BOOK IV.

FROM THE ELECTION OF GREGORY THE GREAT TO THE DEATH OF CHARLEMAGNE,

A.D. 590-814

 

CHAPTER V.

SAINT BONIFACE A.D. 715-755.

 

Among the missionary enterprises of the Anglo-Saxons had been some attempts to convert the nations of Northern Germany. Suidbert, one of the original companions of Willibrord, was consecrated in England during his master’s first visit to Rome, and went forth to preach to the Boructuarians, who occupied a territory between the Ems and the Yssel; but the disorders of the country obliged him to withdraw from it, and he afterwards laboured on the lower Rhine. Two brothers named Hewald, and distinguished from each other by the epithets White and Black, are also celebrated as having penetrated into the country of the Old Saxons, and having there ended their lives by martyrdom. But no great or lasting missionary success had been achieved to the east of the Rhine in the lower part of its course until the time of Boniface.

This missionary, whose original name was Winfrid, was born at Crediton, in Devonshire, of a noble and wealthy family, about the year 680. It was intended that he should follow a secular career; but the boy was early influenced by the discourse of some monks who visited his father's house, and at the age of seven he entered a monastery at Exeter, from which he afterwards removed to that of Nutscelle (Nutshalling or Nursling) in Hampshire. Here he became famous for his ability as a preacher and as an expositor of Scripture. He was employed in important ecclesiastical business, and had the prospect of rising to eminence in the church of his own country; but he was seized with an earnest desire to labour for the extension of the gospel, and, with two companions, he crossed the sea to Frisia, in the year 716. The state of things in that country was unfavourable for his design. Charles, who in later ages was called Martel, the son of Pipin of Heristal by a concubine, had possessed himself of the mayoralty of the palace in Austrasia, and was now engaged in war with Radbod of Frisia, who had made an alliance with Ragenfrid, the mayor of the Neustrian palace. The pagan prince had destroyed many churches and monasteries, and, although he admitted Boniface to an interview, he refused him permission to preach in his dominions. Boniface therefore returned to Nutscelle, where the monks, on the occurrence of a vacancy in the headship of their house, were desirous to elect him abbot. But his missionary zeal induced him to withstand their importunities; and, having secured the appointment of another abbot, through the assistance of his bishop, Daniel of Winchester, he set out for Rome in the spring of 717. A letter from Daniel procured him a kind reception from Gregory II, who held many conferences with him during the following winter; and in 718 Boniface left Rome, carrying with him a large supply of relics, with a commission by which the pope authorized him to preach to the heathens of Germany wherever he might find an opportunity. After having surveyed Bavaria and Thuringia, he was induced by tidings of Radbod's death to go again into Frisia, where for three years he laboured under Willibrord. The aged bishop wished to appoint him his successor; but Boniface declined the honour, on the ground that, as he was not yet fifty years old, he was unfit for so high an office, and that he must betake himself to the sphere for which the pope had especially appointed him. He therefore took leave of Willibrord, and passed into Hessia. Two local chiefs, Detdic and Dierolf, who, although professing Christianity, were worshippers of idols, granted him leave to establish himself at Amanaburg, on the Ohm (Amana), where in a short time he reclaimed them from their heathenish practices, and baptized many thousands of Hessians. On receiving a report of this success, Gregory summoned Boniface to Rome, and, after having exacted a formal profession of faith, ordained him as a regionary bishop, at the same time binding him to the papal see by an oath, which was a novelty as imposed on a missionary, although, with some necessary changes, it was the same which had long been required of bishops within the proper patriarchate of Rome. Standing at the tomb of St. Peter, to whom the oath was addressed, Boniface solemnly pledged himself to obey the apostle, and the pope as his vicar; in no wise to consent to anything against the unity of the catholic church; in all things to keep his faith to the apostle, and to the interests of the Roman see; to have no communion or fellowship with bishops who might act contrary to the institutions of the holy fathers; but to check such persons, if possible, or otherwise to report them faithfully to his lord the pope.

