Chapter 14

(C. E.*)

1Bone oil, also known as Dippel’s oil, was originally produced by the distillation of stags’ horns; it is of interest in the history of chemistry, since from it were isolated in 1846 by T. Anderson pyridine and some of its homologues.

BONE BED,a term loosely used by geologists when speaking generally of any stratum or deposit which contains bones of whatever kind. It is also applied to those brecciated and stalagmitic deposits on the floor of caves, which frequently contain osseous remains. In a more restricted sense it is used to connote certain thin layers of bony fragments, which occur upon well-defined geological horizons. One of the best-known of these is the Ludlow Bone Bed, which is found at the base of the Downton Sandstone in the Upper Ludlow series. At Ludlow itself, two such beds are actually known, separated by about 14 ft. of strata. Although quite thin, the Ludlow Bone Bed can be followed from that town into Gloucestershire for a distance of 45 m. It is almost made up of fragments of spines, teeth and scales of ganoid fish. Another well-known bed, formerly known as the “Bristol” or “Lias” Bone Bed, exists in the form of several thin layers of micaceous sandstone, with the remains of fish and saurians, which occur in the Rhaetic Black Paper Shales that lie above the Keuper marls in the south-west of England. It is noteworthy that a similar bone bed has been traced on the same geological horizon in Brunswick, Hanover and Franconia. A bone bed has also been observed at the base of the Carboniferous limestone series in certain parts of the south-west of England.

BONE-LACE,a kind of lace made upon a cushion from linen thread; the pattern is marked out with pins, round which are twisted the different threads, each wound on its own bobbin. The lace was so called from the fact that bobbins were formerly made of bone.

BONER(orBonerius),ULRICH(fl. 14th century), German-Swiss writer of fables, was born in Bern. He was descended of an old Bernese family, and, as far as can be ascertained, took clerical orders and became a monk; yet as it appears that he subsequently married, it is certain that he received the “tonsure” only, and was thus entitled to the benefit of theclerici uxoriati, who, on divesting themselves of the clerical garb, could return to secular life. He is mentioned in records between 1324 and 1349, but neither before nor after these dates. He wrote, in Middle High German, a collection of fables entitledDer Edelstein(c. 1349), one hundred in number, which were based principally on those of Avianus (4th century) and theAnonymus(edited by I. Nevelet, 1610). This work he dedicated to the Bernese patrician and poet, Johann von Rinkenberg, advocatus (Vogt) of Brienz (d.c. 1350). It was printed in 1461 at Bamberg; and it is claimed for it that it was the first book printed in the German language. Boner treats his sources with considerable freedom and originality; he writes a clear and simple style, and the necessarily didactic tone of the collection is relieved by touches of humour.

Der Edelsteinhas been edited by G.F. Benecke (Berlin, 1816) and Franz Pfeiffer (Leipzig, 1844); a translation into modern German by K. Pannier will be found, in Reclam’sUniversal-Bibliothek(Leipzig, 1895). See also G.E. Lessing inZur Geschichte und Literatur(Werke, ix.); C. Waas,Die Quellen der Beispiele Boners(Giessen, 1897).

