Part 32

Though pre-eminently a man of action, Boniface has left several literary remains. We have above all his Letters (_Epistolae_), difficult to date, but extremely important from the standpoint of history, dogma, or literature; see Dummler's edition in the _Monumenta Germaniae historica_, 1892. Besides these there are a grammar (_De octo partibus orationibus_, ed. Mai, in _Classici Auctores_, t. vii.), some sermons of contested authenticity, some poems (_Aenigmata_, ed. Dummler, _Poetae latini aevi Carolini_, i. 1881), a penitential, and some _Dicta Bonifacii_ (ed. Nurnberger in _Theologische Quartalschrift_, Tubingen, vol. 70, 1888), the authenticity of which it is hard to prove or to refute. Migne in his _Patrologia Latina_ (vol. 89) has reproduced the edition of Boniface's works by Giles (London, 1844).

There are very many monographs on Boniface and on different phases of his life (see Potthast, _Bibliotheca medii aevi_, and Ulysse Chevalier's _Bibliographie_, 2nd ed. for indications), but none that is completely satisfactory. Among recent studies are those of B. Kuhlmann, _Der heilige Bonifatius, Apostel der Deutschen_ (Paderborn, 1895), and of G. Kurth, _Saint Boniface_ (2nd ed., 1902). W. Levison has edited the _Vitae sancti Bonifatii_ (Hanover, 1905). (J. T. S.*)

BONIFACE (_Bonifacius_), the name of nine of the popes.

BONIFACE I., bishop of Rome from 418 to 422. At the death of Pope Zosimus, the Roman clergy were divided into two factions, one of which elected the deacon Eulalius, and the other the priest Boniface. The imperial government, in the interests of public order, commanded the two competitors to leave the town, reserving the decision of the case to a council. Eulalius having broken his ban, the emperor Honorius decided to recognize Boniface, and the council was countermanded. But the faction of Eulalius long continued to foment disorders, and the secular authority was compelled to intervene.

BONIFACE II., pope from 530 to 532, was by birth a Goth, and owed his election to the nomination of his predecessor, Felix IV., and to the influence of the Gothic king. The Roman electors had opposed to him a priest of Alexandria called Dioscorus, who died a month after his election, and thus left the position open for him. Boniface endeavoured to nominate his own successor, thus transforming into law, or at least into custom, the proceeding by which he had benefited; but the clergy and the senate of Rome forced him to cancel this arrangement.

BONIFACE III. was pope from the 15th of February to the 12th of November 606. He obtained from Phocas recognition of the "headship of the church at Rome," which signifies, no doubt, that Phocas compelled the patriarch of Constantinople to abandon (momentarily) his claim to the title of oecumenical patriarch.

BONIFACE IV. was pope from 608 to 615. He received from the emperor Phocas the Pantheon at Rome, which was converted into a Christian church.

BONIFACE V., pope from 619 to 625, did much for the christianizing of England. Bede mentions (_Hist. Eccl._) that he wrote encouraging letters to Mellitus, archbishop of Canterbury, and Justus, bishop of Rochester, and quotes three letters--to Justus, to Eadwin, king of Northumbria, and to his wife Aethelberga. William of Malmesbury gives a letter to Justus of the year 625, in which Canterbury is constituted the metropolitan see of Britain for ever.

BONIFACE VI. was elected pope in April 896, and died fifteen days afterwards.

BONIFACE VII. was pope from August 984 to July 985. His family name was Franco. In 974 he was substituted by Crescentius and the Roman barons for Benedict VI., who had been assassinated. He was ejected by Count Sicco, the representative of the emperor Otto II., and fled to Constantinople. On the death of Otto (983) he returned, seized Pope John XIV., threw him into prison, and installed himself in his place. (L. D.*)

