RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Boniface
cancastre (Exeter?), and continued at Nutshalhng or Nursling, near Winchester. Here he won distinction for learning and practical wisdom, and at an early age was made master of the monastic
school.
Disregarding brilliant prospects at home, irom 717 Boniface gave himself to missionary work on the Continent. After a brief effort in Friesland— the field of his countryman Willibrord (q.v.)— he went to Rome and received a commission from the pope (Gregory II) as missionary to Central Germany. He began his labor in Thuringia and Hessia, the easternmost of the lands of the Franks, where he found not only heathen but Christians and priests who knew nothing and Early wanted to know nothing of Roman Missionary discipline and order. They were prob- Work. ably converts and disciples of Iro- Scottish and British monks, who had long been laboring among the tribes from the Rhine to the Saale and southward to the Alps (see Celtic Church in Britain and Ireland, II, 2, § 3, III, 2, § 2). For two or three years Boniface's activity was diverted to Friesland, but then he returned to the Franks, and, with the help of two landed proprietors, founded a central settlement for himself and companions at Amoneburg on the Ohm in Hessia. His success was great and led to a summons to Rome from Gregory II. There he was consecrated bishop and swore fidelity to the canons of the Church; he was charged to be on his guard against heretical priests and anti-Roman bishops. About 724 he returned to Germany, provided with letters of recommendation to the major domus, Charles Martel, to the clergy, chieftains, and people. Charles Martel granted him protection, and, after confirming recent converts in Hessia, and felling the sacred oak of Thor near Geismar, Boniface went eastward into Thuringia, and established its first monastery at Ohrdruf. He founded many churches, converted the heathen, expelled the anti-Roman priests, and in ten years had won a new province for the Church and the pope.
Being promoted to the dignity of archbishop, Boniface organized his Church by founding the sees of Wurzburg, Buraburg, and Erfurt, and by building monasteries and nunneries, which he filled with monks and nuns from England and endowed and improved with the help of English money. Bavaria next claimed his attention. Anti-Roman influence was strong there and among the neighboring Alemanni (q.v.), but, with the authorization of Gregory III, in a few years, Boniface placed men in sympathy with Rome in the sees of Regensburg, Passau, Salzburg, and Freising, and substituted the Benedictine rules for those of Columban in the monasteries. On Organiza- the death of Charles Martel (741), tion. his sons Karlman and Pepin, who had been brought up under monkish influence, succeeded to his power. In 742 Karlman called upon the papal legate to regulate the affairs of the Church for the East Franks. Under the guiding influence of Boniface two synods were held and measures were adopted concerning the
monastic and scholastic discipline, the restoration of church estates which had been lost, the introduction of Roman marriage laws, celibacy of the clergy, the expulsion of the old British itinerant priests and bishops, the extirpation of remnants of heathenism, the establishment of the hierarchical order, and the like. There was some opposition from the nobles, certain of the bishops, and the people, who were attached to their old customs, but at court and in the Council the adversaries of the " reformation of the Church " lost all authority.
In 744 Pepin followed the example of his brother. A synod was held at Soissons, and Boniface was given a free hand, notwithstanding resistance from the Frankish clergy. For a long time, however, he was unable to alienate the people from their old priests and bishops, such as Adalbert and Clement (qq.v.). A general Frankish synod in 745 published new agenda for both divisions of the country and promised Boniface the metropolitan see at Cologne. In 747 the Frankish bishops with Boniface at the head signed in due form a bill of submission in which they acknowledged the papal rights, laws, and power,. Arch- and promised obedience and faithbishop, fulness. By this action the bond, between the Frankish empire and Rome was sealed; the " Prince of the Apostles " was to be head and master in the countries north of the Alps. Pope Zacharias had every reason tobe grateful to his legate. Instead of Cologne, Boniface received Mainz as his see. Here he was near his old mission field in Hessia and Thuringia. and from Mainz he could direct the building of his favorite foundation, the abbey of Fulda (q.v.). Worldly affairs now occupied him little. After the death of Willibrord he desired strongly to continue the Friesian mission. In 754 he spent some time in Friesland. The next year he again descended the Rhine with a large following and pitched his camp on the little river Borne, expecting the newly baptized would come thither for confirmation. But the camp was attacked by night by a band of heathen and Boniface and his entins company were massacred. He is buried at Fulda. An English synod shortly after his death proclaimed him patron of the English Church by the side of Gregory the Great and Augustine. Pius IX in 1875 ordered to invoke his name because of troubles in Germany and England. Many churches in Germany are dedicated to him. [A number of writings have been attributed to Boniface. Those most commonly regarded as genuine are letters, a collection of ecclesiastical statutes, a Latin poem called Mnigmata de virtutibus, and several shorter poems.] A. Werner.
