Saint Boniface of Fulda
Among the single most distinguished of the holy saints of the British Isles – in honour alongside the Romano-British (i.e. Welsh) Protomartyr Alban, the wonderworking hermit Saint Gúðlác of Crowland, the great Northumbrian wonderworking saints Cuðberht of Lindisfarne and Ceadda of Lichfield – is Boniface, a kindly, gentle and wonderworking missionary similar in aspect and approach to the later Russian Saint Herman the Wonderworker of Alaska.
In the world named Wynnfrið, he was born to a loving home, a caring mother and a doting father – who lavished greater affection upon him than upon his other brothers. Even so, at the age of five, young Wynnfrið conceived a conviction to enter the monastic life and devote himself to the service of God, and began to converse with any priests or monks that stopped by Crediton to preach. His father liked this not at all, and used every means at his disposal to keep Wynnfrið from the cloister. This caused Wynnfrið to cling ever more stubbornly to his desire to join the monastic life, and the two of them were often at odds. His father was struck by a sudden and deathly illness, and on his deathbed he gave Wynnfrið his blessing to take the cowl at the monastery at Exeter which was then under the rule of Abbot Wulfhard.
Saint Willibald (Boniface’s hagiographer and nephew, son of Saint Richard and brother of Saints Wealdburg and Wynnebald) tells us that Wynnfrið was possessed of many virtues. He had a prodigious memory, to which he committed the Gospels, the Psalms, the Prophets, the sayings of the Holy Fathers, the lives and sufferings of the martyrs. He thanked God in prayer each time he ate and drank. He did not speak very much, but when he did speak it was a meet word for the ears of his hearers, whether they were in high or lowly position. When he rebuked, he rebuked gently and with love; when he taught, he taught with the strength of his reason and faith. Willibald tells us: ‘neither flattering and fawning upon the rich nor oppressing and browbeating the freedmen and slaves, in the words of the apostle, he had “become all things to all men that [he] might by all means save some” (I Cor 9:27).’
As monk, Wynnfrið did not seek office, even that of the priesthood, until he had passed the age of thirty and obtained the recommendations of his superiors and brethren. As priest, Wynnfrið kept all of the ascetical Benedictine disciplines, fasts and prayers, and to these also gave alms and did works of mercy as he was able, and abstained wholly from wine and beer. So deeply was he trusted by his abbot and brethren, that during a church council held during the reign of Ine of Wessex, Wynnfrið was recommended at once to deliver the king’s and council’s judgement to Saint Beorhtwald, who was then Archbishop of Canterbury. Both the king’s and council’s missive to the Archbishop, and the Archbishop’s back to Ine, Wynnfrið related exactly and in the right order, first to last, in minute detail – thus vindicating the trust the Church had placed in him, and in addition earning a good name with both the king and the West Saxon folk. He rose in prominence at such councils, but his mind remained intent on God and not on the matters of the world.
Wynnfrið began to desire to preach the word of God in parts where it was not known, but gave no voice to that desire until he conferred with his abbot – who at first, stunned, refused this request from his beloved monk. However, as God willed it, Wynnfrið’s prayer was answered, and his whole abbey furnished him with money and food for his travels. In 716, Wynnfrið left with two monastic fellows for London, where he departed by ship for Dorestad, where Saint Wynnfrið stayed some time, seeking to work alongside Saint Willibrord in converting the Frisians. He got caught, however, in the middle of a fierce struggle between the Frisian king Redbad and the Frankish king Charles Martel, in which the Christian churches (associated with the Franks) were attacked and destroyed, and replaced with heathen steads of worship. Seeing his purpose frustrated, Saint Wynnfrið returned to Southampton in his homeland.
