Boniface (Dux)

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Bonifatius (* around 610 ; † around 672 ) was a Frankish nobleman and under the rule of the Merovingians the second documented duke in Alsace .

Life

There is no reliable information about the exact place of birth, the year of birth or the origin of Boniface - however, due to his name, which was still very unusual at the time, research assumes that Boniface came from the Austrasian branch of the Agilolfinger family, which was closely related to the pope of the same name was connected. The documented real estate of the Duke in villa Gairoaldo , today's Gœrlingen , as well as the naming of his son Gundebald also point to a direct descent from Garibald I , the first dux of the Bavarians known by name ; there was also a relationship to the Gundoinen, the family of the first Alsace Duke Gundoin .

It can be assumed that Boniface was appointed second Duke of Alsace by the Austrasian King Childebert , a Pippinid , shortly after the death of his predecessor because of this family connection . Both the fact that Boniface retained the ducal dignity over Alsace after Childebert's death, as well as the title Vir illustris , which was given to him in a certificate by Childerich II , indicate that Boniface was in an environment loyal to the king and thus in opposition the Pippiniden and Arnulfinger found.

Together with the bishop of Strasbourg , Chrodahar / Rotharius , who was identified by research as the duke's brother, Bonifatius founded the Münster monastery in the Gregoriental around 662 . Like his predecessor Gundoin with the founding of the Münstergranfeld monastery , Bonifatius also pursued primarily political and military goals with his founding as Dux des Alsace. At his instigation, the monks of the abbey were supposed to clear the valley of the Fecht through clearing, as the original name of today's village Wihr-au-Val , Bonifacii Villare , testifies. In addition, the aim was to build a new traffic route over the gorge pass to the Vogesese lakes and to Remiremont , thereby connecting the duchy more closely to the Austrasian part of the country. The inclusion of Rotharius in the founding process is of ecclesiastical significance insofar as the Upper Alsace was formally subordinate to the diocese of Basel - with the integration of the first Benedictine abbey of Alsace into the diocese of Strasbourg there were no longer two dioceses and the duchy was henceforth both politically and politically also one ecclesiastical unit.

Gundoin died around the year 672; Eticho followed him as Duke of Alsace.

progeny

Two sons of Boniface are known by name and historically attested to by a donation document that has been preserved. Gundebald died young and was no longer alive in 661 , when his father donated a mill from his bequest to the Weissenburg Monastery in his memory - this donation was notarized by his brother Teodoald.

literature

  • Horst Ebeling: Prosopography of the officials of the Merovingian Empire from Chlotar II. (613) to Karl Martell (741) in: Beihefte der Francia, Volume 2, Munich 1974, pp. 87-89.
  • Nicole Hammer: The foundations of the Etichonen monasteries in Alsace. Tectum Verlag, Marburg 2003, ISBN 3-8288-8509-8 , pp. 8-12.
  • Karl Weber: The formation of Alsace in the Regnum Francorum , in: Archeology and History, Volume 19. Thorbecke, Ostfildern 2011, ISBN 978-3-7995-7369-6 .
  • Yaniv Fox: Power and Religion in Merovingian Gaul: Columbanian Monasticism and the Formation of the Frankish Aristocracy. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2014, ISBN 978-1-107-58764-9 , p. 187.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Eberhard Dobler: The clan of the Counts Audoin / Otwin: Franconian aristocrats of the 7th and early 8th centuries in Southern Alemannia , in: Journal for the history of the Upper Rhine Volume 149. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 2001, pp. 14-18
  2. ^ Karl Weber: The formation of Alsace in the Regnum Francorum , in: Archeology and History, Volume 19. Thorbecke, Ostfildern 2011, ISBN 978-3-7995-7369-6 , p. 95
  3. ↑ AM Burg: The Alsatian Duchy - an overview , in: Journal for the history of the Upper Rhine Volume 117. Braun, Karlsruhe 1969, p. 86
  4. ↑ see Dobler, pp. 14-15
  5. ↑ Wolfgang Haubrichs: Problems of transmission and identification in the Lorraine documents of the Weißenburg / Wissembourg monastery (Bas-Rhin). In: Nouvelle revue d'onomastique, n ° 19-20, 1992 p. 68
personal data
SURNAME Boniface
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Duke in Alsace
DATE OF BIRTH around 610
DATE OF DEATH at 672