BONIFACE VIII. (Benedetto Gaetano), pope from 1294 to 1303, was born of noble family at Anagni, studied canon and civil law in Italy and possibly at Paris. After being appointed to canonicates at Todi (June 1260) and in France, he became an advocate and then a notary at the papal court. With Cardinal Ottoboni, who was to aid the English king, Henry III., against the bishops of the baronial party, he was besieged in the Tower of London by the rebellious earl of Gloucester, but was rescued by the future Edward I., on the 27th of April 1267. Created cardinal deacon in 1281, and in 1291 cardinal priest (SS. Sylvestri et Martini), he was entrusted with many diplomatic missions and became very influential in the Sacred College. He helped the ineffective Celestine V. to abdicate, and was himself chosen pope at Naples on the 24th of December 1294. Contrary to custom, the election was not made unanimous, probably because of the hostility of certain French cardinals. Celestine attempted to rule in extreme monastic poverty and humility; not so Boniface, who ardently asserted the lordship of the papacy over all the kingdoms of the world. He was crowned at Rome in January 1295 with great pomp. He planned to pacify the West and then recover the Holy Land from the infidel; but during his nine years' reign, so far from being a peacemaker, he involved the papacy itself in a series of controversies with leading European powers. Avarice, lofty claims and frequent exhibitions of arrogance made him many foes. The policy of supporting the interests of the house of Anjou in Sicily proved a grand failure. The attempt to build up great estates for his family made most of the Colonna his enemies. Until 1303 he refused to recognize Albert of Austria as the rightful German king. Assuming that he was overlord of Hungary, he declared that its crown should fall to the house of Anjou. He humbled Eric VI. of Denmark, but was unsuccessful in the attempt to try Edward I., the conqueror of Scotland, on the charge of interfering with a papal fief; for parliament declared in 1301 that Scotland had never been a fief of Rome. The most noted conflict of Boniface was that with Philip IV. of France. In 1296, by the bull _Clericis laicos_, the pope forbade the levying of taxes, however disguised, on the clergy without his consent. Forced to recede from this position, Boniface canonized Louis IX. (1297). The hostilities were later renewed; in 1302 Boniface himself drafted and published the indubitably genuine bull _Unam sanctam_, one of the strongest official statements of the papal prerogative ever made. The weight of opinion now tends to deny that any part of this much-discussed document save the last sentence bears the marks of an infallible utterance. The French vice-chancellor Guillaume de Nogaret was sent to arrest the pope, against whom grave charges had been brought, and bring him to France to be deposed by an oecumenical council. The accusation of heresy has usually been dismissed as a slander; but recent investigations make it probable, though not quite certain, that Boniface privately held certain Averroistic tenets, such as the denial of the immortality of the soul. With Sciarra Colonna, Nogaret surprised Boniface at Anagni, on the 7th of September 1303, as the latter was about to pronounce the sentence of excommunication against the king. After a nine-hours' truce the palace was stormed, and Boniface was found lying in his bed, a cross clasped to his breast; that he was sitting in full regalia on the papal throne is a legend. Nogaret claimed that he saved the pope's life from the vengeful Colonna. Threatened, but not maltreated, the pope had remained three days under arrest when the citizens of Anagni freed him. He was conducted to Rome, only to be confined in the Vatican by the Orsini. He died on the 11th or 12th of October 1303, not eighty-six years old, as has commonly been believed, but perhaps under seventy, at all events not over seventy-five. "He shall come in like a fox, reign like a lion, die like a dog," is a gibe wrongly held to be a prophecy of his unfortunate predecessor. Dante, who had become embittered against Boniface while on a political mission in Rome, calls him the "Prince of the new Pharisees" (_Inferno_, 27, 85), but laments that "in his Vicar Christ was made a captive," and was "mocked a second time" (_Purgatory_, 20, 87 f.).

AUTHORITIES.--Digard, Faucon and Thomas, _Les Registres de Boniface VIII_ (Paris, 1884 ff.); Wetzer and Welte, _Kirchenlexikon_, vol. ii. (2nd ed., Freiburg, 1883), 1037-1062; Herzog-Hauck, _Realencyklopadie_, vol. iii. (3rd ed., Leipzig, 1897), 291-300, contains an elaborate bibliography; J. Loserth, _Geschichte des spateren Mittelalters_ (Munich, 1903), 206-232; H. Finke, _Aus den Tagen Bonifaz VIII._ (Munster, 1902) is dreary but epoch-making; _Gottingische gelehrte Anzeigen_, Jahrgang 166, 857-869 (Berlin, 1904); R. Scholz, _Die Publizistik zur Zeit Philipps des Schonen und Bonifaz VIII._ (Stuttgart, 1903); K. Wenck, "War Bonifaz VIII. ein Ketzer?" in von Sybel's _Historische Zeitschrift_, vol. xciv. (Munich, 1905), 1-66. Special literature on _Unam Sanctum_: C. Mirbt, _Quellen zur Geschichte des Papsttums_ (2nd ed., Tubingen, 1901), 148 f.; _Kirchenlexikon_, xii. (1901), 229-240, an exhaustive discussion; H. Finke, 146-190; J.H. Robinson, _Readings in European History_, vol. i. (Boston, 1904), 346 ff. On _Clericis laicos_: Gee and Hardy, _Documents Illustrative of English Church History_ (London, 1896), 87 ff. (W. W. R.*)

