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He was of good family, and it was somewhat against his father's wishes that he devoted himself at an early age to the [[monastic]] life. He received his theological training in the [[Rule of St. Benedict|Benedictine]] monasteries of Adescancastre, near Exeter and Nursling between Winchester and Southampton, under the [[abbot]] Winbert, taught in the [[abbey]] school and at the age of thirty became a [[priest]]. He wrote the first Latin grammar produced in England.
In 716 he set out on a [[missionary ]] expedition to Frisia, intending to [[conversion|convert]] the Frisians by preaching to them in their own language, his own Anglo-Saxon language being similar to Frisian, but his efforts were frustrated by the war then being carried on between Charles Martel and Radbod, king of the Frisians. He returned to Nursling.
Winfrid again set out in 718, visited Rome, and was commissioned in 719 by [[Pope]] Gregory II, who gave him his new name of Boniface, to evangelize in Germany and reorganize the church there. For five years he laboured in Hesse, Thuringia and Frisia, and on [[November 30]], 722, he was elevated to [[bishop]] of the German territories which he would bring into the fold of the [[Church of Rome|Roman Church]].
In 723, Boniface felled the holy oak tree dedicated to Thor near the present-day town of Fritzlar in northern Hesse. He built a chapel from its wood at the site where today stands the [[cathedral]] of Fritzlar, and later established the first bishopric in Germany north of the old Roman Limes at the Frankish fortified settlement of Büraburg, on a prominent hill facing the town across the Eder river. The felling of Thor's Oak is commonly regarded as the beginning of German christianization. In 732, he traveled again to Rome to report, and Gregory II conferred upon him the [[pallium]] as [[archbishop]] with jurisdiction over Germany. Boniface again set out for Germany, [[baptism|baptized]] thousands and dealt with the problems of many other Christians who had fallen out of contact with the regular hierarchy of the Catholic church. During his third visit to Rome in 737/38 he was made papal legate for Germany. In 745, he was granted Mainz as [[metropolitan]] see.
After his third trip to Rome, Boniface went to Bavaria and founded there the bishoprics of Salzburg, Regensburg, Freising, and Passau. In 742, one of his disciples, Sturm (also known as Sturmi, or Sturmius), founded the abbey of Fulda not too far from Boniface's earlier [[missionary ]] outpost at Fritzlar. Although Sturm was the founding abbot of Fulda, Boniface was very involved in the foundation. The initial grant for the abbey was signed by Carloman, the son of Charles Martel.
The support of the Frankish Mayors of the Palace (maior domos) and later, the early Pippinid and Carolingian rulers, was important to Boniface's program of forcible conversion. The Christian Frankish leaders desired to defeat their rival power, the Heathen Saxons, and to take the Saxon lands for their growing empire. Boniface's destruction of the indigenous Germanic faith and holy sites was an important part of the Frankish campaign.
== Source ==
*[[Wikipedia:Saint Boniface|''Saint Boniface'' on Wikipedia]]
==See also==
*[[Missionary]]
== External Link ==
