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The English Correspondence of St. Boniface
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General SummaryWYNFRITH, afterwards known as St. Boniface, was born about 680 in Devonshire, England. While still a young man, he became a Benedictine monk and taught grammar and theology in the monastery schools. A distinguished career in the English Church was opening to him, when the call came to leave friends and fatherland for the perilous work of a foreign missionary. St. Boniface visited Rome and received from Pope Gregory II a commission to evangelize Germany east of the Rhine. Supported by the pope and under the protection of the Frankish ruler, Charles Martel, St. Boniface began his self-appointed task. In Frisia, Hesse, Thuringia, and Bavaria he led a systematic crusade, baptizing the heathen, overturning idols, and founding monasteries. Many helpers, both monks and nuns, came to him from England to transplant in the German wilderness English piety and culture. St. Boniface has been called the proconsul of the Papacy. First as bishop, then as archbishop, he was able to organize in Germany a strong Church, which looked to Rome for direction and control. It was from this Church of Germany that the remaining Teutonic peoples, including the Saxons, Danes, and Northmen, and the Slavic peoples beyond the Elbe, received Roman Christianity.
Historical SummaryIn 718 St. Boniface set out from England to visit Italy and see the pope. His friend, Bishop Daniel of Winchester, provided him with a general letter of introduction.
Chapter XXVIII St. Boniface, the Apostle to the Germans1
145. Bishop Daniel’s Letter of Introduction1
To the pious and clement kings and to all princes, to the reverend and beloved bishops, to the holy abbots, the priests, and the spiritual children of Christ, Daniel, servant of the servants of God.
The commands of God must be observed by all the faithful with sincere devotion, and the Holy Scriptures show how great is the reward of hospitality and how acceptable it is to God to discharge kind offices to travelers. The holy Abraham, because of bountiful hospitality, deserved to receive the blessed angels and to enjoy converse with them. Even so Lot, through the same discharge of pious offices, was snatched from the flames of Sodom; he was obedient to the commands of Heaven, and the grace of hospitality saved him from doom in the flames. So it will avail to your eternal salvation if you show to the holy priest and servant of the Omnipotent God, Wynfrith, who bears this letter, the love which God himself prizes and enjoins. Receiving the servants of God, you receive Him, for He has promised, "He that receiveth you receiveth Me."2 Doing this with heartfelt devotion you fulfill the bidding of God, and trusting to the divine promise you will have eternal reward with Him.
1 , translated by Edward Kylie. London, 1911. Chatto and Windus.
1 Boniface, Epistoœ, No. 3.
2Matthew, x, 40.
Chicago: Edward Kylie, trans., The English Correspondence of St. Boniface in Readings in Early European History, ed. Webster, Hutton (Boston: Ginn and Company, 1926), 309. Original Sources, accessed April 19, 2024, http://www.originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=KB8F3PH1RSX5HUQ.
MLA: . The English Correspondence of St. Boniface, translted by Edward Kylie, in Readings in Early European History, edited by Webster, Hutton, Boston, Ginn and Company, 1926, page 309. Original Sources. 19 Apr. 2024. http://www.originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=KB8F3PH1RSX5HUQ.
Harvard: (trans.), The English Correspondence of St. Boniface. cited in 1926, Readings in Early European History, ed. , Ginn and Company, Boston, pp.309. Original Sources, retrieved 19 April 2024, from http://www.originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=KB8F3PH1RSX5HUQ.
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