Of all the many Anglo-Saxons who travelled to the Continent, some never toreturn, Boniface, apostle to the Germans, arguably had the deepest and mostenduring inuence; for some, he is simply ‘the greatest Englishman’. But asidefrom Boniface's historical importance there is much of related interest forscholars of Anglo-Saxon literary culture too: not only does a wealth of hagiographicalmaterial survive relating to Boniface and his mission, but thereremain a number of letters, poems, and other works written by Bonifacehimself, alongside a wide range of associated texts. Yet while the literary contextsand merits of (for example) Boniface's poetry have been discussed anumber of times in recent years, the primary academic focus on the so-called‘Bonifatian correspondence’ has tended to be historical, rather than literary.Such a focus has tended to privilege those letters with political or administrativeimplications above those that deal with more domestic or personal issues, yet itis precisely the latter category which shows the less formal aspects of Anglo-Saxonliterary culture, and seems to invite closer comparison with a range of other texts. In particular, the innately repetitious and formulaic quality ofmuch of the correspondence has much in common with that of several otherareas of Anglo-Saxon literature in both Latin and Old English, whether inprose or verse, and this article seeks to explore those links in detail, in order tooffer a broader literary context for the composition of the correspondence as awhole.