Pope Boniface V

Infobox Pope
English name=Boniface V


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=death date|625|10|25|mf=y
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 Christianising 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 Æthelburg of Kent, 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.

References

*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