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Boniface, Saint, of Lausanne

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Bonifacio (or Bonifazio), Francesco

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was a Flemish ecclesiastic of the 13th century, the son of a goldsmith at Cantersteen. He was trained in the Cistercian monastery of Chambre, near Brussels; he afterwards studied, and in 1258 became lecturer on, theology in the University of Paris. After a while his pupils fell off, and he went to Cologne, where he taught with success two years, He was then appointed bishop of Lausanne, where he labored to enforce a reformation on the clergy, who resisted, and some, enraged, armed themselves and entered the church where he was celebrating mass; with intent to kill him; but a Franciscan friar, seeing his peril, ran through the streets of Lausanne calling for help, and the people, crowding into the cathedral, rescued him. Boniface, in despair, resigned his charge, and returned to Chambre, where he died in 1265, and was buried in the choir. A small chapel has recently been erected at Chambre by a Recollet father, Francis Vancutzen, to his honor. His festival is solemnized in Brabant in virtue of a bull of Clement XI in 1702. On June 25, 1600, his relics were exhumed by Robert Van Ostebaere, abbot of Cambron. This reliquary was translated to the Church of Notre Dame de la Chapelle, Brussels, in 1796, whence a portion was transported, May 9, 1852, to the Church of Ixelles, of which St. Boniface is patron. He is commemorated by Molanus in his additions to the martyrology of Usuardus, and is not extensively known. His life was written by an anonymous monk of the Cistercian order, probably very little posterior to the death of St. Boniface. See Baring-Gould, Lives of the Saints, 2, 343 (sub Feb. 19, Boniface's festival).