Early life Bruno was from a noble family of
Querfurt (now in
Saxony-Anhalt). He is rumoured to have been a relative of the Holy Roman Emperor
Otto III. Through his mother Matilda, he was related to the future Bishop of Merseburg,
Thietmar, with whom he studied at the cathedral school in
Magdeburg, the seat of
Adalbert of Magdeburg, the teacher and namesake of Adalbert of Prague. While still a youth, he was made a
canon of the
Cathedral of Magdeburg. The fifteen-year-old Otto III made Bruno a part of his royal court. In 995, Otto III appointed Bruno as one of his court chaplains. Despite having a clear path to a career at court and as a bishop, Bruno, perhaps influenced by the martyrdom of St. Adalbert, went to Rome and entered the
monastery of St. Boniface and St. Alexius on the
Aventine Hill. It was then that he probably took the name Boniface, after the Anglo-Saxon missionary bishop who evangelized the Germanic tribes. In 1001, Bruno entered a Benedictine monastery of Pereum, near
Ravenna that Otto III had founded, and later underwent strict ascetic training under the guidance of
Romuald.
Missionary life The emperor founded this monastery to evangelise the Slavs, and Bruno soon became involved in this endeavour. In agreement with the Polish prince Bolesław Chrobry, the brothers Benedict and John were sent to Poland, where they founded a monastery in
Międzyrzecz for the purpose of evangelizing the Polabian Slavs. Bruno was supposed to join them. Still, the emperor's death and the ensuing turmoil prevented him from traveling to Poland. He stayed in Italy studying the language and awaiting the Apostolic appointment by
Pope Sylvester II. Owing to a regional conflict between the
Holy Roman Emperor Henry II and
Duke Boleslaus I of Poland, Bruno could not go directly to Poland so he set out for Hungary. There, he visited the places Adalbert of Prague had attended. Bruno tried to persuade
Ahtum, the Duke of
Banat, who was under the jurisdiction of
Patriarchate of Constantinople, to accept the jurisdiction of the
Bishop of Rome, but this precipitated a large controversy leading to organised opposition from local monks. Bruno elected to gracefully exit the region after he first finished his book, the famous
"Life of Adalbert of Prague," a literary memorial giving a history of the (relatively recent) conversion of the Hungarians. whose mother had come from Poland. Bruno found out that his friend Benedict and four companions had been killed by robbers in 1003.
Mission to Prussia and death and Prussia during the reign of
Bolesław the Brave In the autumn or at the end of 1008, Bruno and eighteen companions set out to found a mission among the Old Prussians; they succeeded in converting Netimer and then travelled east, likely towards
Yotvingia. Bruno met opposition in his efforts to evangelise the borderland, and when he persisted in disregarding their warnings, he was
beheaded on 14 February (or 9 or 14 March) 1009, and most of his eighteen companions were hanged by Zebeden, brother of Netimer. Duke
Boleslaus the Brave bought the bodies and brought them to Poland. (It was supposed that they were laid to rest in
Przemyśl, where some historians place Bruno's diocese; such localisation of Bruno's burial place is hardly probable because Przemyśl then belonged to
Orthodox Kyivan Rus' through 1018.) The
Annals of Magdeburg, Thietmar of Merseburg's
Chronicle, the
Annals of Quedlinburg, various works of
Magdeburg Bishops, and many other written sources from the 11th–15th centuries record this story. Soon after his death, Bruno and his companions were venerated as martyrs, and Bruno was soon canonized. It was said that
Braunsberg was named after Bruno. == See also ==