Of making many (expensive!) “companions” and “handbooks,” there is no end. The one under review is current in its scholarship, coherently organized, and nicely written. But who buys these things?
Typically, the general introduction forecasts the chapters. The volume's first of four sections concentrate on Boniface himself and those around him. The late Rudolf Schieffer provides an introduction to the life and career of Boniface, emphasizing his work as a reformer and organizer and noting the difficulties of the saint's last years. Barbara Yorke nicely surveys Boniface's West Saxon background, discussing his family's connections to the earliest settlers in western Wessex and the importance of kin relations. She stresses the traditional Roman Christianity learned by Boniface and the strength of the missionary impulse around him. She also asks interesting questions about Boniface's ambition, about his relationships with local notables, and about Mercia's pressure on Wessex. James T. Palmer's superb essay explores Boniface's “circles” and “networks.” The key takeaway is that Boniface was never alone and that he always had resources, or else people who could procure resources. Felice Lifshitz studies the women who populated Boniface's missionary circles. She reflects engagingly on the degree to which one can speak of “feminine consciousness.” She concludes that the women around Boniface rejected “patriarchal ideas” but would never have subscribed to contemporary notions of feminism.
The next six chapters take various approaches to Boniface's written works. Emily V. Thornbury considers Boniface as a “Poet and Teacher.” She sees him as fundamentally a grammarian in the tradition of Aldhelm and says that his verse enigmata provide an “insider's view” into Latin learning in eighth-century England. Michael Aaij looks at Boniface's correspondence. He provides a handy guide to the preservation of the letters in three main manuscripts, along with a few comments on style and rhetoric. Shannon Godlove offers two chapters that examine Willibald's vita of Boniface and then the five later medieval vitae. She says that the first life and the letters simply emphasize different things; they do not represent opposing viewpoints. The style is Aldhelmian and the portrayal is as a new Paul: converting, correcting, and building. Biblical tropes abound. The second and third lives put Utrecht front and center; the fourth, Mainz. The fifth is mainly an abridgement of Willibald. The sixth life, by Otloh of St. Emmeram—dating from the 1060s and written at Fulda—arose from struggles at Fulda and elevated Boniface to “national” significance (as opposed to local significance for Utrecht, Mainz, and Fulda). Rob Meens looks at preaching and penance. He opens with the letter to Daniel of Winchester to show how important preaching was to Boniface. Sermon manuscripts, however, have only plausible connections to Boniface. Penance, a subject Meens knows better than anyone, can be extracted from sermons, penitentials, and the Excarpsus cummiani. Clerical behavior, marriage and sexuality, violence among Christians, forms of paganism, and dietary rules seem to have been the subjects on which Boniface preached, heard confession, and assigned penances. Michael Glatthaar provides a learned account of Boniface's reform councils. This paper will be the touchstone for future work. Glatthaar argues that Boniface had three great challenges: to restore proper hierarchy, to reinstate integrity and competence among the clergy, and to secure church income. He concludes that Boniface's essential goals were achieved.
The next four chapters look at the geographical areas within which Boniface was active. Michael Edward Moore surveys Francia as a whole, but he stresses the last fourteen years of Boniface's life and the crises of the Frankish realms. Of particular interest will be his claim that Boniface had a key role in shaping the dynastic change of 751 because effective reform required “authentic kingship” (268). John-Henry Clay investigates Hessia and Thuringia, the most important locales of Boniface's activity. This fine chapter is too detailed to be summarized briefly. Key themes are: the absence of competition from existing bishops, the isolation of Hessia and the integration of Thuringia, possible opposition from followers of Willibrord, the erection of Boniface's missionary and ecclesiastical network, the archaeological evidence for pagan survivals, and indifference from and opposition by Austrasian elites. Leanne Good takes up Boniface's work in Bavaria. Political and ecclesiastical tensions hampered Boniface's work. Later Bavarian sources tried to create a tradition independent of Boniface. It was, in the end, Charlemagne who implemented Boniface's reforms in Bavaria. Marco Mostert concludes this section with a look at Frisia, which Boniface visited three times. Mostert offers a helpful account of the geography and culture of Frisia as well as of Frisian paganism. Frisia taught Boniface what Mostert calls the “Utrecht Model” (354) for mission: The younger must learn from the older, there must be a possibility of return, cooperation with secular power is essential, and mission and reform are top-down.
The last four chapters explore the veneration and afterlife of Boniface. Petra Kehl's wide-ranging essay looks at Fulda, Mainz, Utrecht, Dokkum, and England. For each site she looks at the inception of Boniface's cult and then its physical and liturgical development. By the tenth and eleventh centuries, the cult was widespread in the German Empire. Janneke Raaijmakers focuses on Fulda and studies commemoration rather than veneration. Boniface became Fulda's patron saint and representative to the wider world while Sturm was treated as Fulda's founder. Sturm was unique to Fulda whereas over time everyone had a claim on Boniface. Hrabanus Maurus was crucial in propagating Boniface's memory. Siegfried Weichlein studies Boniface as a “political saint” in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Perceptions of Boniface followed a narrative of the German nation. First he was a biconfessional figure serving as a moral example exhibiting Enlightenment values. With the turmoil of 1848, Boniface became fervently Catholic and anti-Protestant. Boniface's connections to Rome are stressed as foundational for German culture. After 1900, Boniface somehow pointed to European unity. His Catholicism was no longer anti-Protestant but instead anti-Communist. Michael Aaij takes up popular veneration of Boniface and his image in modern times. His sources come from “the burgeoning industry of massproduced religious paraphernalia” (429). His focus rests on Germany and the Netherlands, and while he looks at various publications, he particularly emphasizes prayer cards—with very nice illustrations. On might ask whether massive efforts to publicize correspond with popular reception. I was a little disappointed that no one looked at the eras of the Protestant and Catholic Reformations, at the world of Matthias Flacius Illyricus and Cesare Baronius.
