Boniface of Mainz

Life events

1. Born — 675

   Winfrid (later Boniface) was born around 675, according to the vitae from a respected and prosperous family; later tradition places his birth at Crediton in Devon, though the earliest written connection of Boniface to Crediton dates only to the early fourteenth century.

2. Educated — 700

   Winfrid received theological training at the Benedictine monastery of Nursling (Nhutscelle), near Winchester, under Abbot Winbert, where he taught in the abbey school and wrote a Latin grammar, the Ars Grammatica, a treatise on verse, and a collection of acrostic riddles influenced by Aldhelm.

3. Ordained — 705

   At approximately age 30 Winfrid was ordained a priest at Nursling, after teaching in the abbey school there for several years.

4. Pilgrimage — 717

   After an unsuccessful first missionary expedition to Frisia in 716, Winfrid traveled to Rome, where Pope Gregory II renamed him 'Boniface' after the legendary fourth-century martyr Boniface of Tarsus and appointed him missionary bishop for Germania—a bishop without a diocese for an area that lacked any church organization.

5. Consecrated — 732

   In 732 Boniface traveled to Rome a second time, and Pope Gregory III conferred upon him the pallium as archbishop with jurisdiction over what is now Germany; during a third visit in 737–38 he was made papal legate for Germany.

6. Council — 743

   In April 743 Boniface organized the Concilium Germanicum under the patronage of Carloman, son of Charles Martel; the council adopted stricter guidelines for the Frankish clergy, whom Boniface regarded as worldly and insufficiently subject to Rome.

7. Martyred — 754

   On 5 June 754, near Dokkum in Frisia, Boniface and approximately 52 companions were killed by armed assailants while waiting for a gathering of newly baptized converts; according to the vitae he urged his companions not to resist, citing Scripture.

8. Translated — 819

   Boniface's remains were moved from the site of his martyrdom in Frisia to Utrecht, then to Mainz, and finally to the abbey church at Fulda, where they were translated again in 819 when the rebuilt Ratgar Basilica was dedicated; they rest today in a shrine beneath the high altar of Fulda Cathedral.

Relationships

Documented claims

• The Ragyndrudis Codex, now held as a relic in Fulda, shows incisions consistent with sword or axe cuts and is identified in the Utrecht Vita altera as one of the books Boniface held up at the moment of his martyrdom at Dokkum in 754. (plausible)
• According to the near-contemporary Vita Bonifatii by Willibald, Boniface felled the 'Donar Oak' (Latinized as 'Jupiter's oak') near present-day Fritzlar in Hesse and used its timber to build a chapel that became the nucleus of the monastery at Fritzlar. (legendary)
• The Bonifatian correspondence comprises 150 letters assembled by order of his successor Lullus, archbishop of Mainz; the authoritative edition is Michael Tangl's 1912 Die Briefe des Heiligen Bonifatius, published by Monumenta Germaniae Historica in 1916. (certain)
• In 742 Boniface's disciple Sturm founded the abbey of Fulda under a grant signed by Carloman; though Sturm was the founding abbot, Boniface was closely involved and the abbey became the center of his cult and the resting place of his remains. (likely)
• Boniface is recognized as patron saint of Germany (Germania) in the Roman Catholic tradition; in 2019 Devon County Council, with support from Anglican, Catholic, Orthodox, Methodist, and Congregational leaders, officially recognized him as patron saint of Devon. (certain)