Thor's Oak

Thor's Oak (in German: Donareiche) was an ancient tree sacred to the Germanic tribe of the Chatti, ancestors of today's Hessians, and one of the most important sacred sites of the non-Christian Germans.

The tree stood at a location near the village of Geismar, today part of the town of Fritzlar in northern Hesse, and was the main point of veneration of the Nordic/Germanic deity Thor (known among the West Germanic tribes as Donar) by the Chatti and most other German tribes. Its felling in 723 marked the beginning of the Christianization of the non-Frankish tribes of northern Germany.

History

In 723, the Anglo-Saxon missionary Winfrid -- later called St. Boniface, Apostle of the Germans -- arrived in the area in his quest to convert the northern German tribes to Christianity, using as his base the Frankish fortified settlement of Büraburg on the opposite side of the Eder river. He had the oak felled in an attempt to convey the superiority of the Christian god over Thor and the native Germanic religion. According to surviving texts, when Thor did not respond by hurling a lightning bolt at him, the assembled local people agreed to be baptized.

Boniface used the wood of the oak to build a chapel in Fritzlar, founded a Benedictine monastery, and established the first bishopric in Germany outside the boundaries of the old Roman Empire at Büraburg, with his disciple Witta as bishop. The first abbot of the monastery, St. Wigbert, built a stone basilica at the site of the wooden chapel which was, after its destruction by Saxons in 1079, replaced in 1180-1200 by the large Romanesque-Gothic cathedral of St. Peter that today dominates the town. The bishopric of Büraburg was abolished after Witta's death by Lullus and incorporated into that of Mainz.

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History

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