BONIFACE IX. (Piero Tomacelli), pope from 1389 to 1404, was born at Naples of a poor but ancient family. Created cardinal by Urban VI., he was elected successor to the latter on the 2nd of November 1389. In 1391 he canonized Birgitta of Sweden. He was able to restore Roman authority in the major part of the papal states, and in 1398 put an end to the republican liberties of the city itself. Boniface won Naples, which had owed spiritual allegiance to the antipopes Clement VII. and Benedict XIII. of Avignon, to the Roman obedience. In 1403 he ventured at last to confirm the deposition of the emperor Wenceslaus and the election of Rupert. Negotiations for the healing of the Great Schism were without result. In spite of his inferior education, the contemporaries of Boniface trusted his prudence and moral character; yet when in financial straits he sold offices, and in 1399 transformed the annates into a permanent tax. In 1390 he celebrated the regular jubilee, but a rather informal one held in 1400 proved more profitable. Though probably not personally avaricious, he was justly accused of nepotism. He died on the 1st of October 1404, being still under sixty years of age. (W. W. R.*)

BONIFACE OF SAVOY (d. 1270), archbishop of Canterbury, became primate in 1243, through the favour of Henry III., of whose queen, Eleanor of Provence, he was an uncle. Boniface, though a man of violent temper and too often absent from his see, showed some sympathy with the reforming party in the English church. Though in 1250 he provoked the English bishops by claiming the right of visitation in their dioceses, he took the lead at the council of Merton (1258) in vindicating the privileges of his order. In the barons' war he took the royalist side, but did not distinguish himself by great activity.

See Matthew Paris, _Chronica Majora_; Francois Mugnier, _Les Savoyards en Angleterre_ (Chambery, 1890).

BONIFACIO, a maritime town at the southern extremity of Corsica, in the arrondissement of Sartene, 87 m. S.S.E. of Ajaccio by road. Pop. (1906) 2940. Bonifacio, which overlooks the straits of that name separating Corsica from Sardinia, occupies a remarkable situation on the summit of a peninsula of white calcareous rock, extending parallel to the coast and enclosing a narrow and secure harbour. Below the town and in the cliffs facing it the rock is hollowed into caverns accessible only by boat. St Dominic, a church built in the 13th century by the Templars, and the cathedral of Santa Maria Maggiore which belongs mainly to the 12th century, are the chief buildings. The fortifications and citadel date from the 16th and 17th centuries. A massive medieval tower serves as a powder-magazine. The trade of Bonifacio, which is carried on chiefly with Sardinia, is in cereals, wine, cork and olive-oil of fine quality. Cork-cutting, tobacco-manufacture and coral-fishing are carried on. The olive is largely cultivated in the neighbourhood and there are oil-works in the town.

Bonifacio was founded about 828 by the Tuscan marquis whose name it bears, as a defence against the Saracen pirates. At the end of the 11th century it became subject to Pisa, and at the end of the 12th was taken and colonized by the Genoese, whose influence may be traced in the character of the population. In 1420 it heroically withstood a protracted siege by Alphonso V. of Aragon. In 1554 it fell into the hands of the Franco-Turkish army.

BONIFACIUS (d. 432), the Roman governor of the province of Africa who is generally believed to have invited the Vandals into that province in revenge for the hostile action of Placidia, ruling in behalf of her son the emperor Valentinian III. (428-429). That action is by Procopius attributed to his rival Aetius, but the earliest authorities speak of a certain Felix, chief minister of Placidia, as the calumniator of Bonifacius. Whether he really invited the Vandals or not, there is no doubt that he soon turned against them and bravely defended the city of Hippo from their attacks. In 432 he returned to Italy, was received into favour by Placidia, and appointed master of the soldiery. Aetius, however, resented his promotion, the two rivals met, perhaps in single combat, and Bonifacius, though victorious, received a wound from the effects of which he died three months later.

The authorities for the extremely obscure and difficult history of these transactions are well discussed by E.A. Freeman in an article in the _English Historical Review_, July 1887, to which the reader is referred. But compare also Gibbon, _Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_, vol. iii. pp. 505-506, edited by J.B. Bury (London, 1897).

