Büraburg

Büraburg, remains of a gate

St. Boniface overseeing the felling of Thor's Oak. Painting dating from 1737 is located in the St. Martinskirche of Westenhofen in Schliersee.

Büraburg was a prominent hill castle with historic significance, overlooking the Eder river near the town of Fritzlar in northern Hesse (Germany). Only foundation walls remain.

History

In 723 AD the Anglo-Saxon missionary Winfrid – later called St. Boniface, apostle of the Germans – arrived in the area on his mission to convert the central and northern German tribes to Christianity and made Büraburg, then a fortified Frankish settlement, his temporary base. Seeking to demonstrate the superiority of the Christian God over the Germanic gods, he and his followers felled a sacred oak dedicated to Thor by the local tribe of the Chatten/Chatti. When Thor failed to hurl a lightning bolt at Boniface and his companions, as the locals had expected, they agreed to be baptized. This event marked the beginning of the Christianization of the Germans outside the boundaries of the old Roman Empire.^[1]

Using the wood of the oak, Boniface erected a small chapel at a site nearby in what soon became the important religious, intellectual and trade center of Fritzlar. Boniface subsequently (742) established a bishopric at Büraburg, the first in Germany north of the Roman Limes, but after the death of the only bishop, Witta, in 748 the bishopric was incorporated by Lullus, Boniface's successor as archbishop of Mainz, into his own diocese. From 747 to 786 Büraburg was administered by an auxiliary bishop, Meginoz, but this post was not filled again after Meginoz's death.

St. Brigida Chapel

Excavations have unearthed extensive fortifications from the 7th and 8th century AD on the hilltop, which is called Büraberg (Berg = hill), remnants of a major settlement at this important site located where Frankish and Saxon territories then bordered each other. During the Saxon wars of Charlemagne, it was an important fortified base of the Franks, but with the final submission of the Saxons in 804 it lost its military significance.

Today, a small chapel dedicated to St. Brigida stands at the site, containing parts of the original church building from the 7th century.

References

1. Willibald (1905). "Vita Bonifatii Auctore Willibaldo". In Wilhelm Levison. Vitae Sancti Bonifati Archiepiscopi Moguntini. Hahn. pp. 1–58. Retrieved 25 August 2010. p. 31, translated in Talbot, C. H. (1954). The Anglo-Saxon Missionaries in Germany: Being the Lives of S.S. Willibrord, Boniface, Sturm, Leoba and Lebuin, Together with the Hodoeporicon of St. Willibald and a Selection from the Correspondence of St. Boniface. Sheed and Ward. pp. 45–46.

Coordinates: 51°07′14″N 9°14′11″E / 51.12056°N 9.23639°E