BO’NESS,orBorrowstounness, a municipal and police burgh and seaport of Linlithgowshire, Scotland. Pop. (1891) 6295; (1901) 9306. It lies on the southern shore of the Firth of Forth, 17 m. W. by N. of Edinburgh, and 24 m. by rail, being the terminus of the North British railway’s branch line from Manuel. In the 18th century it ranked next to Leith as a port, but the growth of Grangemouth, higher up the firth, seriously affected its shipping trade, which is, however, yet considerable, coal and pig-iron forming the principal exports, and pit props from the Baltic the leading import. It has an extensive harbour (the area of the dock being 7¾ acres). The great industries are coal-mining—some of the pits extending for a long distance beneath the firth—iron-founding (with several blast furnaces) and engineering, but it has also important manufactures of salt, soap, vitriol and other chemicals. Shipbuilding and whaling are extinct. Traces of the wall of Antoninus which ran through the parish may still be made out, especially near Inveravon. Blackness, on the coast farther east, was the seaport of Linlithgow till the rise of Bo’ness, but its small export trade now mainly consists of coal, bricks, tiles and lime. Its castle, standing on a promontory, is of unknown age. James III. of Scotland is stated to have consigned certain of the insurgent nobles to its cells; and later it was used as a prison in which many of the Covenanters were immured. It was one of the four castles that had to be maintained by the Articles of Union, but when its uselessness for defensive purposes became apparent, it was converted into an ammunition depot. Kinneil House, 1 m. south of Bo’ness, a seat of the duke of Hamilton, formerly a keep, was fortified by the regent Arran, plundered by the rebels in Queen Mary’s reign, and reconstructed in the time of Charles II. Dr John Roebuck (1718-1794), founder of the Carron Iron Works, occupied it for several years from 1764. It was here that, on his invitation, James Watt constructed a model of his steam-engine, which was tested in a now disused colliery. Though Roebuck lost all his money in the coal-mines and salt works which he established at Bo’ness, the development of the mineral resources of the district may be regarded as due to him.

BONFIGLI, BENEDETTO,15th century Italian painter, was born at Perugia. Until near the middle of the 15th century the Umbrian school was far behind those of Florence and the North, but in the person of Perugino and some of his followers it suddenly advanced into the very first rank. Among the latter none holds a more distinguished place than Benedetto Bonfigli. The most important of his extant works are a series, in fresco, of the life of St Louis of Toulouse, in the communal palace of Perugia.

BONFIRE(in Early English “bone-fire,” Scottish “bane-fire”), originally a fire of bones, now any large fire lit in the open air on an occasion of rejoicing. Though the spelling “bonfire” was used in the 16th century, the earlier “bone-fire” was common till 1760. The earliest known instance of the derivation of the word occurred asban fyre ignis ossiumin theCatholicon Anglicum,A.D.1483. Other derivations, now rejected, have been sought for the word. Thus some have thought itBaal-fire, passing throughBael,BaentoBane. Others have declared it to beboon-fire by analogy withboen-harow,i.e.“harrowing by gift,” the suggestion being that these fires were “contribution” fires, every one in the neighbourhood contributing a portion of the material, just as in Northumberland the “contributed Ploughing Days” are known asBone-daags.

Whatever the origin of the word, it has long had several meanings-(a) a fire of bones, (b) a fire for corpses, a funeral pile, (c) a fire for immolation, such as that in which heretics andproscribed books were burnt, (d) a large fire lit in the open air, on occasions of national rejoicing, or as a signal of alarm such as the bonfires which warned England of the approach of the Armada. Throughout Europe the peasants from time immemorial have lighted bonfires on certain days of the year, and danced around or leapt over them. This custom can be traced back to the middle ages, and certain usages in antiquity so nearly resemble it as to suggest that the bonfire has its origin in the early days of heathen Europe. Indeed the earliest proof of the observance of these bonfire ceremonies in Europe is afforded by the attempts made by Christian synods in the 7th and 8th centuries to suppress them as pagan. Thus the third council of Constantinople (A.D.680), by its 65th canon, orders: “Those fires that are kindled by certaine people on new moones before their shops and houses, over which also they use ridiculously and foolishly to leape, by a certaine antient custome, we command them from henceforth to cease.” And the Synodus Francica under Pope Zachary,A.D.742, forbids “those sacrilegious fires which they callNedfri(or bonefires), and all other observations of the Pagans whatsoever.” Leaping over the fires is mentioned among the superstitious rites used at the Palilia (the feast of Pales, the shepherds’ goddess) in Ovid’sFasti, when the shepherds lit heaps of straw and jumped over them as they burned. The lighting of the bonfires in Christian festivals was significant of the compromise made with the heathen by the early Church. In Cornwall bonfires are lighted on the eve of St John the Baptist and St Peter’s day, and midsummer is thence called in CornishGoluan, which means both “light” and “festivity.” Sometimes effigies are burned in these fires, or a pretence is made of burning a living person in them, and there are grounds for believing that anciently human sacrifices were actually made in the bonfires. Spring and midsummer are the usual times at which these bonfires are lighted, but in some countries they are made at Hallowe’en (October 31) and at Christmas. In spring the 1st Sunday in Lent, Easter eve and the 1st of May are the commonest dates.

