for Today
“There is no success without sacrifice.
If you succeed without sacrifice it is because someone has suffered before you.
If you sacrifice without success it is because someone will succeed after you.”
~ Adoniram Judson ~
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