Bibliography: S. Bonifacii opera qua extant omnia, ed. J A Giles 2 vols., London, 1844, contains, besides thegenuine and supposed works of Boniface, his life, writer! within ten years of his death by Willibald, a presbyter of Mainz. The works, Willibald's life, and a life by Othlo, a monk of St. Emmeram's at Regensburg written at Fulda between 1062 and 1066, ^,1?™;.™,; Better editions are: Of the letters, Wil.ibald s life t heso-called Passio S. Bonifatii (11th century), and extract* from Othlo and a life by an unknown writer of Utrecht in Monumenta Moguntina, ed. P. Jaffe, BMxotheea rer.
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Germ., vol. iii, 1866; the biographical matter also issued separately with title, Vitce S. Bonifatii, Berlin, 1866; cf. also Vitce S. Bonifatii, ed. W. Levison, Hanover, 1905; of the letters, ed. E. Dummler, in MGH, Epist., iii (1892), Epistolw Merovingici et Carolini cevi, i; of the poems, ed. idem, in MGH, Poet. hat. a*vi Car., i (1881), pp. 1-23; of Willibald's life, ed. A. Niirnberger, Breslau, 1S95, and, with Othlo's prologue, in MGH, Script, ii (1829). For the letters consult F. Loofs, Zur Chronologie der auf die frdnkischen Synoden des heiligen Bonifatius beziiglichen Briefe der bonifaziachen Briefsammlung, Leipsic, 1881; G. Pfahler, Die bonifatianische Briefsammlung chronologisch geordntt, Heilbronn, 1882.
For modern accounts in German from the Roman Catholic standpoint, consult: J. C. A. Seiters, Bonifacius, . . . nach seinem Leben und Wirken geschildert, Mainz, 1845; G. Pfahler, St. Bonifacius und seine Zeil, Regensburg, 1880; F. J. von Buss, Winfred Bonifacius, ed. R. von Scherer, Graz, 1880. From the Protestant standpoint: J. P. M uller, Bonifacius. Eene kerkhistorische Studie, 2 vols., Amsterdam, 1869-70; A. Werner, Bonifacius,. und die Romanisirung von Mitteleuropa, Leipsic, 1875; O. Fischer, Bonifatius der Apostel der Deutschen, ib. 1881; J. H. A. Ebrard, Bonifatius, der Zerstorer des columhanischen Kirchenthums auf dem FesUande, Giitersloh, 1882, cf. his Iroschottische Missionskirche des 6ten-8ten Jahrhunderts, ib. 1873; G. Traub, Bonifatius. Ein Lebensbild, Leipsic, 1884. For life in Eng. consult: G. W. Cox, Life of Boniface, London, 1S53; Mrs. Hope, Boniface and the Conversion of Germany, ib. 1872; G. F. Maclear, Apostles of Mediceval Europe, pp. 110-128, London, 1888; I. G. Smith, Boniface, in Fathers for English Readers, ib. 1896; J. M. Williamson, Life and Times of St. Boniface, ib. 1904. Consult also: H. Hahn, Bonifaz und Lul, Leipsic, 1883; G. Woelbing, Die mittelalterlichen Lebensbeschreiimngen des Bonifatius untersucht, ib. 18S3; Moeller, Christian Church, ii, 74-83; Schaff, Christian Church, iv, 92-100; DCB, i, 324-327; DNB, v, 346-350; Neander, Christian Church, iii, 46-96 et passim.