He rejoined his Benedictine brothers in Exeter, and they soon began to insist – particularly after the passing of their abbot Wynnberht – that he succeed to lead them as abbot. However, Boniface steadfastly declined despite their tearful entreaties, having set his heart upon missionary work. He waited until the fall when another monk named Stephen was appointed Abbot at Exeter, and then departed on a pilgrimage to Rome and the tombs of the Apostles. He met with Pope Gregory II, who blessed the mission of the priestmonk Wynnfrið and assisted him in his plans to bring the Gospel to the German people. Pope Gregory II appointed him a bishop, and with that office bestowed upon Wynnfrið the name of the Martyr Boniface of Tarsos in Cilicia.
It is worth dwelling a little on the life and martyrdom of the worthy Roman saint whom Pope Gregory II chose as Wynnfrið’s patron.
The first Boniface was a low-born thrall, in bondage to a villa near Rome under the rule of a young woman named Aglaïa. Boniface had some vicious weaknesses – for drink and for beauty particularly – but he was young, able-bodied, keen of mind and wit, of handsome onsight and a thrifty steward; in addition to this he was open-handed to the needy and sweet in temper. He caught Aglaïa’s eye and was not averse to her advances; soon enough the two of them were cohabiting in an irregular manner. Time went on, and both of them turned to Christ – desiring to embark on a better way of living, Aglaïa asked her paramour to go into the East and bring her back the relics of some holy saint or martyr. Boniface asked that if he should be killed on the way, if Aglaïa would take his own bones as holy relics to venerate. Aglaïa laughed and called him a ‘drunken old fool’, thinking it one of Boniface’s jokes, and sent him on his way with several companions from her household.
This was during the persecutions of Diocletian, and a great slaughter of Christians was being made at Tarsos on his orders, on the southern coast of Asia Minor. Thither went Boniface, and he came upon the stadium in which Christians were being tortured and put to death. Boniface wept and began to kiss the sufferers’ feet, and went before Diocletian’s man and declared himself a Christian, too. At first the Roman soldiery tried to restrain him, thinking him mad, but he so firmly persisted that he began to annoy them. They bound him, stripped him naked, beleaguered his body with beatings, boiling tar and other tortures, and at last beheaded him. Five hundred fifty Cilicians came to believe in Christ as they witnessed the way he greeted his death.
Time went by and he did not fare back. The companions that Aglaïa had sent with him went out looking for him – soon enough they learned the truth, and they wept over him. With bribes to the soldiers they reclaimed his body and his head, and set off back to Rome, where they brought him to Aglaïa. Boniface’s worldly lover, grief-stricken and with tears streaming down her cheeks, remembered his last words to her at once – and she did honour him as a holy martyr. With her household’s wealth she built a shrine over his grave, and lived the rest of her life in holy chastity in the presence of her beloved bondsman’s relics, asking his prayers to God for her soul and doing good deeds – at last reposing in blessedness. She was buried beside her Saint Boniface, and the two of them were known as saints thereafter, with many wonders being wrought at their graves in the Italian church that now bears their names.
Saints Boniface and Aglaïa, commemorated 19 December
Wynnfrið – the Saint Boniface we are concerned with here – was unlike the elder Saint Boniface in some respects. He was high-born, not low; and his hagiographer Willibald tells us he was chaste in mind and life from a precocious early age. Yet he did deeply resemble the elder Boniface in rather more important ways. Wynnfrið was, like Boniface, willing to travel great distances and cross seas for the glory of God. He truly loved and adored women, too, though not in a sexual way: he held affectionate and mutually-edifying correspondence with several learnèd and holy women in England – including Venerable Éadburg of Thanet, his niece Saint Wealdburg of Heidenheim and Saint Leobgýð of Tauberbischofsheim – even from his sojourn on the continent. And, most importantly, Wynnfrið attained to the elder Boniface’s stubborn and steadfast love of God even to martyrdom.
With Pope Gregory II’s blessing, our Saint Boniface fared northward through the kingdom of the Lombards, where he met with their chieftain Liutprant, to whom he gave several gifts to bless his passing. Liutprant gave Saint Boniface and his party both rest and safe passage through the Alps, and also provisions for the journey. From here Saint Boniface ventured through the kingdoms of Bayern and Thüringen – and it is presumably in this segment of his faring that he met Sturm and his parents, who gave the lad to Boniface as an oblate. Boniface left Sturm with his trusted fellow Benedictine Abbot Wihtberht in Fritzlar. In both Bayern and Thüringen Boniface spoke with the leaders of the folk, and preached to them the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Willibald tells us that his reception was mixed: some of the German heretogs heard and heeded his words; others hardened their hearts against him and his Lord.