The bishop received from the pope a code of regulations for the government of his church (probably the collection of Dionysius Exiguus); and, having learnt by experience the importance of securing the countenance of princes for missionary undertakings, he carried with him a recommendation from Gregory to Charles Martel, who, under the name of the effete descendants of Clovis, was the virtual sovereign of their kingdom. He was also furnished by the pope with letters to the nations among which his labours were to be employed. Charles Martel received the missionary coldly; such enterprises as that of Boniface had no interest for the rude warrior, nor were the clergy of his court likely to bespeak his favour for one whose life and thoughts differed widely from their own. Boniface, however, obtained from Charles the permission which he desired, to preach beyond the Rhine, with a letter of protection which proved to be very valuable

In Hessia and Thuringia, the countries to which he now repaired, Christianity had already been long preached, but by isolated teachers, and without any regular system. The belief and the practice of the converts were still largely mixed with paganism; Boniface even speaks of presbyters who offered sacrifices to the heathen gods. The preachers had for the most part proceeded from the Irish church, in which diocesan episcopacy was as yet unknown, and the jurisdiction was separate from the order of a bishop; they had brought with them its peculiar ideas as to the limitation of the episcopal rights; they were unrestrained by any discipline or by any regard for unity; they owned no subjection to Rome, and were under no episcopal authority. Boniface often complains of these preachers as fornicators and adulterers—words which may in some cases imply a charge of real immorality, but which in general mean nothing more than that the Irish missionaries held the doctrine of their native church as to the lawfulness of marriage for the clergy. He speaks, too, of some who imposed on the people by pretensions to extraordinary asceticism—feeding on milk and honey only, and rejecting even bread. With these rival teachers he was involved in serious and lasting contentions.

Among the collection of Boniface’s correspondence is a letter from his old patron, Daniel of Winchester, containing advice for the conduct of his missionary work. The bishop tells him that, in discussions with the heathen, he ought not to question the genealogies of their gods, but to argue from them that beings propagated after the fashion of mankind must not be gods but men. The argument is to be urged by tracing back the genealogies to the beginning; by asking such questions as— “When was the first god generated? To which sex did this god belong? Has the generation of gods come to an end? If it has ceased, why? Is the world older than the gods? If so, who governed it before they existed?”. The missionary must argue mildly, and must avoid all appearance of insult or offence. He must contrast the truth of Christianity with the absurdities of the pagan mythology. He must ask how it is that the gods allow Christians to possess the fairest places of the earth, while their own votaries are confined to cold and barren tracts; he is to dwell on the growth of the Christian church from nothing to the predominance which it has already attained.

It would seem, however, that Boniface rarely had occasion to enter into arguments of this sort, but was obliged to rely on others of a more palpable kind. He found that an oak near Geismar, sacred to the thunder-god Donar, was held in great reverence by the Hessians, and that the impression which his words made on the people was checked by their attachment to this object of ancestral veneration. He therefore, at the suggestion of some converts, resolved to cut down the tree. A multitude of pagans assembled and stood around, uttering fierce curses, and expecting the vengeance of the gods to show itself on the missionary and his companions. But when Boniface had hardly begun his operations, a violent gust of wind shook the branches, and the oak fell to the ground, broken into four equal pieces. The pagans at once renounced their gods, and with the wood of the tree Boniface built a chapel in honour of St. Peter.

After this triumph the success of his preaching was rapid. He founded churches and monasteries, and was reinforced by many monks and nuns from his own country, who assisted him in the labours of conversion and Christian education. Gregory III, soon after being raised to the popedom, in 732, conferred on him the pall of an archbishop; and when in 738 Boniface paid a third visit to Rome, he was received with the honour due to a missionary who had by that time baptized a hundred thousand converts. On his return northwards, he was induced by Odilo, duke of Bavaria, to remain for a time in that country, where he had already laboured about three years before. He found there a general profession of Christianity; but there was only one bishop, Vivilus by name; there was no system of ecclesiastical government; and, as in other parts of Germany, he had to contend with the rivalry of the irregular missionaries from Ireland. Boniface divided the country into four dioceses—Salzburg, Passau (which was assigned to Vivilus), Ratisbon, and Freising; and, having thus organized the Bavarian church, he returned to the more especial scene of his labours.

