678-695] Willibrord 535 younger tribes and growing states. This is the reason why in the eighth century English missionaries take the place of the earlier Kelts. And the field of labour seemed already fixed for them: they had not forgotten the land from which they had come. Wilfrid landed in Frisia (678) on his way to Rome-in order to avoid the enmity of Ebroin, mayor of the palace and stayed there a winter because of the friendly welcome by Adelgis the king (who refused to sell his guest) and his people. This was only an episode. Ecgbert, a Northumbrian who was afterwards to go to Iona, who had lived long in Ireland and pledged himself to pilgrimage, was hindered by visions and by storms from a long desired journey to Frisia: in his place he sent a pupil Wicbert who only stayed two years and then went home again. This failure only caused Ecgbert to send another mission of twelve monks. The leader of it, Willibrord, was a Northumbrian whose father Wilgils in old age became a hermit at the Humber's mouth. He had been educated up to the age of twenty at Ripon - Wilfrid's old monastic home and afterwards in Ireland (c. 678). He landed and went to Utrecht, now held by Radbod the Frisian king, who must have regained territory, for Utrecht had formerly been a Frankish town. But Frisia beyond it was lost to the Franks as the result of a war which was just ended and had naturally left ill-will behind it. The defeated Radbod was little likely to favour the faith of his Frankish enemies, and Willibrord saw a chance of securer work under Frankish protection. He therefore journeyed to Pepin, who promised him help for a work which was of interest to both of them. Willibrord shared the enthusiasm of Wilfrid and Boniface for Rome and indeed others, the Irish Adamnan and Ecgbert for instance, were turning towards Rome and unity. Accordingly Willibrord went to Rome to get consent for his mission, thus beginning the policy which Winfrid afterwards carried out on a larger scale. Success soon made organisation desirable: the monks elected one Suidbert as their future bishop and he passed across to England to be consecrated there by Wilfrid. But after his return difficulties seem to have arisen and the new bishop left Frisia in order to preach to the Bructeri: a little later we find Pepin, like the earlier kings, taking the organisation into his own hands and sending Willibrord to Rome for consecration (22 Nov. 695) as archbishop of a province to include both Frankish and independent Frisia. Willibrord, who at his consecration took the name of Clement, received the pall at Rome, and from Pepin as his seat Utrecht, where he built a cathedral and a monastery. A native church began, and soon he felt able to devote himself to the Frisians in Radbod's territory since Radbod himself was now friendly to the Franks, and his daughter Theutsind had married Pepin's son Grimoald. But here Willibrord's success was small: Radbod was indifferent although not hostile and Willibrord 536 Winfrid [714-719 went on further to preach to the Danes. Their country too he left and on his return to Frisia landed on the coast: by venturing to baptise some converts in a holy well he awoke the anger of the heathen and they sought to have him put to death by Radbod. The king however spared his life, but as the hopes of any work among the free Frisians now seemed hopeless he went back to Utrecht. After Pepin's death (16 Dec. 714) the quarrel between his sons enabled Radbod to regain the part of Frisia held by the Franks. The church had gained no real hold among the natives: Willibrord had left, the priests were put to flight, and the land once more under the sway of a heathen king became heathen too. It was now that Winfrid came. Winfrid was born near Crediton (c. 680) of a noble English family: after education first in a monastery at Exeter and then at Nutshall (Nutsall, Netley, or Nursling?) he was ordained, and employed in important affairs. But above the claims of learning and the chance of a great career at home he felt the missionary's call to the wild. From London he sailed to Frisia (716): here he stayed for part of a year until on the outbreak of a Frankish war he went back to his WestSaxon monastery. On the death of his old master Winbert the monks wished to make him abbot, but his future work lay plain before him and he refused. He sought letters of commendation from Daniel, bishop of Winchester - a man of much learning and experience to whom Bede owed much information — and with these (718) he went abroad again. But this time passing through Frankland he went to Rome, to visit the threshold of the Apostles. Here he saw Gregory II, and from him he received as "Bonifatius' the religious priest"— the name by which he was henceforth known — a letter of commendation (15 May 719). The journey was a common one for an Englishman of the day, but Boniface with his strong wish for missionary work reached Rome when the Papacy was turning towards plans of organisation. Furthermore