By the time Boniface had returned to Francia, he learned that the Frisian king Redbad had died – and was again eager to spread the word of truth in the Frisian lands. With no Redbad to hinder or harry him, his scattering of the seed of Christian doctrine in heathen Frisia brought forth a great blossoming harvest, and Saint Willibrord and his helpers baptised many in the name of the Holy Trinity. Boniface helped them as he was able for three years, and was never wanting for work to do. As Saint Willibrord grew feeble in his old age, he began to search for a successor to take charge of the Lord’s work in Frisia; Boniface was the most obvious choice. For a long time, Willibrord attempted to persuade Boniface to accept his bishopric, which Boniface, out of his wonted meekness and compunction, repeatedly declined. Willibrord rebuked Boniface for his stubbornness, after which Boniface revealed to the elderly saint that he had been given the omophor of Germany by Pope Gregory and dare not disobey him by taking another. Only upon learning this did Willibrord unwillingly relinquish his claim upon Boniface and give him his blessing to accede to the see the Pope in Rome had appointed him.
Saint Boniface made his way, with God’s help, to a place which Willibald calls Amanburch (modern-day Amöneburg in Marburg-Biedenkopf, Hessen), where he converted the local margraves – the twin brothers Dettic and Devrulf – and a great throng of folk, and righted in their midst a small kirk for them to worship Christ. And then, just as Saint Augustine had done before him, he began corresponding with Pope Gregory II in order to help address various pastoral issues that arose after the conversion of the Hessians. However, in response, the Pope summoned him to Rome at once and began to interrogate Boniface’s dogmatic soundness. He was made to pen a confession of faith, which the Roman Pontiff examined for its orthodoxy. The Pope was soon convinced of the Saint’s firm and right faith and invited the Saint into his confidence. Boniface soon learned the grounds of the Pope’s concern: among the Hessians, some of the folk he had converted had begun reverting to heathen practices of worshipping in sacred groves, blood-sacrifice, omen-reading and witchcraft.
Pope Gregory lay an omophor upon Boniface’s shoulders and sent him back to Hessen. Boniface made his way stealthily through Francia and came to Hessen, where he found the situation was even worse than had been reported to the Roman Pontiff. The Hessians had started to worship at a vast oak which was sacred to Þórr in a place which Willibald calls Gäsmere (today Geismar). Here is Willibald’s account of what followed:
Taking his courage in his hands (for a great crowd of pagans stood by watching and bitterly cursing in their hearts the enemy of the gods), he cut the first notch. But when he had made a superficial cut, suddenly, the oak’s vast bulk, shaken by a mighty blast of wind from above crashed to the ground shivering its topmost branches into fragments in its fall. As if by the express will of God (for the brethren present had done nothing to cause it) the oak burst asunder into four parts, each part having a trunk of equal length. At the sight of this extraordinary spectacle the heathens who had been cursing ceased to revile and began, on the contrary, to believe and bless the Lord. Thereupon the holy bishop took counsel with the brethren, built an oratory from the timber of the oak and dedicated it to Saint Peter the Apostle.
Boniface felling Þórr’s Oak
He then ventured into Thüringen, where the situation was yet worse. There had been a political crisis in which two tyrannical heretogs had killed many of the Hessian notables and caused the common folk to flee to the Saxons for protection. Many of the Hessians had gone to heathenry, or instead to heretical teachings – of whom the chief heresiarchs are named as Torchtwine, Zeretheve, Eaubercht and Hunræd. These four conspired to kill Saint Boniface, but their scheme was uncovered and they were punished.