The name of Charles Martel is memorable in the history of the church and of the world for having turned back the course of Mahometan conquest. The Saracens of Spain had overrun the south of France, had made their way as far as the Loire, and were marching against Tours, with the intention of plundering the treasures which the devotion of centuries had accumulated around the shrine of St. Martin, when they were met by Charles, at the head of an army collected from many races—Franks, Germans, Gauls, men of the north, and others. His victory near Poitiers (although the slaughter has been greatly exaggerated by legendary writers) put a stop for ever to the progress of their arms towards the north; and while they were further weakened by internal dissensions, Charles, following up his advantage, succeeded in driving them back beyond the Pyrenees. But the vast benefit which he thus conferred on Christendom was purchased at a cost which for the time pressed heavily on the church of France. In order to meet the exigencies of the war, he seized the treasures of churches, and rewarded the chiefs who followed him with the temporalities of bishoprics and abbeys; so that, notwithstanding his great services to the Christian cause, his memory is branded by the French ecclesiastical writers as that of a profane and sacrilegious prince, and a synod held at Quiercy, in the year 858, assured one of his descendants that for this sin Eucherius, bishop of Orleans, had seen him tormented “in the lower hell”.

Boniface, although he found the name of the Frankish mayor a powerful assistance in his labours beyond the Rhine, was thwarted at the Frankish court by the nobles who had got possession of ecclesiastical revenues, and by the rude, secular, fighting and hunting bishops, who were most congenial to the character of Charles. In a letter to Daniel of Winchester, he complains of being obliged to have intercourse with such persons. The bishop in reply wisely advises him, on scriptural authority, to keep himself pure, and to bear with such faults in others as it may not be in his power to amend.

Both Gregory III and Charles Martel died in 741. The new pope, Zacharias, extended Boniface’s power by authorizing him to reform the whole Frankish church. The sons of Charles were glad to avail themselves of the assistance of Rome in a work of which they felt the necessity; and from Carloman, who had succeeded to the mayoralty of Austrasia, while Pipin held that of Neustria, Boniface received an amount of support which he had hitherto in vain endeavoured to obtain. He now erected four bishoprics for Hesse and Thuringia; and in 742, at the request of Carloman (as he says), was held a council for the reformation of the church—the first Austrasian council which had met for eighty years. This council was for some years followed by others, collected from one or from both divisions of the Frankish territory. They were not, however, composed of ecclesiastics only, but were mixed assemblies of the national estates; and, while Boniface was acknowledged in his high office as the pope's commissioner, the decrees were set forth by the Frankish princes in their own name, and appointments which had been already made by the papal authority were again made, afresh and independently, by the secular power. Even the jurisdiction of Boniface over other bishops was thus granted anew to him. The canons of these assemblies were directed towards the establishment of order in the church, by providing for annual synods, by forbidding ecclesiastics to hunt, to hawk, to serve in war; by the enforcement of celibacy on the clergy; by subjecting the clergy to the bishops and discountenancing such as were under no regular discipline. An attempt was made to recover to their proper uses the ecclesiastical revenues which had been alienated by Charles Martel. The first council ordered their restoration, but this was not to be so easily effected. The council of the following year was reduced to attempt a compromise, by allowing that, in consideration of the wars and of other circumstances, the property should for a time be retained by the lay holders, but that for each casata a solidus should be paid to the ecclesiastical owners. But in the later councils the subject does not appear, and it would seem that the attempt was given up as hopeless. The councils also made enactments for the suppression of heathen practices, such as divination, the use of amulets, need-fire (i.e. the production of fire by the friction of wood and tow), and the offering of sacrifices, whether to the old pagan deities, or to the saints who with some converts had taken their place—practices of which some, with a remarkable tenacity, have kept their hold on the northern nations even to our own day.

