St. Boniface

About 675 CE in Wessex, England, a boy named Wynfrid was born to a noble family. Educated in the Benedictine abbeys of Exeter and Nursling, he chose life as. Benedictine, becoming ordained at the age of about 30.

He traveled to Frisia, attempting to convert the Saxons there, with little success. Returning to England, he discovered that he had been chosen to replace the recently deceased abbot, but he preferred to continue his efforts to evangelize pagans.

On a trip to Rome in 718, he met with Pope Gregory II, who gave him the Name "Bonifatius" meaning "good fate" or "auspicious." Gregory made him a bishop, but instead of granting him a diocese sent him to Germania—where the spent the rest of his life, attempting to convert the area. His job was made more difficult by the war currently being fought between Charles Martel and the Frisian king, Radbod. (Radbod died in 719, but Frisia continued to oppose the Franks, right up through the Massacre of Verden in 782.

Fortunately for Boniface, Charles Martel supported his mission, as did succeeding Carolingian rulers. Boniface's goal of destroying as many pagan symbols as he could probably dovetailed with the Frankish goal to subjugate the Saxons and see them ruled by Frankish culture.

A second trip to Rome in 732 saw him receive the pallium as archbishop from Pope Gregory III. That same year, Charles Martel defeated the Umayyad Caliphate at the battle of Tours, after which he rewarded many churches and monasteries with lands. This act, unfortunately, led to church officials benefitting materially, a practice which Boniface deplored. Martel, however, did establish four dioceses in Bavaria with Boniface as their archbishop.

Boniface had one of his disciples found a monastery at Fulda, where Boniface was interred when he died in 754.

The axe you see in the picture above is pretty ubiquitous in portrayals of Boniface because of a particular act of his, the felling of the Donar Oak, a tree sacred to pagans. And speaking of Boniface and trees, did you know that some credit him with the invention of the Christmas Tree? I think tomorrow would be a good time to tell you about that.

The Abbey of Fulda

Fulda is a town in Hesse, Germany. In 744 CE, a disciple of St. Boniface named St. Sturm built a monastery there, intended to be the largest monastery ever founded at Boniface's behest. Boniface argued—and succeeded—in having Fulda placed directly under the supervision of the popes, rather than local bishops. Sturm was its first abbot. Ten years later, Boniface died and was buried there, which enhanced the reputation of the monastery. Visitors and donations flowed to Fulda, and it became a prominent center of learning.

One of its major manuscripts was the Annales Fuldenses, "Annals of Fulda," a contemporary account of the Carolingians from the final years of Louis the Pious (died 840) to 900. It is believed that Einhard, who was educated there, is responsible for entries up until 838.

Production of manuscripts was a specialty of Fulda, increasing the size of the library to about 2000 volumes. The only surviving copy of the De Rerum Natura of Lucretius was probably discovered here in 1417 (mentioned here). Before his death in 771, Charlemagne's brother Carloman took special interest in Fulda to guarantee its success. The monks also learned many other trades in order for the monastery to be self-sufficient, even living outside the monastery to pursue these trades.

After Sturm, Abbot Baugulf ran the monastery from 779 to 802. He focused on expanding educational aspects of the monastery. Later, under the 5th abbot, Hrabanus Maurus, a new school was formed: Fulda monastery school was essentially a high school, with separate departments for theological studies, the arts, and the sciences. He also sought out more holy relics for the monastery, which further increased its importance as a pilgrimage site.

A turning point for Fulda came in 1221, when its prominence was recognized by the abbots being named Princes of the Holy Roman Empire. This slowly affected Fulda adversely, however: the increasingly wealthy monastery tried to turn public lands to their own private lands, which led to a local insurrection in the 14th century. The monastery was dissolved in 1802, but the diocese and community that sprang up because of it still exists.

Once again, I find that a name that weaves in and out of the posts on this blog has been neglected. St. Boniface has appeared in several posts over the years as a prominent figure without ever discussing what made him prominent. I will fix in that gap that next time.

The Law of Frisians

Nowadays, Frisian or Friesian conjures images of horses. The Friesian is one of the oldest horse breeds, popular as a war horse in the 16th and 17th centuries. Their origin is Frisia in the northern Netherlands and northwestern Germany.

When Frisians joined Widukind in rebellion during the reign of Charlemagne, they guaranteed life would change: Charlemagne prevailed, and forced the Frisians to accept Christianity and a set of laws he imposed upon them. This was the Lex Frisionum, the "Law of he Frisians."

The Lex was based on existing Frisian law. There were four legal classes—nobles, freemen, serfs, and slaves—and fines were applied differently to the different classes. (Clergy were not subject to civil law.) Twenty-two chapters of the Lex were all about fines, including wergild, the payment to relatives of a killed person. As with the Anglo-Saxons (and unlike many other cultures), the wergild was equal whether a man or woman.

The Lex includes two references to trial by ordeal, mentioned here and elsewhere. The Frisian method was to hold a stone that has been pulled from boiling water. Blisters were expected, but if they healed within three days, the holder was deemed innocent. A noble could mark himself innocent by Canonical Purgation, described in the post on Oath of Purgation.

The problem with the Lex Frisionum is that we don't have any original documents. What we know about it comes from a 1557 version, compiled with other Germanic law documents from the monastery at Fulda. We don't know how faithful that copy was to the original; some scholars point out that Charlemagne would not have allowed pagan elements to remain. Like so much of history, we only know what we have, and so much is speculation.

Monastic libraries like that at Fulda provide much of what we know, and since Fulda has been mentioned several times recently, I think I should delve into its significance.

Until next time...