Lull worked alongside Boniface from 739 to 754, and succeeded his friend as archbishop of Mainz. For some time Lull acted as Boniface’s secretary and messenger. He kept in close contact with his family and friends during this time. Soon his aunt Cynehild and her daughter Beorhtgyth joined him and entered the religious life in Germany too.
Some of Beorhtgyth’s letters to her brother Baldhard, who remained in Warwickshire, have survived which reveal the sadness of having the family separated by hundreds of miles and by religious discipline. “Why is it, my brother”, she wrote, “that you have let such a long time pass, that you have delayed coming? Why are you unwilling to consider that I am alone in this land and no other brother will visit me nor any kinsman come to me?” Beorhtgyth’s rhetorical style clearly exaggerated her loneliness, but conditions were no doubt difficult.
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