In 742 Boniface laid the foundation of the great abbey of Fulda, through the agency of Sturmi, a noble Bavarian, whom he had trained up in his seminary at Fritzlar. The original intention was unconnected with educational or missionary plans—to provide a place for ascetic retirement. Sturmi and his companions were charged to seek out a remote and lonely position in the Buchonian forest, between the four nations to which their master had preached; and when they had chosen a suitable spot, on the banks of the river Fulda, they had to clear it by cutting down trees, which furnished them with materials for a little chapel. Sturmi was afterwards sent to Monte Cassino and other Italian monasteries, in order that he might become acquainted with the best monastic systems, and the rule established at Fulda was more rigid than that of St. Benedict. The monks were never to eat flesh; their strongest drink was to be a thin beer, although wine was afterwards allowed for the sick. They were to have no serfs, but were to subsist by the labour of their own hands. The new foundation soon became important, and was extended to purposes beyond those which Boniface had had in view. Princes and nobles enriched it with gifts of land, and both from the Frankish kings and from the popes it enjoyed special privileges; although grave doubts have been cast on the documents by which some of these are said to have been conferred, and especially on the grant by which Zacharias is represented as exempting it from all jurisdiction save that of the apostolic see.

Boniface continued to meet with difficulties. His scheme of a regular organization, by which bishops were to be subject to metropolitans, and these to the successor of St. Peter, did not find favour with the Frankish prelates. Of three on whom the pope intended to confer the pall, and who had been persuaded to apply for it, two afterwards refused it, probably in consequence of having further considered the obligations to Rome which it involved. And he still had to encounter the opposition of irregular or heretical teachers, whom he describes as far more numerous than those of the catholic communion, and as stained in many cases with the most infamous vices.

Of these opponents the most noted were Adelbert and Clement. Adelbert was of Gaulish descent, and had obtained uncanonical consecration as a bishop from some ignorant members of the order. He is described as affecting extraordinary sanctity, and the accounts of him lead us to suppose him a person of fanatical character. He relied much on a letter which was written in the name of the Saviour and was said to have been sent down from heaven. He said that an angel had brought him some relics of surpassing sanctity from the ends of the earth. In opposition to the regular bishops and clergy, he held meetings in fields and at wells; and in such places he set up crosses and built little oratories. He opposed the practice of pilgrimage to Rome. He prayed to angels of names before unknown, such as Tubuel, Sabuoc, and Simiel. He is said to have disparaged the saints and martyrs, refusing to dedicate churches in their honour, while, with a self-importance which, however inconsistent, is certainly not without parallels, he dedicated them in his own name instead. A life of him, filled with tales of visions and miracles, was circulated; and—whether from vanity or in order to ridicule the relics which Boniface had brought from Rome—he distributed the parings of his own nails and hair among his admirers. These, it is said, spoke of his merits as something on which they might rely for aid ; and, when they prostrated themselves at his feet, for the purpose of confessing their sins, he told them that it was needless—that he knew all things and had forgiven ail their misdeeds, so that they might go home in peace, with the assurance of pardon.

While Adelbert gathered his sect in Austrasia, Clement was preaching in the German territory. Of this person, who was a Scot from Ireland, we are told that he set at nought all canons and all ecclesiastical authority; that he despised the writings of the most esteemed fathers, such as Jerome, Augustine, and Gregory; that he had two sons born in “adultery” (i.e. in wedlock), and yet considered himself to be a true Christian bishop; that he judaically held marriage with a brother’s widow to be lawful; that he believed our Lord’s descent into hell to have delivered the souls of unbelievers as well as believers; and that on the subject of predestination he held horrible opinions contrary to the catholic faith.

Boniface brought the case of Adelbert before a Neustrian council at Soissons in 744, and obtained a condemnation of the heretic, with an order that the crosses which he had erected should be burnt. But in the following year Adelbert as well as Clement appear to have been in full activity. Boniface procured a censure of both from another council, and reported the matter for investigation to pope Zacharias, whom he requested to obtain from Carloman an order that they should be imprisoned and debarred from communication with all faithful Christians. In consequence of this application, the documents of the case were examined by a Roman synod, which sentenced Adelbert to be deposed, put to penance, and, in case of obstinacy, anathematized with all his followers; while Clement was to be forthwith subjected to deposition and anathema. Two years later, however, the two again appear; it would seem that, besides enjoying a great amount of veneration with the common people, who had persecuted Boniface for his proceedings against Adelbert, they even had some influence over Carloman himself; and it was probably in consequence of this that Zacharias now advised a course of dealing with them which is hardly consistent with the decided condemnation before passed on them. The further history of Clement is utterly unknown; as to Adelbert it is stated by a writer of questionable authority that he was imprisoned at Fulda, and made his escape from the abbey, but was murdered by some swineherds whom he met with in his flight.

