At the Tomb of Boniface

It is said that something happened in the year 724 somewhere in the area we know today as Hesse, with far-reaching consequences.

Many people gathered around an old oak tree in a dense forest. Several heavily armed warriors from the Frankish tribe, who lived in a nearby castle, accompanied a tall man and his companions, apparently to protect them. The man was a monk and carried a heavy axe.

There were also members of a Germanic tribe living in the area. The atmosphere was tense. The monk now raised his axe and struck at the gnarled tree.

His companions did the same. The Germanic people cried out angrily. The tree was sacred to them and dedicated to their supreme god, Donar. They believed that anyone who harmed this tree would be struck down by lightning.

But nothing of the sort happened. The men calmly felled the tree. When the oak came crashing to the ground, the monk spoke to the Germanic people. He explained that belief in Donar and his sacred oak was pagan superstition. The true faith, he said, was belief in Jesus of Nazareth, the God of the Christians, who had died on the cross in Jerusalem 700 years earlier.

This is said to have happened where the Geismar district of the city of Fritzlar is located today. According to the account, the monks used wood from the Donar Oak to build a small chapel on the site where Fritzlar Cathedral stands today.

The leader of the monks called himself Boniface, which means “the fortunate one”. The Pope in Rome had given him this name and sent him out as a missionary. He and his companions were to convert people in Germania to Christianity.

Boniface was originally called Winfrid. He came from a small town in southern England. He is said to have joined the Benedictine order as a child. He was ordained a priest and made his first missionary journey to the Frisians, who lived in what are now the Netherlands and northern Germany, in 716.

This journey was not very successful, because the Frisians did not want to become Christians.

Two years later, Boniface went to Rome, where Pope Gregory commissioned him to “make the mystery of the faith known to the unbelieving peoples”.

Several more missionary journeys followed. Boniface travelled with monks, warriors and craftsmen, founding several monasteries and dioceses, including Fulda Abbey and the dioceses of Würzburg, Eichstätt and Erfurt.

In 754, Boniface once again undertook a missionary journey to the Frisians. However, on this journey, he is said to have been murdered along with several companions near Dokkum, close to the present-day city of Leeuwarden in the Netherlands.

His body was first taken to Mainz and later transferred to Fulda. Today, his tomb is in Fulda Cathedral. In recognition of his work spreading Christianity, he is revered as the “Apostle of the Germans.”

Christianity spread slowly, however. Eventually, it was imposed by force. The Frankish king Charles, later known as Charlemagne, had himself crowned emperor and waged a bloody war against the Germanic Saxons for more than 30 years.

The Saxons could no longer withstand the overwhelming power of the Franks. Their duke, Widukind, submitted to the emperor and was baptized. Many Germans followed his example. Belief in the old Germanic gods was henceforth banned and suppressed.