See J.G. Frazer,Golden Bough, vol. iii., for a very full account of the bonfire customs of Europe, &c.

BONGARS, JACQUES(1554-1612), French scholar and diplomatist, was born at Orleans, and was brought up in the reformed faith. He obtained his early education at Marburg and Jena, and returning to France continued his studies at Orleans and Bourges. After spending some time in Rome he visited eastern Europe, and subsequently made the acquaintance of Ségur Pardaillan, a representative of Henry, king of Navarre, afterwards Henry IV. of France. He entered the service of Pardaillan, and in 1587 was sent on a mission to many of the princes of northern Europe, after which he visited England to obtain help from Queen Elizabeth for Henry of Navarre. He continued to serve Henry as a diplomatist, and in 1593 became the representative of the French king at the courts of the imperial princes. Vigorously seconding the efforts of Henry to curtail the power of the house of Habsburg, he spent health and money ungrudgingly in this service, and continued his labours until the king’s murder in 1610. He then returned to France, and died at Paris on the 29th of July 1612. Bongars wrote an abridgment of Justin’s abridgment of the history of Trogus Pompeius under the titleJustinus, Trogi Pompeii Historiarum Philippicarum epitoma de manuscriptis codicibus emendatior et prologis auctior(Paris, 1581). He collected the works of several French writers who as contemporaries described the crusades, and published them under the titleGesta Dei per Francos(Hanover, 1611). Another collection made by Bongars is theRerum Hungaricarum scriptores varii(Frankfort, 1600). HisEpistolaewere published at Leiden in 1647, and a French translation at Paris in 1668-1670. Many of his papers are preserved in the library at Bern, to which they were presented in 1632, and a list of them was made in 1634. Other papers and copies of instructions are now in several libraries in Paris; and copies of other instructions are in the British Museum.

See H. Hagen,Jacobus Bongarsius(Bern, 1874); L. Anquez,Henri IV et l’Allemagne(Paris, 1887).

BONGHI, RUGGERO(1828-1895), Italian scholar, writer and politician, was born at Naples on the 20th of March 1828. Exiled from Naples in consequence of the movement of 1848, he took refuge in Tuscany, whence he was compelled to flee to Turin on account of a pungent article against the Bourbons. At Turin he resumed his philosophic studies and his translation of Plato, but in 1858 refused a professorship of Greek at Pavia, under the Austrian government, only to accept it in 1859 from the Italian government after the liberation of Lombardy. In 1860, with the Cavour party, he opposed the work of Garibaldi, Crispi and Bertani at Naples, and became secretary of Luigi Carlo Farini during the latter’s lieutenancy, but in 1865 assumed contemporaneously the editorship of thePerseveranzaof Milan and the chair of Latin literature at Florence. Elected deputy in 1860 he became celebrated by the biting wit of his speeches, while, as journalist, the acrimony of his polemical writings made him a redoubtable adversary. Though an ardent supporter of the historic Right, and, as such, entrusted by the Lanza cabinet with the defence of the law of guarantees in 1870, he was no respecter of persons, his caustic tongue sparing neither friend nor foe. Appointed minister for public instruction in 1873, he, with feverish activity, reformed the Italian educational system, suppressed the privileges of the university of Naples, founded the Vittorio Emanuele library in Rome, and prevented the establishment of a Catholic university in the capital. Upon the fall of the Right from power in 1876 he joined the opposition, and, with characteristic vivacity, protracted during two months the debate on Baccelli’s University Reform Bill, securing, single-handed, its rejection. A bitter critic of King Humbert, both in thePerseveranzaand in theNuova Antologia, he was, in 1893, excluded from court, only securing readmission shortly before his death on the 22nd of October 1895. In foreign policy a Francophil, he combated the Triple Alliance, and took considerable part in the organization of the inter-parliamentary peace conference.

