BONIFACIO, SANTO
Boniface, Saint
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Volume II · p. 1071 · 1949
English translation · Testo originale italiano
BONIFACE, saint — The saint in the act of baptizing and his martyrdom. Miniature from the Sacramentary of Udine (11th century), preserved in the Capitular Library but originating from Fulda. Identical scenes are found in five other sacramentaries of Fulda origin (10th–11th centuries).
He worked for the Christianization of the Germanic peoples, in accordance with the directives of the British clergy, from Bede to his former bishop Daniel of Winchester, and gave a prominent role to religious women and female monasteries. He laid the foundations for the cultural unity of Gaul and Germany, which was later accomplished by Charlemagne. A broad and humane, yet no less austere, vision of life and religious discipline guided and accompanied his work, to which the ranks of missionaries who succeeded him looked as to the highest example and the closest and dearest testimony. Feast day: June 5.
BIBL.: Sources: Bonifatii Epistulae (I–CL, to numerous correspondents), ed. E. Dümmler, in MGH, Epistulae, III, pp. 125 ff.; ed. M. Tangl, ibid., Ep. selectae, Berlin 1916; id., Stud. 2. Neuausgabe d. Bonifatiusbriefe, in Neues Archiv, 11 (1914) and 12 (1915); Bonifatii Carmina, ed. E. Dümmler, in MGH, Poetae latini, I, pp. 1–23; other writings edited by A. Mai, Auctores classici, VII, Rome 1835, pp. 475–549; Vitae s. B. archiepiscopi Moguntini, ed. W. Levison, in MGH, Scriptores rerum germanicarum in usum Scholarum, 57 (1905). — Studies: H. V.
SCHUBERT, FRANZ, Gesch. d. christlichen Kirchen im Frühmittelalter, Tübingen 1917, pp. 299–312; A. Hauck, Kirchengesch. Deutschlands, I, Leipzig 1922, pp. 402–523; E. G. Schwind, Gesch. d. Papsttums, I, Tübingen 1933, pp. 695–723; G. Schnürer, Kirche u. Kultur im Mittelalter, 3rd ed., I, Paderborn 1936, pp. 285–315. — On particular points in the biography: H. Hahn, B. V. Lul., Leipzig 1883; W. Köhler, B. in Heusen, in Zeitschr. f. Kirchengeschichte, 25 (1904), pp. 197 ff.; H. Lau, Die angelsächsische Missionsweise im Zeitalter d. B., Kiel 1909; id., Bonifaz u. die Sachsenmission, in Zeitschr. f. Missionswiss., 6 (1916), pp. 273–86; H. Böhmer, Zur Gesch. d. B., in Zeitschr. f. hessische Gesch., 18 (1917), pp. 71–215; F. Flaskamp, Die Anfänge friesischen u. sächsischen Christentums, Hildesheim 1929; id., Das hessische Missionswerk d. hl. B., in Missionsgesch. d. deutschen Stämme u. Landschaften, Duderstadt 1926. — Among recent biographies of B. we cite those by F. J. V.
IEBUSEI, Scherer, Graz 1880; G. Schnürer, Mainz 1909; G. F. Brown, London 1910; G. Kurth, 4th ed., Paris 1913 (Italian trans. of the 3rd French ed., Rome 1905); J. J. Laux, Freiburg in Br. 1922.
