DID you know the origin of the Christmas tree has a Hampshire connection?

A number of churches in Hampshire are dedicated to St Boniface, who converted the pagan Germans to Christianity in the eighth century and in so doing created the Christmas tree.

Boniface was born about 675 at Crediton near Exeter, which was in the Kingdom of Wessex.

Tradition says that Boniface's father was a Saxon thegn or lord and his mother was a Celt They named their son Wynfrith, meaning "Friend of Peace" to show that the two peoples had come together.

It is believed he was educated in Exeter before entering a monastery at Nursling, then called called Nhutscelle.

A Benedictine monastery was established had been established in 686, the earliest Benedictine establishment in Wessex according to Bede.

It was major seat of learning, and at the end of the 7th century, Winfrith studied there under the abbot Winberht, producing the first Latin grammar to be written in England. 

Aged 30, Wynfrith was ordained a priest, but 10 years later he gave up the prospect of a peaceful life teaching and preaching in this country to become a missionary on the continent. 

He followed the Yorkshireman St Willibrord, to Friesland, the coastal region between Amsterdam and Hamburg, but the mission there was unsuccessful as it met resistance from their King Radbod, and he returned to Nursling where he was elected Abbot, a post he refused preferring to return to his missionary work.

In 718 Wynfrith travelled to Rome, where he met Pope Gregory II, who gave him the name Boniface. 

During this missionary work among the pagan Germans Boniface came upon a group worshipping an oak tree at Geismar near Kassel. 

Outraged by this act Boniface cut down the sacred oak tree and when the astonished pagans saw that their god Thor, god of thunder, had failed to intervene they were converted to Christianity. 

To replace the oak tree Boniface suggested the fir tree saying that it’s three points could represent the holy trinity.

From the wood of Thor's Oak, Boniface is said to have built a chapel on the site of what is now St Peter's Cathedral in Fritzlar, Germany, which today has a statue of Boniface on an oak stump.

In the year 731 he was made Archbishop, and crowned Pepin king of all the Franks at Soissons in 751, which ensured the alliance between the Frankish crown and the Papacy which was the foundation of Charlemagne's Holy Roman Empire 30 years later.

When Boniface was an old man he resigned as bishop and returned to spreading the Gospel in Friesland which was still non-Christian territory.

In June 5, 754, the eve of Pentecost, Boniface and a few dozen of his fellow missionaries were killed by pagans at Dokkum.

He was buried in Fulda, Germany and his shrine is at Fulda Cathedral,.
Churches connected to St Boniface in Hampshire are St Boniface Catholic Church in Shirley Road built in 1927, St Boniface Church in Chandlers Ford built in 1904 and the mostly medieval St Boniface Church in Nursling.

In East Dean near Romsey there is a Church called St Winfrith which was Boniface’s earlier name and the vicar himself has confirmed that it is dedicated to Boniface.

The UK has ten churches dedicated to St Boniface but only one to St Winfrith.

Bonchurch on the Isle of Wight has a Norman Church called St Boniface and legend says he preached from Pulpit Rock there in 710. 

Nursling also has a road called Winfrith Way and a St Boniface Park after its former holy resident.

Of course the tradition of using evergreens to decorate the home was long established it was not until many centuries later that England would have a Christmas tree tradition of its own.

It has been said that George III's German-born wife, Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, introduced a Christmas tree at a party she gave for children in 1800.

The custom did not catch on much beyond the royal family. It was not until after Queen Victoria's marriage to her German cousin Prince Albert that the custom really took off in Britain.