(H. W. S.)

BONGO(DororDeran), a tribe of Nilotic negroes, probably related to the Zandeh tribes of the Welle district, inhabiting the south-west portion of the Bahr-el-Ghazal province, Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. G.A. Schweinfurth, who lived two years among them, declares that before the advent of the slave-raiders,c. 1850, they numbered at least 300,000. Slave-raiders, and later the dervishes, greatly reduced their numbers, and it was not until the establishment of effective control by the Sudan government (1904-1906) that recuperation was possible. The Bongo formerly lived in countless little independent and peaceful communities, and under the Sudan government they again manage their own affairs. Their huts are well built, and sometimes 24 ft. high. The Bongo are a race of medium height, inclined to be thick-set, with a red-brown complexion—“like the soil upon which they reside”—and black hair. Schweinfurth declares their heads to be nearly round, no other African race, to his knowledge, possessing a higher cephalic index. The women incline to steatopygia in later life, and this deposit of fat, together with the tail of bast which they wore, gave them, as they walked, Schweinfurth says, the appearance of “dancing baboons.” The Bongo men formerly wore only a loin-cloth, and many dozen iron rings on the arms (arranged to form a sort of armour), while the women had simply a girdle, to which was attached a tuft of grass. Both sexes now largely use cotton cloths as dresses. The tribal ornaments consist of nails or plugs which are passed through the lower lip. The women often wear a disk several inches in diameter in this fashion, together with a ring or a bit of straw in the upper lip, straws in thealaeof the nostrils, and a ring in theseptum. The Bongo, unlike other of the upper Nile Negroes, are not great cattle-breeders, but employ their time in agriculture. The crops mostly cultivated are sorghum, tobacco, sesame and durra. The Bongo eat the fruits, tubers and fungi in which the country is rich. They also eat almost every creature—bird, beast, insect and reptile, with the exception of the dog. They despise no flesh, fresh or putrid. They drive the vulture from carrion, and eat with relish the intestinal worms of the ox. Earth-eating, too, iscommon among them. They are particularly skilled in the smelting and working of iron. Iron forms the currency of the country, and is extensively employed for all kinds of useful and ornamental purposes. Bongo spears, knives, rings, and other articles are frequently fashioned with great artistic elaboration. They have a variety of musical instruments—drums, stringed instruments, and horns—in the practice of which they take great delight; and they indulge in a vocal recitative which seems intended to imitate a succession of natural sounds. Schweinfurth says that Bongo music is like the raging of the elements. Marriage is by purchase; and a man is allowed to acquire three wives, but not more. Tattooing is partially practised. As regards burial, the corpse is bound in a crouching position with the knees drawn up to the chin; men are placed in the grave with the face to the north, and women with the face to the south. The form of the grave is peculiar, consisting of a niche in a vertical shaft, recalling the mastaba graves of the ancient Egyptians. The tombs are frequently ornamented with rough wooden figures intended to represent the deceased. Of the immortality of the soul they have no defined notion; and their only approach to a knowledge of a beneficent deity consists in a vague idea of luck. They have, however, a most intense belief in a great variety of petty goblins and witches, which are essentially malignant. Arrows, spears and clubs form their weapons, the first two distinguished by a multiplicity of barbs. Euphorbia juice is used as a poison for the arrows. Shields are rare. Their language is musical, and abounds in the vowelsoanda; its vocabulary of concrete terms is very rich, but the same word has often a great variety of meanings. The grammatical structure is simple. As a race the Bongo are gentle and industrious, and exhibit strong family affection.

See G.A. Schweinfurth,The Heart of Africa(London, 1873); W. Junker,Travels in Africa(Eng. edit., London, 1890-1892).

BONGO(Boöcercus eurycerus), a West African bushbuck, the largest of the group. The male is deep chestnut, marked on the body with narrow white stripes, on the chest with a white crescent, and on the face by two white spots below the eye. In the East African bongo (B. e. Isaaei) the body hue is stronger and richer. There is, as yet, no evidence as to whether the females of the true bongo bear horns, though it is probable they do; but as the horns are present in both sexes of the East African form, Mr Oldfield Thomas has made that the type of the genus.1

1Annals and Mag. Nat. Hist.vol. x. (seventh series), p. 309.