Saint Boniface lived among the Germans for some time in great poverty and hunger, but continued to preach the word of God among them. Before long, as his preaching began to bear fruit, the churches which he had founded in Thüringen were restored and monastic communities were established, like that at Orthorpf (Ohrdruf). Missionaries from Britain arrived to strengthen these communities and the faith of the people – bringing with them books and scholars. After receiving confirmation in his see from Pope Gregory II’s successor Gregory III, Saint Boniface righted two kirks with Benedictine cells attached to each: Saint Peter’s in Fritzlar and Saint Michael’s – now Saint John the Baptist – in Amöneburg. To these churches Saint Boniface invited a great number of Benedictine monks to serve, and many answered his call cheerfully.
This done, Saint Boniface set out again for Rome to receive the younger Gregory’s blessing, and again stayed with the kindly Lombardic king Liutprant on his return journey into the Teutonic lands – for he now was an ancient old man, and travel was for him no longer as easy as it had been in his youth. He fared into Bayern and stayed with Odilo Gotfridson, the Agilolfing heretog of that land, who had invited him. Once situated there, Saint Boniface set about restoring the Church and banishing from among the people the various heretical and schismatic self-styled bishops and priests. Odilo gave Saint Boniface the authority to establish four diocæses in his realm – Salzburg, Regensburg, Freising and Passau – and appoint bishops for each one.
In Francia Charles Martel died and his sons Carloman and Pepin came to power. By Saint Boniface’s advice, religious practices in Francia were regularised, including preventing the abuse of women in concubinage. Boniface was elevated to the Archbishopric of Mainz, and presided over a great council meant to establish the true faith as proclaimed in the Œcumenical Councils of the Church. Such councils had been rare in Frankish lands on account of the constant warfare of the Frankish lords, and as a result, the faith was often not on firm grounds. Saint Boniface encouraged Carloman and Pepin to put aside their fathers’ violent ways. Indeed, the holy and peaceful Saint Boniface was known to complain of the Franks, in particular of Pepin of Herestal and Charles Martel, that they ‘shed the blood of Christians like that of the pagans’. (Willibald, it should be noted, rather plays up Saint Boniface’s relationship with the Frankish kings. In truth, Boniface was keen to preserve the political independence of the new churches he set up among the heathen peoples of the East – and this he often did by appealing to the Pope.)
Saint Boniface knew that he was reaching the end of his earthly life, and thus set up good and trustworthy men in the Church to keep his work alive even after he had gone to his heavenly reward. Among these were the same Willibald who wrote the Life of Boniface; Burchard, to whom he commended the Saxons and the Slavs; and Saint Lul of Hersfeld whose feast we just celebrated. He then made preparations – first taking Lul into his confidence – to make his final journey into Frisia with a number of companions.
On this venture into Frisia in 754, Saint Boniface converted thousands upon thousands of the heathen, baptising men and women and children with the help of his assistant, the auxiliary bishop Eoban of Utrecht. Of his other companions, Willibald names these: the priests Wintrung, Walthere and Æþelhere; the deacons Hamrind, Scírbald and Bosa; and the monks Wacchar, Gundaecer, Illehere and Haþwulf. Hildebrand, the lay-thegn of the saint, was also there, as were some forty more men whose names are not known. Willibald relates that these were so close to each other in the love of God that they were ‘of one heart and soul’. Saint Boniface took these men and pitched camp on the riverbank of Bordne, to lay hands on the newly-illumined of the Frisians – these folk having been sent home in the meanwhile, so they could again gather to be confirmed.
When that day dawned, the fifth of June, things turned out rather differently. Frisian heathens burst in upon the teld-ground with spears and shields in their hands, and some among the thegns of Saint Boniface rushed out to meet them with their own weapons. But Saint Boniface, hearing the din of oncoming weapon-weather, rushed out himself and rebuked his followers, saying that ‘we are told in Scripture not to render evil for good but to overcome evil by good.’ He gave courage to his priests and deacons and monks with spiritual exhortations and with the promise of æternal glory. But even as he was speaking the heathen rushed upon them and wounded them with their spears and their swords, spilling the holy blood of the witnesses upon that riverbank.