BONIN ISLANDS, called by the Japanese OGASAWARA-JIMA, a chain of small islands belonging to Japan, stretching nearly due north and south, a little east of 142 E., and from 26 deg. 35' to 27 deg. 45' N., about 500 m. from the mainland of Japan. They number twenty, according to Japanese investigations, and have a coast-line of 174.65 m. and a superficies of 28.82 sq. m. Only ten of them have any appreciable size, and these are named--commencing from the north--Muko-shima (Bridegroom Island), Nakadachi-shima (Go-between Island[1]), Yome-shima (Bride Island), Ototo-jima (Younger-brother Island), Ani-shima (Elder-brother Island), Chichi-jima (Father Island), Haha-jima (Mother Island), Mei-jima (Niece Island), Ani-jima (Elder-sister Island) and Imoto-jima (Younger-sister Island). European geographers have been accustomed to divide the islands into three groups for purposes of nomenclature, calling the northern group the Parry Islands, the central the Beechey Islands and the southern the Coffin or Bailey Islands. The second largest of all, Chichi-jima, in Japanese cartography was called Peel Island in 1827 by Captain Beechey, and the same officer gave the name of Stapleton Island to the Ototo-jima of the Japanese, and that of Buckland Island to their Ani-jima. To complete this account of Captain Beechey's nomenclature, it may be added that he called a large bay on the south of Peel Island Fitton Bay, and a bay on the south-west of Buckland Island Walker Bay.[2] Port Lloyd, the chief anchorage (situated on Peel Island), is considered by Commodore Perry--who visited the islands in 1853 and strongly urged the establishment of a United States coaling station there--to have been formerly the crater of a volcano from which the surrounding hills were thrown up, the entrance to the harbour being a fissure through which lava used to pour into the sea. The islands are, indeed, plainly volcanic in their nature.

_History._--The diversity of nomenclature indicated above suggests that the ownership of the islands was for some time doubtful. According to Japanese annals they were discovered towards the close of the 16th century, and added to the fief of a Daimyo, Ogasawa Sadayori, whence the name Ogasawara-jima. They were also called _Bunin-jima_ (corrupted by foreigners into Bonin) because of their being without (_bu_) inhabitants (_nin_). Effective occupation did not take place, however, and communications with the islands ceased altogether in 1635, as was a natural consequence of the Japanese government's veto against the construction of sea-going vessels. In 1728 fitful communication was restored by the then representative of the Ogasawara family, only to be again interrupted until 1861, when an unsuccessful attempt was made to establish a Japanese colony at Port Lloyd. Meanwhile, Captain Beechey visited the islands in the "Blossom," assigned names to some of them, and published a description of their features. Next a small party consisting of two British subjects, two American citizens, and a Dane, sailed from the Sandwich Islands for Port Lloyd in 1830, taking with them some Hawaiian natives. These colonists hoisted the British flag on Peel Island (Chichi-jima), and settled there. When Commodore Perry arrived in 1853, there were on Peel Island thirty-one inhabitants, four being English, four American, one Portuguese and the rest natives of the Sandwich Islands, the Ladrones, &c.; and when Mr Russell Robertson visited the place in 1875, the colony had grown to sixty-nine, of whom only five were pure whites. Mr Robertson found them without education, without religion, without laws and without any system of government, but living comfortably on clearings of cultivated land. English was the language of the settlers, and they regarded themselves as a British colony. But in 1861 the British government renounced all claim to the islands in recognition of Japan's right of possession. There is now regular steam communication; the affairs of the islands are duly administered, and the population has grown to about 4500. There are no mountains of any considerable height in the Ogasawara Islands, but the scenery is hilly with occasional bold crags. The vegetation is almost tropically luxuriant--palms, wild pineapples, and ferns growing profusely, and the valleys being filled with wild beans and patches of taro. Mr Robertson catalogues a number of valuable timbers that are obtained there, among them being Tremana, cedar, rose-wood, iron-wood (red and white), box-wood, sandal and white oak. The kekop tree, the orange, the laurel, the juniper, the wild cactus, the curry plant, wild sage and celery flourish. No minerals have been discovered. The shores are covered with coral; earthquakes and tidal waves are frequent, the latter not taking the form of bores, but of a sudden steady rise and equally sudden fall in the level of the sea; the climate is rather tropical than temperate, but sickness is almost unknown among the residents. (F. By.)

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Referring to the Japanese custom of employing a go-between to arrange a marriage.

[2] These details are taken from _The Bonin Islands_ by Russell Robertson, formerly H.B.M. consul in Yokohama, who visited the islands in 1875.

