-
Skip These Ads
-
Skip These Ads|
|
 |
Click here and add this page to your favorites!
|
Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: BLA-BOS |
|
|
BONIFACE, SAINT (680-754) , the apostle of Germany, whose real name was Wynfrith, was born of a good Saxon family at Crediton or Kirton in Devonshire. While still young
Boniface visited Bavaria and Thuringia, but upon hearing of the death of Radbod he hurried again to Frisia, where, under the direction of his countryman Willibrord (d. 738), the first bishop of Utrecht, he preached successfully for three years. About 722 he visited Hesse and Thuringia, won over some chieftains, and converted and baptized great numbers of the heathen. Having sent special
Charles's protection, as he himself confessed, made possible his great career. Armed with it he passed safely into heathen Germany and began a systematic crusade, baptizing, overturning idols, founding churches and monasteries, and calling from England a band of missionary helpers, monks and nuns, some of whom have become famous: St Lull, his successor in the see at Mainz; St Burchard, bishop of Wiirzburg; St Gregory, abbot at Utrecht; Willibald, his biographer; St Lioba, St Walburge, St Thecla. In 732 Boniface was created archbishop. In 738 for the third time he went to Rome. On his return he organized the church in Bavaria into the four bishoprics of Regensburg, Freising, Salzburg and Passau. Then his power was extended still further. In 741 Pope Zacharias made him legate, and charged him with the reformation of the whole Frankish church. With the support of Carloman and Pippin, who had just succeeded Charles Martel as mayors of the palace, Boniface set to work
Benedictine
movement
Between 746 and 748 Boniface was made bishop of Mainz, and became metropolitan over the Rhine bishoprics and Utrecht, as well as over those he had established in Germanythus founding the pre-eminence of the see of Mainz. In 747 a synod of the Frankish bishops sent to Rome a formal statement of their submission to the papal authority. The significance of this act can only be realized when one recalls the tendencies toward the formation of national churches, which had been so powerful under the Merovingians. Boniface does not seem to have taken part in the anointing of Pippin as king of the Franks in 752. In 754 he resigned his archbishopric in favour of Lull, and took up again his earliest plan of a mission to Frisia; but on the 5th of June 754 he and his companions were massacred by the heathen near Dockum. His remains were afterwards taken to Fulda. St Boniface has well been called the proconsul of the papacy. His organizing genius, even more than his missionary zeal, left its mark upon the German church throughout all the middle ages. The missionary movement
control , largely carried on by schismatic Irish monks, was brought under the direction of Rome. But in so welding together the scattered centres and binding them to the papacy, Boniface seems to have been actuated by simple zeal for unity of the faith, and not by a conscious political motive
Though pre-eminently a man of action, Boniface has left several literary remains. We have above all his Letters (Epistolae), difficult to date, but extremely important from the standpoint of history, dogma, or literature; see Dummler's edition in the Monumenta Germaniae historica, 1892. Besides these there are a grammar (De octo partibus orationibus, ed. Mai, in Classici Auctores, t. vii.), some sermons of contested authenticity, some poems (Aenigmata, ed. Dummler, Poetae latini aevi Carolini, i. 1881), a penitential, and some Dicta Bonifacii (ed. Nurnberger in Theologische Quartalschrift, Tubingen, vol. 70, 1888), the authenticity of which it is hard to prove or to refute. Migne in his Patrologia Latina
There are very many monographs on Boniface and on different phases of his life (see Potthast, Bibliotheca medii aevi, and Ulysse Chevalier's Bibliographic, 2nd ed. for indications), but none that is completely satisfactory. Among recent
End of Article: BONIFACE, SAINT (680-754) If you wish, you can link directly to this article.
<a href="http://jcsm.org/StudyCenter/Encyclopedia/BLA_BOS/BONIFACE_SAINT_680_754_.html"> BONIFACE, SAINT (680-754) </a> |
|
|
(Previous) BONIFACE VIII |
(Next) BONIFACIO |
Free & Cheap Cell
Phones |
Cheap Long Distance
Phone Service Carriers |
Talk America Local Phone Service
|
Ztel & MCI - Unlimited Long Distance
Compare
Cell Phone Plans & Companies |
International Calling Cards & Prepaid Phone Cards |
Voice Over IP Broadband Internet Phone
Service | Wireless
Phone Plans & Cheap Cell Phones
|
_____________________________________________________________________________
Online First Aid and CPR Certification . The Online Christ Centered Ministries . The Skeptic's Annotated Bible: Corrected and Explained . The Inerrancy Discussion Board . Free Email Accounts . Home Equity Loans . JasonGastrich.com . The Missions, Apologetics, and Creation Bible Conference . Young Earth Creation Science . San Diego Music Lessons . 10,000 Wise Quotes and Spiritual Sayings . Gastrich.net . Maximizing the Internet: 12 Keys to Success . Louisiana Baptist University . NKJV Web Hosting and Services . Michael Newdow . San Diego Soccer Training . Christian Guitar Lessons . Jesus Christ Saves Ministries . Eternal Security