The martyrdom of Boniface
The heathen lay waste to the camp and made great plunder of the holy things they had with them – the reliquaries of the saints, the holy vessels and the books, imagining them to be gold and silver. In their greed, the heathen Frisians broke into two quarrelling factions and began to slay each other over the booty. The most of them having killed each other, the survivors broke into the chests and found to their dismay, not gold or silver or jewels, but instead the musty bones of long-dead martyrs and the leaves of various holy books. These they had strewn into the marshes or hidden away in other steads. But, by the grace of God, after Christians came to recover the relics of Saint Boniface, many of these books were found unspoiled, and were thereafter used in churches for the salvation of souls.
The relics of Saint Boniface and his companions were fetched and brought back by boat to the town of Utrecht, where they were kept in state and honour until they could be retrieved. Saint Lul came from Mainz to retrieve the bones and have them interred in his own city, even though the Frankish king and the townsfolk of Utrecht did not desire that the saint should leave. Even so, Willibald relates how a wonder was wrought at Utrecht and how the church-bell there began to ring of its own accord, striking a great and holy fear into the townsfolk of Utrecht. Thereafter they did not hinder Saint Lul in translating the bones of holy Boniface back to Mainz. Willibald does not mention the dissension between Saint Lul and Saint Sturm over the resting-place of Saint Boniface; and he only briefly mentions that it was Saint Lul’s intention that Saint Boniface be interred at Fulda – though other sources differ strongly on this point.
As to the water’s edge where Holy Boniface and his fellow-martyrs fell, the converted Frisians planned to raise a great earthen terp at that spot to spare it from the waxing and ebbing tides, on which a kirk would be built to Saint Boniface’s memory. The terp was built, and the folk began to wonder how they would bring up fresh water for themselves and for their horses and oxen on the way home. A certain Abba, who was there on the orders of Pepin, rode his horse up the terp to see it from all sides. But no sooner than he had begun, the horse foundered in the sod of the terp, its hoof sinking as it gave way. The other Frisians got down and went to Abba’s side to free the poor frightened thing, and as they dragged it out by its hind legs, a great wonder showed forth. Where the horse had been drawn out, a clear spring was welling up and bubbling out on all sides, with fresh water sweet to the taste pouring out and clearer still than any other water in the lowlands. It came out in such welters that it flowed into a sizeable stream. Thunderstruck, the Frisian men fared back to their homes, each with as much of the water as he could carry, in awe at the work of God they had seen. Word of the spring soon spread throughout Frisia.
Shrine of Saint Boniface, Dokkum
In the glorious martyrdom of the latter Holy Hierarch Boniface of Crediton we can see the wisdom in Pope Gregory II’s bestowal upon him of the patronage of the earlier Boniface of Tarsos. Boniface loved the Frisian nation with a great, all-giving, kenotic and self-sacrificial love, just as deeply and as wholly as the earlier Boniface (ultimately) loved his mistress Aglaïa – and the both of them willingly underwent violent deaths and gave of their earthly flesh for the sake of their respective beloved. It is most unfortunate that the Christian freedom that the peaceable Boniface desired for all the folk among whom he served was gained only at the cost of their political freedom at Frankish swordpoint; a trend which would come to be resisted only by the Slavs of later times. Even so, Christians on both sides of the English Channel have good grounds to be grateful to this holy and wonderworking father of the Church who gave so much of himself for our sakes. Holy, righteous, God-bearing and victorious father Boniface, herald of Orthodoxy in the West, selfless and loving equal to the Apostles, intercede for the sake of us, thy sinful children, to the only Lover of Mankind!
O holy Boniface, hieromartyr and equal of the apostles,
Godly scion of England, boast of Germany, praise of France and glory of Holland!
Arrayed in vestments dyed red in the blood of thy sacrifice,
Intercede with boldness before the throne of the King of all,
That He pacify all the nations and visit our souls with great mercy.
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