In reward of his labours and success, Boniface was made an archbishop by Pope Gregory III. in 732; and, although at first he was not fixed in any one place, he soon brought the German Church into such a state of order that it seemed to be time for choosing some city as the seat of its chief bishop, just as the chief bishop of England was settled at Canterbury. Boniface himself wished to fix himself at Cologne; but at that very time the bishop of Mentz got into trouble by killing a Saxon, who, in a former war, had killed the bishop's father. Although it had been quite a common thing in those rough days for bishops to take a part in fighting, Boniface and his councils had made rules forbidding such things, as unbecoming the ministers of peace; and the case of the bishop of Mentz, coming just after those rules had been made, could not well be passed over. The bishop, therefore, was obliged to give up his see; and Mentz was chosen to be the place where Boniface should be fixed as archbishop and primate of Germany, having under him five bishops, and all the nations which had received the Gospel through his preaching.
When Boniface had grown old, he felt himself again drawn to Frisia, where, as we have seen,[64] he had laboured in his early life; and at the age of seventy-five he left his archbishopric, with all that invited him to spend his last days there in quiet and honour, that he might once more go forth as a missionary to the barbarous Frieslanders. Among them he preached with much success; but on Whitsun eve, 755, while he was expecting a great number of his converts to meet, that they might receive confirmation from him, he and his companions were attacked by an armed party of heathens, and the whole of the missionaries, fifty-two in number, were martyred. But although Boniface thus ended his active and useful life by martyrdom at the hands of those whom he wished to bring into the way of salvation, his work was carried on by other missionaries, and the conversion of the Frisians was completed within no long time. Boniface's body was carried up the Rhine, and was buried at Fulda, a monastery which he had founded amidst the loneliness of a vast forest; and there the tomb of the "Apostle of the Germans" was visited with reverence for centuries.
NOTES
CHAPTER IV.
PIPIN AND CHARLES THE GREAT.
A.D. 741-814.
PART I.
Towards the end of St. Boniface's life, a great change took place in the government of the Franks. Pipin, who had succeeded his father, Charles Martel, as mayor of the palace, grew tired of being called a servant while he was really the master; and the French sent to ask the pope, whose name was Zacharias, whether the man who really had the kingly power ought not also to have the title of king. Zacharias, who had been greatly obliged to the Franks for helping him against his enemies the Lombards, answered them in the way that they seemed to wish and to expect; and accordingly they chose Pipin as their king. And while, according to the custom in such cases, Pipin was lifted up on a shield and displayed to the people, while he was anointed and crowned, the last of the poor old race of "do-nothing" kings was forced to let his long hair be shorn until he looked like a monk, and was then shut up in a monastery for the rest of his days.