Baring-Gould’s sources: Molanus, in his additions to Usuardus. Not extensively known. Authority:—A Life by an anonymous monk of the Cistercian Order, date uncertain, but probably very little posterior to the death of S. Boniface.

Boniface , son of a goldsmith at Cantersteen, was trained in the Cistercian [strict Benedictine reform begun at Cîteaux in 1098] monastery of Cambre, near Brussels; he afterwards studied, and in 1258, became lecturer on theology in the university of Paris. But after a while his pupils fell off, and he went to Cologne, where he taught with success for two years. He was then appointed bishop of Lausanne, where he laboured to enforce celibacy on the clergy, 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, despairing of his power to accomplish the work, with the consent of the Holy Father, resigned his charge, and returned to Cambre, where he died in 1265. He was buried in the choir. A small chapel has been recently erected at Cambre, by a Recollet father, Francis Vancutzen, in his honour. His festival is solemnized in Brabant in virtue of a bull of Pope Clement XI., in the year 1702. On June 25th, 1600, his relics [the bodily remains of a saint, or objects they used, kept with honor] were exhumed, and placed in a wooden coffer, by Robert Van Ostebaere, abbot of Cambron, and Hautmont, acting under authority for the archbishop of Mechlin. This reliquary was translated to the Church of Notre-Dame de la Chapelle, at Brussels, in 1796, whence a portion was transported on May 9th, 1852, to the Church of Ixelles, of which S. Boniface [English missionary to Germany, martyred 754] is patron.