BONIFATIUS-VEREIN ("Boniface Society"): A Roman Catholic society of Germany, having as its object " to promote the spiritual interests of Catholics living in Protestant parts of Germany, and the maintenance of schools" (by-laws, § 1). The tendency toward freer relations between different confessions and shifting of confessional connections in Germany in the earlier years of the nineteenth century aroused the anxiety of the Church of Rome. According to a statement in the Ultramontane Miinchener historisch-politische Blatter (lxviii, 45) the Roman Church lost between 1802 and 1870 more than 500,000 souls in South Germany, whereas the loss in North Germany between 1802 and 1850 was estimated at one million. The " Francis Xavier Society," which had its headquarters at Lyons in France, and properly speaking was a missionary society, took care of the " missions " in Germany as far as possible; but until 1848 no Roman Catholic church or school could be established in Germany without the consent of the government. These restrictions were done away with in 1848, and when the third convention of Roman Catholics met at Regensburg, Oct. 4, 1849, at the suggestion of Dollinger, at that time an ardent champion of Rome, and of Count Josef von Stolberg, son of the famous convert Frederick Leopold von Stolberg, the Bonifatius- Verein was founded. Paderborn was chosen as the center of operation. Pius IX approved the society, Apr. 21, 1852, and Leo XIII favored the priests belonging to it with indulgences, Mar. 15, 1901. In Bavaria the society was not favorably received at first on account of similar societies already existing,
and in North Germany it seemed to be a failure by 1853. But after 1857, owing to the exertions of Bishop Martin of Paderborn and of Alban Stolz, it progressed rapidly and in 1899 celebrated the golden jubilee of its successful activity.
The society obtains the means necessary for carrying on its work in various ways: (1) from collections in the churches; (2) from private persons who obligate themselves to pay for a number of years the minister's salary in a certain congregation; (3) from donations to a permanent endowment fund; (4) from societies which collect seemingly worthless objects, as cigar ends, corks, and the like; the income from these societies, used particularly for orphan asylums and like institutions, amounted from 1885 to 1891 to 1,490,539 marks; (5) from the profits of the Bonifatius printing-house and the Bonifatius second-hand book-stall at Paderborn; (6) from periodicals and pamphlets; (7) from academical Bonifatius societies, which built the Catholic church at Greifswald; (8) from societies of a like character, as the " Boniface Society of the Catholic Noblemen of Silesia," the " Boniface Society of Catholic Ladies for Church Vestments and Furniture," and others. The aggregate receipts from all these sources between 1849 and 1899 were 36,000,000 marks; and between 1849 and 1901 more than 29,- 000,000 marks were expended for 2,240 stations. In 1902 the revenues aggregated 442,000 marks, and expenditures 310,000 marks.
The territory of the Bonifatius- Verein comprises Germany, Austria with Bosnia and Herzegovina, Switzerland, Denmark, and Luxembourg. In Germany special attention is paid to the Protestant parts of Prussia, above all Berlin; Saxony, Brunswick, and Mecklenburg are also regarded as missionary fields. In Bavaria, Nuremberg, formerly wholly Protestant, is especially an object of the propaganda in order to connect the northern and southern parts of Bavaria. C. Fey.
Bibliography: A. J. Kleffner and F. W. Woker, Der Bonifacius-V erein. Seine Geschichte, seine Arbeit und sein Arbeitsfeld, 1849-1899, 2 parts, Paderborn, 1899; Bonifaciusblati, ib. 1853 sqq.; Schlesisches Bonifacius-Vereins- Blatt, Breslau, 1860 sqq.
BONI HOMINES: A name borne by several monastic brotherhoods, particularly by the Grammontensians (see Grammont, Order of), the Fratres saccati, or Sack Brethren (q.v.), and an order of canons regular founded in Portugal by John Vicenza (d. 1463), physician and professor at Lisbon, afterward bishop of Lamego, and later bishop of Vizeu. In 1425 Vicenza and his followers, who had made pilgrimages throughout Portugal, received the Benedictine cloister of San Salvador in Villar de Frades. They adopted the dress and statutes of the canons regular of San Giorgio in Alga, at Venice, and received papal confirmation under this title. In another house near Lisbon they received the name Canons Regular of the Congregation of St. John the Evangelist. The Boni homines of San Salvador were later included under this title. They gradually attained a strength of fourteen houses in Portugal, and also maintained missions in India and Ethiopia.