III, was elected bishop of Rome Feb. 16, 606. Through his influence the Emperor Phocas decreed that the title of " universal bishop" should be given only to the Pope of Rome. In a synod held at Rome, he forbade, under anathema, that a bishop should ap- point his own successor. He died Nov. 12, 606.
IV, elected pope in 607 or 608. He obtained of the Emperor Phocas that the Pantheon which Agrfppft had built in honor of all the gods should be converted into a Christian church under the invocation of the Virgin, and called Sancta Maria Rotunda. He died in 615.
V, Pope, elected Dec. 24, 618, on the death of De- odatus, and died Oct. 25, 625. He enacted the decree by which the churches became places of refuge for criminals.
VI, Pope, a Roman, elected after the death of For- mosus, April 11, 896. He was an abandoned charac-
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ter, and died at the expiration of fifteen days. Ac- cording to Baronius, his election was not regular.
VII (Cardinal Franco or Francone), elected in a popular tumult, when Benedict VI was seized and strangled in 974. Boniface himself was expelled from Rome in the following year, having incurred general detestation through his licentiousness and cruelty. Boniface is not considered a legitimate pope, though his name is registered as such in most chronological tables. He returned to Rome in 985, and put John XIV in prison, where he died of hunger, as it is re- ported. Boniface again assumed the papal dignity, which he retained till his death near the close of 985. His corpse is said to have been treated with great in- dignity. He was succeeded by John XV.
VIII, Pope, originally named Benedictus Cajetanus or Gaetanus, so called from Gaeta, a town of Naples, where his parents had resided. He himself was born at Anagni, and was raised to the papacy upon the ab- dication of Celestine V, Dee. 24, 1294. He had been previously canon of Paris and Lyons, and made cardi- nal by Pope Martin IV, and is suspected of having by his artifices compelled the resignation of his pred- ecessor, Celestinus, whom he kept imprisoned until his death. He had a bold, avaricious, and domineer- ing spirit, and carried his schemes for the enlargement of the papal power to the verge of frenzy. Happily he found a bold antagonist in Philip le Bel of France, against whom he thundered the celebrated bull Unam Sunctam, and who caused him, in 1303, to be seized and imprisoned. Being liberated by an insurrection of the people, he returned to Rome, but became insane, and died a miserable death. Boniface was a skilful civil and canon lawyer, and to him we owe the collection of decretals entitled the Sextus Decretalium, so called because it was supplementary to the five volumes of decretals previously published by Gregory IX.— Tosti, StoriadiBon. VIII (Rom. 1846); Drumann, Gescldchte Bon. VIII (Konigsb. 1852, 2 vols.); History of fhs Pqp*s, p. 255, 262 ; Neander, Ch. Hist, v, 3-io. See Unam Sanctam.
IX, Pope, created cardinal in 1381, succeeded Urban VI, Nov. 2, 1389. The cardinals at Avignon at the same time elected Clement VII, afterward Benedict XIII. . Boniface quarrelled with Richard of England on the subject of the collation of benefices, and estab- lished the perpetual annates. His great passion was to get gold for himself and to enrich his relations, and his legates tormented England and Germany with their exactions. He died Oct. 1, 1404, having sat fourteen years and eleven months. — Biog. Univ. v, 115.
Boniface or Bonifacius, archbishop of Mayence, the papal Apostle of Germany. His baptismal name was Winfred. He was born at Crediton, England, about 680. At thirty years of age he was ordained priest, and in 716 he passed over into Friesland, to as- sist the aged Wilbrod, then at Utrecht. He returned shortly after to England, but in 718 departed a second time for Hessen and Friesland, taking with him let- ters commendatory from Daniel, bishop of Winchester. In the autumn of this year he went to Rome, and was appointed by Gregory II missionary for the Germans eastward of the Rhine. He commenced his labors in Thuringia and Bavaria, after which he passed through Hessen and Saxony, baptizing the people and conse- crating churches. In 723 Pope Gregory recalled him to Rome and consecrated him bishop, whereupon ho took the name of Bonifacius. In 732 ho received the jv (Ilium, together with the primacy over all Germany, and power to erect such bishoprics as he thought fit. In virtue of this authority, he founded the sees of Freisingen and Ratisbon, in Bavaria (in addition to the original see of Paesau); Erfurt, in Thuringia; Baraburg (afterward Paderbora), in Westphalia ; Wtirtzburg, in Franconia; Eichstadt, in the Palatinate of Bavaria; and re-established Juvavia, or Saltzburg. In 745 he
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was raised to the archiepiscopal see of Mayence. Ten years after this he returned to his apostolical labors in Friesland, where he preached, and converted many thousands ; but, while he was preparing to give to them the rite of confirmation, he was suddenly attacked by a furious troop of pagans at a place called Dockum, where he perished, together with fifty-two of his com- panions, June 5, 755. He is commemorated by the Ro- man Church on June 5. The biographies of Boniface are numerous : among them Gieseler, Leben Bonifacius (Erlangen, 1800); Loftier, Bonifacius, hist. Nachr. v. st h» m Ia ben (Gotha, 1812) ; Schmerbauch, Bonifacius, Apostd d. Deutschen (Erfurdt, 1827); Seiters (II. C), Bonifacius Apostel der Teutschcn (Mainz. 1845, 8vo). A graphic and genial popular sketch of him is given by Neander {Light in Dark Places, p. 217). The writ- ings ascribed to Boniface are collected in Opera qum ex- tant omnia, ed. J. A. Giles, LL.D. (Bond. 1844, 2 vols. 8vo).— Mosheim, Ch. Hist, ii, C; Neander, Ch. Hist, iii, 46-119; Bohringer, Kirch, in Biogr. ii, 03; Soames, Lat. Ch. in A ng.-Sax. Times, 228 sq. ; Landon, Ecc. Die. ii, 327.