BONIFACE, Saint, the apostle of Ger many, who first preached Christianity: b. Cred iton, England, 680; d. Dokkum, West Friesland, 5 June 755. His original name was Winfrid. In the cloister school at what is now Exeter he received his first lessons in secular and religious training, and at the age of 18 he entered the Benedictine monastery in South hamptonshire and shortly after received the habit of Saint Benedict. In his 30th year he was consecrated a priest. A great part of Europe at this period was inhabited by heathen peoples, and several missionaries set out from England and Ireland to convert them. Among these was Boniface, who in 718 went to Rome, where Gregory II authorized him to preach the gospel to the nations of Germany. He commenced his labors at Thuringia and Ba varia, passed three years in Friesland and jour neyed through Hesse in Saxony, baptizing everywhere and converting the pagan temples to Christian churches. In 723 he was invited to Rome, made a bishop by Gregory II and recommended to Charles Martel and all princes and bishops. His name Winfrid he changed to Boniface. He destroyed the oak sacred to' Thor, near Geismar, in Hesse; founded churches and monasteries; invited from Eng land monks and nuns, and sent them to Saxony, Friesland and Bavaria. In 732 Greg
ory III made him archbishop and primate of all Germany and authorized him to establish bishoprics, the only existing bishopric being the one at Posen. He founded those of Freising, Ratisbon, Erfurt, Baraburg (transferred after ward to Paderborn), Wartburg and Eichstadt. In 739 he restored the episcopal see of Saint Rupert at Salzburg. After the death of Charles Martel he consecrated Pepin the Short, King of the Franks, in Soissons, by whom he was named archbishop of Mainz. He held eight ecclesiastical councils in Germany, founded the famous abbey of Fulda and undertook, in 754, new journeys for the conversion of the infi dels. In Fulda a copy of the gospels, in his own handwriting, is to be seen, and there is a statue to him also. At the place where Boni face built, in 724, the first Christian church in North Germany, near the village of Altenburg, in the Thuringian forest, a monument has been erected to his memory. The most complete collection of the letters of Boniface was pub lished at Manz 1789, folio; and of his entire works, 2 volumes, Oxford 1845. Consult by Pahler (1879), Werner (1875), Ebrard (1882).