Thor's Oak was an ancient tree sacred to the Germanic tribe of the Catti, ancestors of today's Hessians, and one of the most important sacred sites of the Germans. The tree stood at a location near the village of Geismar, today part of the town of Fritzlar, and was the main point of veneration of the Germanic deity Thor by the Catti and most other German tribes. Its felling in 723 marked the beginning of the Christianization of the non-Frankish Germans. Chatten (Catti), a historic German tribe settled in the area of modern-day northern Hesse. ... In mathematics, the Hessian matrix of a function of several real variables is the (symmetric) matrix of all second partial derivatives. ... Fritzlar, a small German town (pop. ... Thor carries his hammer and wears his belt of strength in this illustration from an 18th century Icelandic manuscript. ... Events Saint Boniface fells Thors Oak near Fritzlar, marking the decisive event in the Christianization of the northern Germanic tribes The worlds first mechanical clock is allegedly built in China. ... St Francis Xavier converting the Paravas: a 19th-century image of the docile heathen The historical phenomenon of Christianization, the conversion of individuals to Christianity or the conversion of entire peoples at once (a political shift as much as a spontaneous mass shift in individual consciences), also includes the practice...

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, using the nearby Frankish fortified settlement of Büraburg as his base. He had the oak felled to prove the superiority of the Christian god over Thor and the Germanic deities, and 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 at Büraburg, located on a prominent hill opposite Fritzlar across the Eder river. The first abbot of Fritzlar, St. Wigbert, built a stone basilica at the site of the wooden chapel which was, after its destruction by Saxon rebels in 1079, replaced in 1180-1200 by the large Romanesque-Gothic cathedral of St. Peter that today dominates the town. For the Roman general of this name, see Bonifacius. ... For the Roman general of this name, see Bonifacius. ... Büraburg, a prominent hill with historic significance, overlooking the Eder river near the town of Fritzlar in northern Hesse. ... A Benedictine is a person who follows the Rule of Saint Benedict, whether belonging to the Roman Catholic Church, or to one of the Anglican or Protestant churches. ... The Eder is a river in Germany (ca. ... St. ... The Basilica of St. ...

The bishopric of Büraburg was not renewed after the death of Witta in 747, the first and only bishop of Büraburg, but was incorporated instead into the bishopric (later archbishopric) of Mainz by Lullus, Boniface's successor as archbishop of Mainz. See Witta, son of Wecta for the mythological Jutish chieftain. ... Events Abu Muslim unites the Abbasid Empire against the Umayyads. ... Map of Germany showing Mainz Mainz (French: Mayence) is a city in Germany and the capital of the German federal state of Rhineland-Palatinate. ... Wikipedia does not yet have an article with this exact name. ...