Another person with whom Boniface came into collision was an Irish ecclesiastic named Virgil. Virgil, when ordered by him to rebaptize some persons at whose baptism the words of administration had been mutilated by an ignorant priest, appealed to Rome against the order, and Zacharias pronounced that the sacrament was valid, inasmuch as the mistake did not proceed from heresy, but only from grammatical ignorance. Some time after this, Virgil was nominated to the see of Salzburg, when Boniface objected to him that he held the existence of another world below ours, with a sun, a moon, and inhabitants of its own. Zacharias condemned the opinion, and summoned Virgil to Rome, but it would seem that he was able to clear his orthodoxy, as he was allowed to take possession of Salzburg, and eventually attained the honour of canonization.

The German church had now advanced beyond that stage in which its primate might fitly be a missionary, without any determinate see. Boniface wished to fix himself at Cologne—probably with a view to Frisia, which, since the death of Willibrord, in 739, he had regarded as included within his legatine care; and to this he obtained the consent of the Frankish chiefs, and the sanction of Pope Zacharias. But before the arrangement could be carried into effect, events occurred which caused it to be set aside. In 744, the same year in which Cologne became vacant by the death of Raginfrid, Ceroid, bishop of Mentz (Mayence), was slain in a warlike expedition against the Saxons, and his son Gewillieb, who until then had been a layman of Carloman’s court, was consecrated to the see. In the following year the new bishop accompanied the mayor of the palace to war, with a resolution to avenge his father's death; he discovered the Saxon by whose hand it had been caused, and, while the Frankish and the Saxon armies were encamped on opposite banks of the Weser, invited him to a conference in the midst of the stream. The two rode into the water, and at their meeting, the bishop stabbed the Saxon—an act which was the signal for a battle, in which the Franks were victorious. Gewillieb returned to his see as if he had done nothing inconsistent with his episcopal character; nor does it appear that any disapprobation of it was felt by Carloman or his nobles. But Boniface, after having so lately exerted himself to procure the enactment of canons against clerical warriors, now felt himself bound to enforce them, and submitted the case of Gewillieb to a council, which declared the bishop guilty of blood. Gewillieb yielded, resigned his see, and spent the remainder of his life in the enjoyment of some lesser benefices; and Boniface was unwillingly obliged by the Frankish nobles to accept the bishopric thus vacated as the seat of his metropolitan jurisdiction, instead of that which he had himself chosen. The pope acquiesced in the change, and subjected to him, as archbishop of Mayence, the dioceses of Worms Spires, Tongres, Cologne, and Utrecht, with all the nations of Germany which had received the gospel through his labours.

In 747 Carloman resigned his power, and became a monk on Mount Soracte, from which, on finding himself disquieted by the visits of his countrymen, he afterwards withdrew to Monte Cassino. This change, by which the whole power of the Frankish kingdom was thrown into the hands of Pipin, would seem to have operated to the disadvantage of Boniface. It has been very generally believed that he officiated at the coronation of Pipin at Soissons, when the mayor of the palace at length assumed the name of king (A.D. 752); but the evidence of this is open to some doubt, and it has even been argued that, instead of promoting, he opposed the revolution which transferred the crown from the descendants of Clovis to another dynasty. The duties of his office began to weigh heavily on him. He had still to struggle against much opposition on the part of bishops and clergy, while his labours were greatly disturbed by the frequent incursions of pagans, by whom he reported to Pope Stephen in 752 that thirty churches in his diocese had been burnt or demolished. He had, with some difficulty, obtained permission from Rome to nominate a successor to the see of Mayence when he should feel the approach of death, and, with Pipin’s consent, he now raised to it his countryman and disciple Lull, who, however, had a much more limited authority than Boniface, and did not receive the pall until twenty years later.