between him and the Pope a friendship and even a fellowship began. Taking this new line of organisation under papal guidance Boniface went to Thuringia, where the natives, in new seats, and pressed upon by Franks and Saxons, had partly received and then soon lost Christianity. To win back their leaders was Boniface's new task: the land was disordered in politics and religion alike: heathenism was found side by side with Christianity of strange types. From Thuringia Boniface started for the Frankish court, but on the way he heard of Radbod's death, which might make Frisia a more fruitful field. Already Willibrord, working like Boniface himself under papal sanction, had been consecrated Archbishop of Utrecht, and to his help Boniface now went. When after a three years' stay Willibrord would have had him as For the name see Loofs, Der Beiname des Apostels der Deutschen, Z.K.G. (1882), pp. 623–31, and Hauck, K.G.D. 1. p. 458 n. 1. 722] Boniface 537 coadjutor he pleaded the papal command: he sought leave to depart and passed to Hesse. This was ground more unworked than Thuringia, for the people had kept their older seats and with them their old customs, but it might link Saxony to the Frankish Church. So great was his success - thousands being baptised- that he could soon think of organising a bishopric. He sent a report to Rome and in reply was called thither himself. On his way he probably met1 Charles Martel, and at Rome he was consecrated (St Andrew's day, 722 or less probably 723). At his consecration he took an oath much like that taken by the suburbicarian bishops, and thus pledged himself to work as a bishop under papal direction. But by a significant change the promise of fidelity to the Eastern Emperor was left out and its place taken by a promise to hold no intercourse with bishops who disobeyed the canons, to work against them and to denounce them to the Pope. The new bishop received letters of commendation to all who could help his work in Germany and especially to Charles Martel. Henceforth Boniface could depend even more than before upon papal direction, help, and sympathy we find him, like St Augustine of Canterbury, sending difficulties to Rome for decision. As he was to build up a church which was suffering from Keltic disorder and Frankish negligence, a collection of canons was a natural papal gift to him. Boniface now begins a new stage of his work, no longer as a mere missionary pioneer but rather as a missionary statesman in the service of Rome. For his new plans and his new office state support was needed. Backed by a letter from Charles Martel, Boniface went to Hesse to weld together the scattered links of his earlier work. Some twenty years later he wrote to Daniel of Winchester: "Without the patronage of the Prince of the Franks I am able neither to rule the people of the church nor to defend the priests or deacons, the monks or nuns and I am not powerful enough to hinder the very rites of the pagans and the sacrileges of idols in Germany without his order and the dread of him." The boldness he shewed in felling the sacred oak at Geismar led the heathen to think their gods had lost their power, and from these successes in Hesse Boniface passed to Thuringia. In each district he founded schools of learning and of training for his converts: Amanaburg and Fritzlar in Hesse, Ohrdruff in Thuringia: for women, Tauberbischofsheim, Kitzingen, and Ochsenfurt, three foundations near the Main. These were founded before his organisation of Bavaria, and his favourite house Fulda was specially planned to foster Christian civilisation and to be a monastic model. This side of Boniface's work is sometimes overlooked in comparison with his ordering of dioceses, but 1 Hauck, 1. pp. 463 n. 3 and 464 n. 1. 2 Ep. 63, p. 329 (Dümmler). The omission of defendere in one MS. would make the passage even more emphatic as to the need of state support (as suggested by Browne, Boniface of Crediton, p. 62). 538 Organisation of Sees [731-741 the two were really complementary: on the monastic side he entered into the heritage of the Keltic monks to whom, when there was no question of disorder or irregularity, he was by no means an enemy. At Fulda Sturm, a Bavarian of his own training, ruled: there and elsewhere helpers from England, some of them bound to Boniface by ties of blood, and all by kinship in devotion, made new homes for themselves: Burchard, Lul, Denehard, Willibald, Wicbert among the men: Lioba and Walpurgis among the women. With England a lively interchange of letters was kept up: some of his English friends came out to him as they gradually lost their kinsfolk by death, and others came because of their love for him. But in either case they helped to strengthen associations which were of political as well as religious power. Boniface himself was strong enough to award praise and blame to English kings; he himself, his comrades, and his work gave England some hold upon continental life. On the death of Gregory II (11 Feb. 