Saint Boniface Destroys the Oak of Thor (ca. 750)

Saint Boniface (680–754) is known as the apostle of the Germans. He was born in England, an early center of European Christianity, and was commissioned by Pope Gregory II to spread the gospel and reorganize the church in what is now Germany. In this excerpt from the monk Willibald’s (ca. 700–787) account of Boniface’s missionary activities, Boniface overcomes the remaining pagan resistance in Hesse by challenging the pagan god Thor to strike him down in punishment for his destruction of Thor’s sacred oak tree. When Thor fails to act, the completion of the conversion of the local population quickly follows. As you read the document, be sure to note the alliance between Boniface and his early German converts. What role did these converts play in Boniface’s success?

Many of the people of Hesse were converted [by Boniface] to the Catholic faith and confirmed by the grace of the spirit: and they received the laying on of hands. But some there were, not yet strong of soul, who refused to accept wholly the teachings of the true faith. Some men sacrificed secretly, some even openly, to trees and springs. Some secretly practiced divining, soothsaying, and incantations, and some openly. But others, who were of sounder mind, cast aside all heathen profanation and did none of these things; and it was with the advice and consent of these men that Boniface sought to fell a certain tree of great size, at Geismar, and called, in the ancient speech of the region, the oak of Jove [i.e., Thor].

The man of God was surrounded by the servants of God. When he would cut down the tree, behold a great throng of pagans who were there cursed him bitterly among themselves because he was the enemy of their gods. And when he had cut into the trunk a little way, a breeze sent by God stirred overhead, and suddenly the branching top of the tree was broken off, and the oak in all its huge bulk fell to the ground. And it was broken into four parts, as if by the divine will, so that the trunk was divided into four huge sections without any effort of the brethren who stood by. When the pagans who had cursed did see this, they left off cursing and, believing, blessed God. Then the most holy priest took counsel with the brethren: and he built from the wood of the tree an oratory [a chapel or place of prayer], and dedicated it to the holy apostle Peter.

From James Harvey Robinson, ed., Readings in European History, 2 vols. (Boston: Ginn, 1904), 1:106–107.