The letters of Boniface’s circle, as published by M. Tangl, includes both letters to and from Boniface himself during his time as a missionary in Germany, and letters to and from his friends and associates. Here 3 letters from Anglo-Saxon women are included, two of them to their friend Boniface. Also a letter from Boniface to Ecgberht bishop of York in which he complains of the immoral behaviour of king Æthelbald of Mercia, and a letter to Boniface from Æthelbert of Kent, thanking him for his mission work, sending him a raincoat and asking for two falcons to be sent from Germany.

Aldhelm wrote a set of 100 short riddles, following in the footsteps of earlier writers in this genre, such as Symphosius. Examples are also given here from the collections by other early eighth-century writers, namely Tatwine, Hwætberht and Boniface, including several different ways of writing a riddle on the popular subject of a pen. The riddle genre was also popular in Old English.

Willibald of Mainz, an Anglo-Saxon who moved to Germany, wrote a biography of Boniface around 760, tracing his life from his birth in Devon, his studies in England to his missionary work in Germany. The Latin and the structure of this work are of a high quality. Like many other missionaries, Boniface also visited Rome, to obtain the Pope’s approval.

This chapter presents a survey of both Latin and Old English visions of heaven and hell in Anglo-Saxon England from Boniface to Aelfric. The Anglo-Saxons were not content with reading about visions of foreigners, such as the Vita Fursei, the Visio Pauli, or pope Gregory’s Dialogi, but were eager to find native Anglo-Saxons who experienced visions themselves. With the account of the monk of Wenlock, Boniface presents the first native Anglo-Saxon’s vision, but the desire to Anglicise visions becomes most apparent in Bede who first – and incorrectly – transposes the vision of the Irishman Fursey to England, and then narrates the vision of the native Anglo-Saxon Dryhthelm. Aelfric silently corrects this ‘pious fraud’, but by his time Anglo-Saxons such as the monk of Wenlock, Dryhthelm, Guthlac, and Merchdeof had already experienced visions, and England had therefore joined the other nations in meriting this special grace.