Saint Boniface born Winfrid, Wynfrith, or Wynfryth (675 – 754) was your typical proselytizing nutcase rampaging throughout Europe in the 8th century before being killed by Frisian freedom fighters. We’ve already discussed his description (in a letter to King Ethelbald of Mercia) of the Slav marital fidelity here. But Boniface being a good brother of the Church also left other correspondence. And some people even wrote him back as in this letter from Pope Zachary.
Zach complete with a mole
Letter 87
From Pope Zacharias (Pope 741-752)
to Boniface
November 4, 751
“You inquire my brother about the Slavs who live in the lands of the Christians* [and] whether they should be subject to tithes. In this matter, no guidance is necessary for the thing is clear: if they may have sat there without paying tithes then they will also at some point believe, correctly, that this land is theirs; but if, on the contrary, they may have paid tithes, then they will know that the land has a [different] owner.”
* That is in lands where Church organization has been established.
(Etenim de Sclavis christianorum terram inhabitantibus si oporteat censum accipere, interrogasti frater. Hic quidem consilium non indiget, dum rei causa est manifesta. Si enim sine tributo sederint, ipsam quandoque propriam sibi vindicabunt terram; si vero tributum dederint, norunt: dominatorem ipsam habere terram.)
Boniface achieving long-sought martyrdom in Frisia
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