BRUNO OF QUERFURT, SAINT (BONIFAcrus) 1009), German missionary bishop and martyr, belonged to the family of the counts of Querfurt in Saxony. He was educated at the famous cathedral school at Magdeburg, and at the age of 20 was attached to the clerical household of the emperor Otto III. In 997 he accompanied the emperor to Rome, but there entered the monastery of S. Alexius taking "in religion" the name of Bonifacius. When the news reached Rome of the martyrdom of Adalbert, bishop of Prague (997), Bruno determined to take his place, and in 1004, after being consecrated by the pope as arch bishop of the eastern heathen, he set out for Germany to seek aid of the emperor Henry II. The emperor, however, being at war with Boleslaus of Poland, opposed his enterprise, and he went first to the court of St. Stephen of Hungary, and, finding but slight encouragement there, to that of the grand prince Vladimir at Kiev. He was so successful in converting the pagan Pechenegs who inhabited the country between the Don and the Danube that they made peace with the grand prince and were for a while nom inally Christians. In 10o8 Bruno went again to the court of Boleslaus, and, after a vain effort to persuade the emperor to end the war between Germans and Poles, determined at all hazards to proceed with his mission to the Prussians. With 18 companions he set out ; but on the borders of the Russian (Lithuanian) country he and his company were massacred by the heathens (Feb. 14, 1009).
During his stay in Hungary (1004) Bruno wrote a life of St. Adalbert, the best of the three extant biographies of the saint (in Pertz, Mon. Germ. Hist. Scriptores, iv. pp. 577, 596-612).
A life of St. Bruno was written by Dietmar, bishop of Merseburg (976-1019) . This, with additions from the life of St. Romuald, is published in the Bollandist Acta Sanctorum (Feb. 14). See further U. Chevalier, Repertoire des sources historiques; D. H. Voigt, Brun von Querfurt (Stuttgart, 1907).