BONHAM,a town and the county-seat of Fannin county, Texas, U.S.A., about 14 m. S. of the Red river, in the north-east part of the state, and 70 m. N. of Dallas. Pop. (1890) 3361; (1900) 5042 (1223 being negroes); (1910), 4844. It is served by the Missouri, Kansas & Texas, and the Texas & Pacific railways. Bonham is the seat of Carlton College (Christian), a woman’s college founded in 1867; and its high school is one of the best in the state. It is a trading and shipping centre of an extensive farming territory devoted to the raising of live-stock and to the growing of cotton, Indian corn, fruit, &c. It has large cotton gins and compresses, a large cotton mill, flour mills, canning and ice factories, railway repair shops, planing mills and carriage works. The town was named in honour of J.B. Bonham, a native of South Carolina, who was killed in the Alamo. The first settlement here was made in 1836. The town was incorporated in 1850, and was re-incorporated in 1886.

BONHEUR[Marie Rosalie],ROSA(1822-1899), French painter, was born at Bordeaux on the 22nd of March 1822. She was of Jewish origin. Jacques Wiener, the Belgian medallist, a native of Venloo, says that he and Raymond Bonheur, Rosa’s father, used to attend synagogue in that town; while another authority asserts that Rosa used to be known in common parlance by the name of Rosa Mazeltov (a Hebrew term for “good luck,”GallicéBonheur). She was the eldest of four children, all of whom were artists—Auguste (1824-1884) painted animals and landscape; Juliette (1830-1891) was “honourably mentioned” at the exhibition of 1855; Isidore, born in 1827, was a sculptor of animals. Rosa at an early age was taught to draw by her father (who died in 1849), and he, perceiving her very remarkable talent, permitted her to abandon the business of dressmaking, to which, much against her will, she had been put, in order to devote herself wholly to art. From 1840 to 1845 she exhibited at the salon, and five times received a prize; in 1848 a medal was awarded to her. Her fame dates more especially from the exhibition of 1855; from that time Rosa Bonheur’s works were much sought after in England, where collectors and public galleries competed eagerly for them. What is chiefly remarkable and admirable in her work is that, like her contemporary, Jacques Raymond Brascassat (1804-1867), she represents animals as they really are, as she saw them in the country. Her gift of accurate observation was, however, allied to a certain dryness of style in painting; she often failed to give a perfect sense of atmosphere. On the other hand, the anatomy of her animals is always faultlessly true. There is nothing feminine in her handling; her treatment is always manly and firm. Of her many works we may note the following:—“Ploughing in the Nivernais” (1848), in the Luxembourg gallery; “The Horse Fair” (1853), one of the two replicas of which is in the National Gallery, London, the original being in the United States; and “Hay Harvest in Auvergne” (1835). She was decorated with the Legion of Honour by the empress Eugénie, and was subsequently promoted to the rank of “officer” of the order. After 1867 Rosa Bonheur exhibited but once in the salon, in 1899, a few weeks before her death. She lived quietly at her country house at By, near Fontainebleau, where for some years she had held gratuitous classes for drawing. She left at her death a considerable number of pictures, studies, drawings and etchings, which were sold by auction in Paris in the spring of 1900.

(H. Fr.)

BONHEUR DU JOUR,the name for a lady’s writing-desk, so called because, when it was introduced in France about 1760, it speedily became intensely fashionable. The bonheur du jour is always very light and graceful; its special characteristic is a raised back, which may form a little cabinet or a nest of drawers, or may simply be fitted with a mirror. The top, often surrounded with a chased and gilded bronze gallery, serves for placing small ornaments. Beneath the writing surface there is usually a single drawer. The details vary greatly, but the general characteristics are always traceable. The bonheur du jour has never been so delicate, so charming, so coquettish as in the quarter of a century which followed its introduction. The choicer examples of the time are inlaid with marqueterie, edged with exotic woods, set in gilded bronze, or enriched with panels of Oriental lacquer.

