Pope Boniface V
Pope|English name=Boniface V|image=
|birth_name=???|term_start=
December 23,
619|term_end=
October 25,
625|predecessor=
Adeodatus I|successor=
Honorius I|birth_date=???|birthplace=
Naples,
Italy|dead=dead|death_date=
October 25,
625|deathplace=???|other=Boniface}}
Boniface V (died
October 25,
625) was
pope from
619 to
625.
He was consecrated as pope on
December 23,
619. He did much for the
Christianizing of
England and enacted the decree by which churches became places of refuge for criminals.
Boniface V was a
Neapolitan who succeeded
Pope Adeodatus I after a vacancy of more than a year. Before his consecration, Italy was disturbed by the rebellion of the eunuch
Eleutherius,
Exarch of Ravenna. The patrician pretender advanced towards Rome, but before he could reach the city, he was slain by his own troops.
The
Liber Pontificalis records that Boniface made certain enactments relative to the rights of
sanctuary, and that he ordered the ecclesiastical
notaries to obey the laws of the empire on the subject of
wills. He also prescribed that
acolytes should not presume to translate the relics of
martyrs and that, in the
Basilica di San Giovanni in Laterano, they should not take the place of
deacons in administering
baptism. Boniface completed and consecrated the cemetery of
Saint Nicomedes on the
Via Nomentana. In the
Liber Pontificalis, Boniface is described as "the mildest of men", whose chief distinction was his great love for the clergy.
The Venerable
Bede writes of the pope's affectionate concern for the English Church. The "letters of exhortation" which he is said to have addressed to
Mellitus,
Archbishop of Canterbury, 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 succeeded Mellitus as Archbishop of Canterbury in
624, conferring the
pallium upon him and directing him to "ordain bishops as occasion should require." According to Bede, Pope Boniface also sent letters to
Edwin,
King of
Northumbria (625), urging him to embrace the Christian faith; and to the Christian 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).
He was buried in St. Peter's on
25 October 625.
*
Bede.
Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum*Gasquet, Francis Aidan.
A Short History of the Catholic Church in England, 19
*Gregorovius, Ferdinand. II, 113
*Hunt, William.
The English Church from Its Foundation to the Norman Conquest. Vol. 1. "A History of the English Church", W. R. W. Stephens and William Hunt, ed. London: Macmillan and Co., 1912. 49, 56, 58
*Jaffé,
Regesta Pontificum Romanorum ab condita ecclesia ad annum 1198. Berlin, 1851; 2d ed., Leipsic, 1881-88. I, 222
*Jungmann,
Dissertationes Selectae in Historiam Ecclesiasticam, II, 389.
*Langen, 506
Liber Pontificalis (ed. Duchesne), I, 321-322
*
Mansi, Gian Domenico. X, 547-554
*Mann, Horace K.
Lives of the Popes I, 294-303