It had been Boniface’s intention to spend his last days in his monastery of Fulda, but he felt himself once more attracted to Frisia, the scene of his early labours. He again set forth as a missionary bishop, descended the Rhine, and, having consecrated Eoban to the see of Utrecht, laboured with his assistance among the Frisian tribes. Many thousands were baptized, and Boniface had appointed the eve of Whitsunday for the meeting of a large number of converts at a place near Dockum, in order that he might bestow on them the rite of confirmation. But instead of the neophytes whom he expected, an armed band of pagans appeared and surrounded his tent. The younger members of his party were seizing weapons for defence, but he exhorted them to give up the thoughts of preserving the life of this world, and to submit to death in the hope of a better life. The pagans massacred the whole company —fifty-two in number. They carried off from the tent some chests which they supposed to be full of treasure, but which in reality contained books and relics; and it is said that, having drunk up a quantity of wine which they found, they were excited to quarrel about the division of the fancied spoil, and avenged the martyrs by almost exterminating each other. Eoban had shared the fate of Boniface, but their missionary labours were continued by Gregory, abbot of Utrecht, another disciple of the great missionary, and before the end of the century, the conversion of the Frisians was completed by Lebuin, Liudger, and others.

The body of Boniface was conveyed up the Rhine to Mayence (Mainz), and thence, in compliance with a wish which he had often expressed, was carried to the abbey of Fulda; and, although no miracles are related of him during his lifetime (unless the destruction of the oak of Geismar be reckoned as an exception), it is said that his remains were distinguished by profuse displays of miraculous power, both on the way to their resting-place and after they had been deposited there. His name for ages drew pilgrims and wealth to Fulda, and he was revered as the apostle of Germany—a title which he deserved, not as having been the first preacher of the gospel in the countries where he laboured, but as the chief agent in the establishment of Christianity among the Germans, as the organizer of the German church. The church of Saxon England, from which he proceeded, was immediately, and in a more particular manner than any other, a daughter of the Roman. Teutonic by language and kindred, Latin by principles and affection, it was peculiarly fitted to act in the conversion of the German nations and to impress its converts with a Roman character. And this was especially the work of Boniface. He went forth to his labours with the pope’s commission. On his consecration to the episcopate, after his first successes, he bound himself by oath to reduce all whom he might influence to the obedience of St. Peter and his representatives. The increased powers and the wider jurisdiction bestowed on him by later popes were employed to the same end. He strove continually, not only to bring heathens into the church, but to check irregular missionary operations, and to subject both preachers and converts to the authority of Rome. Through his agency the alliance naturally prompted by the mutual interest of the papacy and the Frankish princes was effected. And, whether he shared or not in the final step by which the papal sanction was used to consecrate the transference of the crown from the Merovingian to the Carolingian line, his exertions had undoubtedly paved the way for it. To him belongs in no small measure the authorship of that connexion with the northern rulers which encouraged the popes to disown the sovereignty of Constantinople; and, on the other hand, to him is to be traced the character of the German church in its submission to Rome from the time of the first council held under Carloman in 742.

But these facts afford no warrant for the charges brought against Boniface by writers of the last century. One who, after having passed his seventieth year, resigned the primacy of the Frankish church to set out as a simple missionary to the barbarous Frisians, with an expectation (as it would seem) of the violent death which he found, may safely be acquitted not only of personal ambition, but of having been a missionary of the papacy rather than of Christianity. His labours for the papacy were really performed because, trained as he had been under the influences communicated to his native church by Theodore and Wilfrid, he believed the authority of Rome to be the true means of spreading Christianity among the heathen, and of reviving it from decay in countries where it was already established. It may have been that in his zeal for unity he made too little allowance for the peculiar tempers and positions of men, or that he was sometimes guilty of injustice towards his opponents; nor can it be pretended that his opinions were in advance of the age in which he lived, whereas ingenious conjecture may ascribe to the sectaries Adelbert and Clement all the spiritual enlightenment of modern Heidelberg or Berlin. But let it be considered how little such men, however highly they may be estimated, could have effected in the circumstances with which Boniface had to deal; how powerless such teaching, the offspring of their personal discoveries or fancies, must have been for the great work of suppressing heathenism; how distracting to the heathen must have been the spectacle of rival and discordant types of Christianity; how necessary the operation of one uniform and organized system must have reasonably appeared to Boniface, whether for the extension of the gospel or for the reform of the church, for an effective opposition to the rudeness, the violence, the lawless passions with which he had on all sides to contend. That Boniface ever used force as an instrument of conversion there is no evidence whatever; his earnestness in the promotion of education proves how thoroughly he desired that understanding should accompany the profession of belief. And that the knowledge which he wished to spread by his educational instructions was to be drawn from the Scriptures, of which he was himself a diligent student, appears from the eagerness with which he endeavoured to obtain as many copies as possible of the sacred books for the instruction of his converts. His letters and other writings give us the impression, not only of a great missionary, but of a man abounding in human feelings and affections.

Strenuous as Boniface was in the cause of the papacy, his conception of it was far short of that which afterwards prevailed. He regarded the pope as the supreme ecclesiastical judge, the chief conservator of the canons, the highest member of a graduated hierarchy, superior to metropolitans, as metropolitans were to ordinary bishops, but yet not as belonging to a different order from other bishops, or as if their episcopacy were derived from him and were a function of his. Much has been said of the strange questions on which he sometimes requests the pope’s advice—as to the lawfulness of eating horseflesh, magpies, and storks; as to the time when bacon may be eaten without cooking, and the like. Such questions have been regarded as proofs of a wretched scrupulousness in themselves, and the reference of them to Rome has been branded as disgraceful servility. But—(besides that we are not in a condition to judge of the matter without a fuller knowledge of the circumstances)—it is easy to discover some grounds of justification against these charges. Thus the horse was a favourite victim of the gods among the northern nations, so that the eating of horseflesh was connected with the practice of heathen sacrifice. And the real explanation of such questions would seem to be, not that Boniface felt himself unable to answer them, or needed any direction from the pope, but that he was desirous to fortify himself with the aid of the highest authority in the church for his struggle against those remnants of barbaric manners which tended to keep up among his converts the remembrance of their ancient idolatry.

If Boniface’s zeal for Rome was strong, his concern for religion and morality was yet stronger. He remonstrated very boldly against some regulations as to marriage which were said to have the authority of Rome, but which to him appeared to him immoral; he denied that any power on earth could legalize them. He remonstrated also against the Roman view which regarded “spiritual affinity”—i.e., the connection formed by sponsorship at baptism—as a bar to marriage. He strongly represented to Zacharias the scandal of the heathenish rejoicings and banqueting which were allowed at Rome at the beginning of the year, and the manner in which persons who had visited Rome referred to these as a warrant for their own irregularities. He protested against the simoniacal appearance of the charges exacted for palls by the papal officials, whether with or without their master’s knowledge. And, as a counterpoise to all that is said of Boniface’s deference to popes, we must in fairness observe (although his assailants have not adverted to it) the tone of high consideration in which Zacharias answers him, and the earnestness with which the pope endeavours to vindicate himself from the suspicion of countenancing abuses—a remarkable testimony to the estimation in which the apostle of Germany was held. Nay, if an anonymous biographer may be believed, Boniface, towards the end of his life, protested against Stephen II for having, during his visit to France, consecrated a bishop of Metz—an act which the archbishop regarded as an invasion of the metropolitical privileges of Treves; and Pipin’s mediation was required to heal the difference between the pope and him whom many writers have represented as the abject slave of Rome.

The spirit of unfair disparagement, however, has now passed away; and both the church from which Boniface went forth and the nations among which he ministered may well combine to do honour to his memory.

 

 

CHAPTER VI.

PIPIN AND CHARLEMAGNE.

A.D. 741-814.