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ANeapolitan who succeeded Deusdedit after a vacancy of more than a year;consecrated 23 December, 619; d. 25 October, 625. Before hisconsecrationItaly was disturbed by the rebellion of the eunuch Eleutherius, Exarch ofRavenna. The patrician pretender advanced towardsRome, but before before he could reach the city, he was slain by his own troops. The"Liber Pontificalis" records that Boniface made certain enactments relative to therights of sanctuary, and that he ordered theecclesiastical notaries to obey thelaws of the empire on the subject of wills. He also prescribed thatacolytes should not presume to translate therelics ofmartyrs, and that, in theLateran Basilica, they should not take the place ofdeacons in administeringbaptism. Boniface completed andconsecrated the cemetery ofSt. Nicomedes on the Via Nomentana. From theVenerable Bede we learn of thepope's affectionate concern for the English Church. The "letters of exhortation" which he is said to have addressed toMellitus,Archbishop ofCanterbury, and to Justus,Bishop of Rochester, are no longer extant, but certain other letters of his have been preserved. One is written to Justus, after he had succeededMellitus asArchbishop ofCanterbury (624), conferring thepallium upon him and directing him to "ordainbishops as occasion should require". According toBede, Pope Boniface also sent letters to Edwin, King of Northumbria (625), urging him to embrace theChristian Faith, and to theChristian Princess Ethelberga, Edwin's spouse, exhorting her to use her best endeavours for the conversion of her consort (Bede, H. E., II, vii, viii, x, xi). In the"Liber Pontificalis" Boniface is described as "the mildest of men", whose chief distinction was his greatlove for theclergy. He wasburied in St. Peter's, 25 October, 625. His epitaph is found in Duchesne.
Liber Pontificalis (ed. DUCHESNE), I, 321-322; JAFFÉ,Regesta RR. PP. (2nd ed.), I, 222;Letters in MANSI, X, 547-554, and in BEDE,Hist. Eccles. Gent. Angl.; MANN,Lives of the Popes, etc., I, 294-303; GASQUET,A Short History of the Catholic Church in England, 19; HUNT,A History of the English Church, etc., 49, 56, 58; GREGOROVIUS, II, 113; LANGEN, 506; JUNGMANN,Dissertationes, II, 389.
APA citation.Oestereich, T.(1907).Pope Boniface V. InThe Catholic Encyclopedia.New York: Robert Appleton Company.http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02661a.htm
MLA citation.Oestereich, Thomas."Pope Boniface V."The Catholic Encyclopedia.Vol. 2.New York: Robert Appleton Company,1907.<http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02661a.htm>.
Transcription.This article was transcribed for New Advent by WGKofron.In memory of Fr. John Hilkert, Akron, Ohio — Fidelis servus et prudens, quem constituit Dominus super familiam suam.
Ecclesiastical approbation.Nihil Obstat. 1907. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor.Imprimatur. +John M. Farley, Archbishop of New York.
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