Saint Boniface: Encyclopedia II - Saint Boniface - Boniface and the Carolingians

Saint Boniface - Boniface and the Carolingians

The support of the Frankish Mayors of the Palace (maior domos) and later, the early Pippinid and Carolingian rulers, was important to Boniface's program of forcible conversion. The Christian Frankish leaders desired to defeat their rival power, the Heathen Saxons, and to take the Saxon lands for their growing empire. Boniface's destruction of the indigenous Germanic faith and holy sites was an important part of the Frankish campaign.

Boniface balanced this support and attempted to maintain some independence, however, by attaining the support of the papacy and of the Agilolfing rulers of Bavaria. In Frankish, Hessian and Thuringian territory, he implanted the dioceses of Büraburg, Würzburg and Erfurt. He also organised provincial synods in the Frankish Church, and maintained a sometimes turbulent relationship with the king of the Franks, Pepin, whom he may have crowned at Soissons in 751. By appointing his own followers as bishops, he was able to retain some independence from the Carolingians, who most likely were content to give him leeway as long as Christianity was imposed on the Saxons and other Heathen folk by whatever means.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Boniface and the Carolingians", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki