Boniface’s Letter Rebuking Æthelbald

To Æthelbald, my dearest lord, and preferred above all other kings of the Angles, in the love of Christ, Boniface the archbishop, legate to Germany from the church of Rome, wishes perpetual health in Christ.

We confess before God that when we hear of your prosperity, faith, and good works, we rejoice; and if at any time we hear of adversity befalling you, either in war or jeopardy of your soul, we are afflicted. We have heard that you are devoted to almsgiving, prohibit theft and rapine, are a lover of peace, and a defender of widows and the poor; and for this, we give God thanks.

Your contempt for lawful matrimony, were it for chastity’s sake, would be laudable; but since you indulge in luxury and even commit adultery with nuns, it is disgraceful and damnable. It dims the brightness of your glory before God and man, and transforms you into an idolater, because you have polluted the temple of God. Therefore, my beloved son, repent, and remember how dishonorable it is that you, who by God’s grant are sovereign over many nations, should yourself be the slave of lust to His disservice.

Moreover, we have heard that almost all the nobles of the Mercian kingdom, following your example, desert their lawful wives and live in guilty intercourse with adulteresses and nuns. Let the custom of a foreign country teach you how far this is from rectitude. For in old Saxony, where there is no knowledge of Christ, if a virgin in her father’s house, or a married woman under the protection of her husband, is guilty of adultery, they burn her, strangled by her own hand, and hang her seducer over the grave where she is buried. Or else, cutting off her garments to the waist, modest matrons whip her and pierce her with knives, and fresh tormentors punish her in the same manner as she goes from town to town until they destroy her.

Again, the Winedi*, the basest of nations, have this custom: the wife, on the death of her husband, casts herself on the same funeral pile to be consumed with him. If then the gentiles, who do not know God, have so zealous a regard for chastity, how much more ought you to possess, my beloved son, who are both a Christian and a king?

Therefore, spare your own soul, and spare the multitude of people perishing by your example, for whose souls you must give account. Take heed to this too: if the nation of the Angles (and we are reproached in France and Italy and by the very pagans for it) despises lawful matrimony and indulges freely in adultery, a race ignoble and despising God must necessarily proceed from such a mixture, which will destroy the country by their abandoned manners, as was the case with the Burgundians, Provençals, and Spaniards, whom the Saracens harassed for many years on account of their past transgressions.

Moreover, it has been told to us that you take away from the churches and monasteries many of their privileges, and by your example, incite your nobility to do the same. But remember, I entreat you, what terrible vengeance God has inflicted upon former kings guilty of the crime we lay to your charge. For Ceolred, your predecessor, the debaucher of nuns and infringer of ecclesiastical privileges, was seized, while splendidly feasting with his nobles, by a malignant spirit, who snatched away his soul without confession and communion, while in conversation with the devil and despising the law of God. He drove Osred also, king of the Deirans and Bernicians, guilty of the same crimes, to such excess that he lost his kingdom and perished in early manhood by an ignominious death. Charles also, governor of the Franks, the subverter of many monasteries and the appropriator of ecclesiastical revenues for himself, perished by excruciating pain and a fearful death.

Therefore, my beloved son, we entreat with paternal and fervent prayers that you do not despise the counsel of your fathers, who, for the love of God, anxiously appeal to your highness. For nothing is more salutary to a good king than the willing correction of such crimes when they are pointed out to him; since Solomon says, “Whoever loves instruction, loves wisdom.” Therefore, my dearest son, showing you good counsel, we call you to witness, and entreat you by the living God, His Son Jesus Christ, and by the Holy Spirit, that you recollect how fleeting is the present life, how short and momentary is the delight of the filthy flesh, and how ignominious it is for a person of transitory existence to leave a bad example to posterity.

Begin therefore to regulate your life by better habits, and correct the past errors of your youth, that you may have praise before men here and be blessed with eternal glory hereafter. We wish your Highness health and proficiency in virtue.

*The Winedi were a tribe living on the western bank of the Vistula, near the Baltic.