731) Gregory III succeeded, a true successor in his care for Germany. When Boniface declared to him that the burden of his growing work was becoming too heavy, the papal answer was (732) to make him Archbishop, although with no defined province, so that he could the better call fellow-labourers to his help. In the few following years we must probably place much of Boniface's work in furthering his foundations, and some of his letters of the time shew him turned to reading and study of questions raised by his pastoral work. But about 735 we find him in Bavaria where once before the duke Theodo and Gregory II had thought of a church organisation in the interests both of church and duchy. Hucbert was now duke under stricter Frankish suzerainty: little had hitherto been done and Passau was the only see. In Bavaria Boniface now travelled and taught. But his third visit to Rome (probably 738), caused possibly by his wish to take up once more his old plans for Frisia, now that the field of Germany was under cultivation, brought a year's break and rest. This time Boniface was a great figure both with the Romans and the pilgrims, so greatly had his renown been spread. In Bavaria after Hucbert's death (probably 736) Odilo was placed as duke, a ruler of a different type, less ready to submit to Frankish direction and a generous patron of the Church. To Bavaria Boniface went (739), and now he takes a new position, that of legate of Rome: his appearance as legate1 was followed by the meeting of a Synod and a division of the duchy into four dioceses: Passau (where Vibilo who had been consecrated at Rome remained), Regensburg, Salzburg, and Freising. A little later (741) we find Boniface similarly founding another group of three dioceses for Hesse and Thuringia: Büraburg, near Fritzlar, for Hesse, Würzburg for southern and Erfurt for northern The change is strongly marked in the letters about Bavaria: see Epp. 43, 44, and 45 (Dümmler): nostram agentem vicem, says the Pope of Boniface. 741-742] Pope Zacharias 539 Thuringia. Zacharias who had now (3 Dec. 741) succeeded Gregory III confirmed this division, although like his predecessor advising caution against erecting too may sees and so lowering the episcopal standard. But Boniface's personal inspiration found him able helpers: at Büraburg an Englishman, Witta, was placed, and at Würzburg another, Burchard, entered upon the heritage of the Keltic Kilian. The protection of Charles Martel, even if not too eager, had been of great use his death (22 Oct. 741) brought about a change in Boniface's work: henceforth it was to be for the whole of eastern Frankish territory. Carloman invited Boniface to come and hold a Synod in Austrasia: in this way discipline, which had been trampled under foot for some sixty years, could be restored. Boniface was here faced by conditions such as he had known in Bavaria. His work in Hesse had already brought to him opposition from Frankish bishops. But among the Franks church law was widely disregarded and Boniface found it hard, as he told Daniel of Winchester, to keep the oath he had sworn to the Pope. If he was to refrain altogether from intercourse with offending bishops his work would be impossible. There was no weakening of his allegiance to the Pope, but a new element, the Frankish State, was now coming more fully into his life and his plans. The most striking feature in Boniface's career is the way in which while never waiting for circumstances he was quick to seize each circumstance and use it to the utmost good. He never lost sight of any work he had ever planned and begun if he turned aside for some pressing need he wove that special work into his general plan, and with each new field his outlook broadened. The new pope Zacharias was a Greek from Calabria, a man of mildness and yet of diplomatic skill: his tone towards Boniface was somewhat more commanding than that used by previous popes, and the explanation may be found in his policy towards the Franks, against whom he for a time played off the Bavarians and Lombards. Odilo of Bavaria had probably encouraged Girfo in his revolt against Carloman and Pepin, and afterwards he began a movement for independence. A papal envoy is said to have ordered a Frankish army to leave his land,1 but this did not hinder the defeat of the Bavarian duke. The Nordgau was separated from his duchy and joined to Austrasia. Neuburg on the Danube became possibly through some adaptation of Odilo's plans - a new bishopric and remained so for some two generations. Eichstädt, where a monastery had already been founded, was made the seat of another bishopric for a population of mixed descent. The projected Council for Austrasia met in a place unknown (21 April 742),2 and began the work of reorganisation. Bishops were to 1 See Hodgkin, Italy and her Invaders, VII. pp. 100 f. and Hauck, K.G.D. 1. p. 533. 2 The date is disputed. Early in 742 seems most likely. See Hauck, K.G.D. I. pp. 518 n. 5 and 520 n. 3; contra Loofs who dates it 743. |