Pope Gregory II
Boniface, who had taught at the abbey school of the Benedictine monastery at Nhutscelle, first left for the continent in 716. He joined Willibrord in Utrecht, who had been working since the 690s among the Frisians. Their efforts were frustrated by the war between Charles Martel and Redbad, King of the Frisians. Willibrord fled to the abbey he had founded in Echternach, while Boniface returned to Nursling. The following year he traveled to Rome, where he was commissioned by Pope Gregory II as a traveling missionary bishop for Germania.