BONI(Boné), a vassal state of the government of Celebes, Dutch East Indies, in the south-west peninsula of Celebes, on the Gulf of Boni. Area, 2600 sq. m. It produces rice, tobacco, coffee, cotton and sugar-cane, none of them important as exports. The breeds of buffaloes and horses in this state are highly esteemed. The chief town, Boni, lies 80 m. N.E. of Macassar, and 2½ m. from the east coast of the peninsula. The native race of Bugis (q.v.), whose number within this area is about 70,000, is one of the most interesting in the whole archipelago.

Boni was once the most powerful state of Celebes, all the other princes being regarded as vassals of its ruler, but its history is not known in detail. In 1666 the rajah Palakkah, whose father and grandfather had been murdered by the family of Hassan, the tyrant of Sumatra, made common cause with the Dutch against that despot. From that date till the beginning of the 19th century Dutch influence in the state remained undisputed. In 1814, however, Boni fell into the hands of the British, who retained it for two years; but by the European treaties concluded on the downfall of Napoleon it reverted to its original colonizers. Their influence, however, was resisted more than once by the natives. An expedition in 1825, under General van Geen, was not fully successful in enforcing it; and in 1858 and the following year two expeditions were necessary to oppose an attempt by the princess regent towards independence. In 1860 a new prince, owning allegiance to the Dutch, was set up. As in other native states in Celebes,succession to the throne in the female line has precedence over the male line.

For the wars in Boni, see Perelaer,De Bonische expeditiën, 1859-1860(Leiden, 1872); and Meyers, in theMilitaire Spectator(1880).

BONIFACE, SAINT(680-754), the apostle of Germany, whose real name was Wynfrith, was born of a good Saxon family at Crediton or Kirton in Devonshire. While still young he became a monk, and studied grammar and theology first at Exeter, then at Nutcell near Winchester, under the abbot Winberht. He soon distinguished himself both as scholar and preacher, and had every inducement to remain in his monastery, but in 716 he followed the example of other Saxon monks and set out as missionary to Frisia. He was soon obliged to return, however, probably owing to the hostility of Radbod, king of the Frisians, then at war with Charles Martel. At the end of 717 he went to Rome, where in 719 Pope Gregory II. commissioned him to evangelize Germany and to counteract the influence of the Irish monks there. Crossing the Alps, Boniface visited Bavaria and Thuringia, but upon hearing of the death of Radbod he hurried again to Frisia, where, under the direction of his countryman Willibrord (d. 738), the first bishop of Utrecht, he preached successfully for three years. About 722 he visited Hesse and Thuringia, won over some chieftains, and converted and baptized great numbers of the heathen. Having sent special word to Gregory of his success, he was summoned to Rome and consecrated bishop on the 30th of November 722, after taking an oath of obedience to the pope. Then his mission was enlarged. He returned with letters of recommendation to Charles Martel, charged not only to convert the heathen but to suppress heresy as well.

