Codex Bonifatianus II

Codex Bonifatianus II

Saint Boniface claims was a famous Anglo-Saxon missionary who was one of the most important figures for the founding of the Catholic Church in Germany, for which he became known as the “Apostle to the Germans”. According to a 10th century vita written in Utrecht, the saint held a Gospel Book over his head for protection against the swords and axes of the pagan Frisians when he was martyred. The manuscript in question was not actually a Gospel Book but a collection of religious texts useful for his missionary activities and evidence of a nail having been driven through the book points to it being nailed to a tree in an Anti-Christian, pagan German ritual. Nonetheless, the codex known alternatively as Codex Bonifatianus II or the Ragyndrudis Codex served as the saint’s shield and has the status of a contact relic, which is a highlight of the Fulda Cathedral treasury today.

The Life of Saint Boniface

Born ca. 675 in Crediton, England, Boniface was a missionary, reformer of the Frankish church, and one of the key figures in creating the alliance between the papacy and Carolingian dynasty. Many of the dioceses founded or proposed by him still exist today and he is regarded as a unifier of Europe because of his missionary activity. Modern German Catholics consider him to be a patron saint alongside the Archangel Michael and he was declared the patron saint of Devon, the English county where he was born, in 2019. The most dramatic event of his missionary activities was felling the Donar Oak, a scared tree in German paganism that was knocked over by a great wind after he began to cut it down with an axe, causing the locals to convert to Christianity. Decades later in 574 (on the morning of the 5th of June according to tradition), the septuagenarian missionary was killed along with his company of around 50 in Frisia. Their assailants were disappointed to find their chests were not filled with gold and silver but books, which they largely destroyed in anger. This scarred manuscript was supposedly one of only three to be recovered from the site of the massacre. Boniface’s remains were first moved to Utrecht, then Mainz, and finally Fulda where he remains entombed today.

The Work of Ragyndrudis

Researchers have been greatly aided by the fact that this is one of the rare medieval manuscripts that was signed by its author, which in this case by someone with the fairly cumbersome name of Ragyndrudis. Unfortunately, they have never been successfully identified, but a laywoman named Ragyndrugis who was connected through marriage to the Abbey of Saint Bertin in Saint-Omer, France has been hypothesized as a likely candidate. The text is written in a minuscule derived from Luxeuil Abbey during the late-7th or early-8th century and there are also glosses from the 8th century written in an Anglo-Saxon hand. This may indicate that the manuscript originated in Corbie Abbey in Picardy, Northern France, which was founded by monks from Luxeuil and had scribes from the British Isles who worked alongside their colleagues from the continent. Altogether, the manuscript contains 14 texts pertaining to exegesis, apologia, and dogma that include works by Ambrose of Milan and Isidore of Seville.