Fulda
Monastery founded by Boniface in the forest of Buchonia on the river Fulda, under the Rule of Benedict and directly subject to Rome. Boniface was buried there. Charlemagne addressed his letter on learning to its abbot.
In 751 Boniface wrote to Pope Zacharias that he had settled monks under the Rule of Benedict in a wooded place in a great wilderness, on land obtained with the help of the Frankish ruler Carloman, and that he wished to be buried there. The pope’s charter of the same year names the place, Buchonia on the bank of the river Fulda, and puts the monastery under the Roman see alone (Boniface, Letters Tangl 86 and 89). After his death in Frisia the monks brought his body there (Willibald, Life of Boniface 8 (pp. 88–90)). It was to Baugulf, abbot of Fulda, that Charlemagne addressed his letter on the cultivation of learning (Charlemagne, De litteris colendis address).
What happened here
- AD 719–754, estimated dateBoniface, Apostle to the Germans
The English monk Winfrid, renamed Boniface, is sent by Pope Gregory II to preach east of the Rhine. He fells the sacred oak at Geismar, founds bishoprics and the abbey of Fulda, reforms the Frankish church under Roman authority, and is killed in Frisia.
Primary sources
Letters of Boniface
- Boniface, Letters Tangl 86 and 89sourcebooks.fordham.edu