Charles’s protection, as he himself confessed, made possible his great career. Armed with it he passed safely into heathen Germany and began a systematic crusade, baptizing, overturning idols, founding churches and monasteries, and calling from England a band of missionary helpers, monks and nuns, some of whom have become famous: St Lull, his successor in the see at Mainz; St Burchard, bishop of Würzburg; St Gregory, abbot at Utrecht; Willibald, his biographer; St Lioba, St Walburge, St Thecla. In 732 Boniface was created archbishop. In 738 for the third time he went to Rome. On his return he organized the church in Bavaria into the four bishoprics of Regensburg, Freising, Salzburg and Passau. Then his power was extended still further. In 741 Pope Zacharias made him legate, and charged him with the reformation of the whole Frankish church. With the support of Carloman and Pippin, who had just succeeded Charles Martel as mayors of the palace, Boniface set to work. As he had done in Bavaria, he organized the east Frankish church into four bishoprics, Erfurt, Würzburg, Buraburg and Eichstädt, and set over them his own monks. In 742 he presided at what is generally counted as the first German council. At the same period he founded the abbey of Fulda, as a centre for German monastic culture, placing it under the Bavarian Sturm, whose biography gives us so many picturesque glimpses of the time, and making its rule stricter than the Benedictine. Then came a theological and disciplinary controversy with Virgil, the Irish bishop of Salzburg, who held, among other heresies, that there were other worlds than ours. Virgil must have been a most remarkable man; in spite of his leanings toward science he held his own against Boniface, and was canonized after his death. Boniface was more successful in France. There a certain Adalbert or Aldebert, a Frankish bishop of Neustria, had caused great disturbance. He had been performing miracles, and claimed to have received his relics, not from Rome like those of Boniface, but directly from the angels. Planting crosses in the open fields he drew the people to desert the churches, and had won a great following throughout all Neustria. Opinions are divided as to whether he was a Culdee, a representative of a national Frankish movement, or simply the charlatan that Boniface paints him. At the instance of Pippin, Boniface secured Adalbert’s condemnation at the synod of Soissons in 744; but he, and Clement, a Scottish missionary and a heretic on predestination, continued to find followers in spite of legate, council and pope, for three or four years more.

Between 746 and 748 Boniface was made bishop of Mainz, and became metropolitan over the Rhine bishoprics and Utrecht, as well as over those he had established in Germany—thus founding the pre-eminence of the see of Mainz. In 747 a synod of the Frankish bishops sent to Rome a formal statement of their submission to the papal authority. The significance of this act can only be realized when one recalls the tendencies toward the formation of national churches, which had been so powerful under the Merovingians. Boniface does not seem to have taken part in the anointing of Pippin as king of the Franks in 752. In 754 he resigned his archbishopric in favour of Lull, and took up again his earliest plan of a mission to Frisia; but on the 5th of June 754 he and his companions were massacred by the heathen near Dockum. His remains were afterwards taken to Fulda.

St Boniface has well been called the proconsul of the papacy. His organizing genius, even more than his missionary zeal, left its mark upon the German church throughout all the middle ages. The missionary movement which until his day had been almost independent of control, largely carried on by schismatic Irish monks, was brought under the direction of Rome. But in so welding together the scattered centres and binding them to the papacy, Boniface seems to have been actuated by simple zeal for unity of the faith, and not by a conscious political motive.

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 Dümmler’s edition in theMonumenta Germaniae historica, 1892. Besides these there are a grammar (De octo partibus orationibus, ed. Mai, inClassici Auctores, t. vii.), some sermons of contested authenticity, some poems (Aenigmata, ed. Dümmler,Poetae latini aevi Carolini, i. 1881), a penitential, and someDicta Bonifacii(ed. Nürnberger inTheologische Quartalschrift, Tübingen, vol. 70, 1888), the authenticity of which it is hard to prove or to refute. Migne in hisPatrologia 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’sBibliographie, 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 theVitae 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 Æthelberga. 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 bullClericis 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 bullUnam 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.(Münster, 1902) is dreary but epoch-making;Göttingische gelehrte Anzeigen, Jahrgang 166, 857-869 (Berlin, 1904); R. Scholz,Die Publizistik zur Zeit Philipps des Schönen und Bonifaz VIII.(Stuttgart, 1903); K. Wenck, “War Bonifaz VIII. ein Ketzer?” in von Sybel’sHistorische Zeitschrift, vol. xciv. (Munich, 1905), 1-66. Special literature onUnam Sanctum: C. Mirbt,Quellen zur Geschichte des Papsttums(2nd ed., Tübingen, 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. OnClericis 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; François Mugnier,Les Savoyards en Angleterre(Chambéry, 1890).

BONIFACIO,a maritime town at the southern extremity of Corsica, in the arrondissement of Sartène, 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 Aëtius, 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. Aëtius, 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 theEnglish 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 JapaneseOgasawara-Jima, a chain of small islands belonging to Japan, stretching nearly due north and south, a little east of 142 E., and from 26° 35′ to 27° 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 Island1), 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.2Port 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 calledBunin-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.

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