BONITZ, HERMANN (1814-1888), German scholar, was born at Langensalza in Saxony on the 29th of July 1814. Having studied at Leipzig under G. Hermann and at Berlin under Bockh and Lachmann, he became successively teacher at the Blochmann institute in Dresden (1836), Oberlehrer at the Friedrich-Wilhelms gymnasium (1838) and the Graues Kloster (1840) in Berlin, professor at the gymnasium at Stettin (1842), professor at the university of Vienna (1849), member of the imperial academy (1854), member of the council of education (1864), and director of the Graues Kloster gymnasium (1867). He retired in 1888, and died on the 25th of July in that year at Berlin. He took great interest in higher education, and was chiefly responsible for the system of teaching and examination in use in the high schools of Prussia after 1882. But it is as a commentator on Plato and Aristotle that he is best known outside Germany. His most important works in this connexion are: _Disputationes Platonicae Duae_ (1837); _Platonische Studien_ (3rd ed., 1886); _Observations Criticae in Aristotelis Libros Metaphysicos_ (1842); _Observationes Criticae in Aristotelis quae feruntur Magna Moralia et Ethica Eudemia_ (1844); _Alexandri Aphrodisiensis Commentarius in Libras Metaphysicos Aristotelis_ (1847); _Aristotelis Metaphysica_ (1848-1849); _Uber die Kategorien des A._ (1853); _Aristotelische Studien_ (1862-1867); _Index Aristotelicus_ (1870). Other works: _Uber den Ursprung der homerischen Gedichte_ (5th ed., 1881); _Beitrage zur Erklarung des Thukydides_ (1854), _des Sophokles_ (1856-1857). He also wrote largely on classical and educational subjects, mainly for the _Zeitschrift fur die osterreichischen Gymnasien_.

A full list of his writings is given in the obituary notice by T. Gompertz in the _Biographisches Jahrbuch fur Altertumskunde_ (1890).

BONIVARD, FRANCOIS (1493-1570), the hero of Byron's poem, _The Prisoner of Chillon_, was born at Seyssel of an old Savoyard family. Bonivard has been described as "a man of the Renaissance who had strayed into the age of the Reformation." His real character and history are, however, widely different from the legendary account which was popularized by Byron. In 1510 he succeeded his uncle, who had educated him, as prior of the Cluniac priory of St Victor, close to Geneva. He naturally, therefore, opposed the attempts of the duke of Savoy, aided by his relative, the bishop of the city, to maintain his rights as lord of Geneva. He was imprisoned by the duke at Gex from 1519 to 1521, lost his priory, and became more and more anti-Savoyard. In 1530 he was again seized by the duke and imprisoned for four years underground, in the castle of Chillon, till he was released in 1536 by the Bernese, who then wrested Vaud from the duke. He had been imprisoned for political reasons, for he did not become a Protestant till after his release, and then found that his priory had been destroyed in 1534. He obtained a pension from Geneva, and was four times married, but owing to his extravagances was always in debt. He was officially entrusted in 1542 with the task of compiling a history of Geneva from the earliest times. In 1551 his MS. of the _Chroniques de Geneve_ (ending in 1530) was submitted to Calvin for correction, but it was not published till 1831. The best edition is that of 1867. The work is uncritical and partial, but is his best title to fame.

BONN, a town of Germany, in the Prussian Rhine province, on the left bank of the Rhine, 15 m. S. by E. from Cologne, on the main line of railway to Mainz, and at the junction of the lines to the Eifel and (by ferry) to the right bank of the Rhine. Pop. (1885) 35,989; (1905) 81,997. The river is here crossed by a fine bridge (1896-1898), 1417 ft. in length, flanked by an embankment 2 m. long, above and parallel with which is the Coblenzer-strasse, with beautiful villas and pretty gardens reaching down to the Rhine. The central part of the town is composed of narrow streets, but the outskirts contain numerous fine buildings, and the appearance of the town from the river is attractive. There are six Roman Catholic and two Protestant churches, the most important of which is the Munster (minster), an imposing edifice of grey stone, in the Romanesque and Transition styles, surmounted by five towers, of which the central, rising to a height of 315 ft., is a landmark in the Rhine valley. The church dates from the 11th, 12th and 13th centuries, was restored in 1875 and following years and in 1890-1894 was adorned with paintings. Among other churches are the Stiftskirche (monasterial church), rebuilt 1879-1884; the Jesuitenkirche (1693); the Minoritenkirche (1278-1318), the Herz Jesu-kirche (1862) and the Marienkirche (1892). There is also a synagogue, and the university chapel serves as an English church. The town also possesses a town hall situate on the market square and dating from 1737, a fine block of law-court buildings, several high-grade schools and a theatre.