Bonifatius Chapel and Spring

Memorial chapel on the site where St Boniface was martyred by the Frisians in 754 AD.

The Bonifatius Chapel stands just outside the old fortification walls of Dokkum, on the site traditionally identified as where the Anglo-Saxon missionary Boniface and his company were killed by Frisian pagans on 5 June 754.

Boniface — born Winfrid in Devon around 675 — had spent decades reorganising the Christian church across what is now Germany, establishing monasteries and dioceses at the behest of successive popes. His martyrdom at Dokkum ended one of the most influential ecclesiastical careers of the early medieval period.

The current chapel is an 19th-century structure on the site of earlier commemorative buildings, but the spring associated with the martyrdom — which Catholic tradition holds was created at the moment of his death — still flows. The spring water has been attributed with healing properties for centuries, and the site remains a place of Catholic pilgrimage, particularly during the Boniface pilgrimage in early June.

The chapel interior is modest and devotional. The surrounding garden is pleasant for a quiet visit outside pilgrimage season. A short walk from the town centre; signposted from the main square.

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A story
Boniface was an English monk from Devon who became the 'Apostle of the Germans', reorganising the church across Francia and Germany with papal backing. In 754, at the age of perhaps 80, he set out again to convert the pagan Frisians in what is now northeastern Netherlands. On 5 June 754, he and his company were attacked and killed near the river Borne, in what is now Dokkum. He had reportedly told his companions not to resist — the manuscripts he had been reading, which survived the attack with sword slashes through them, are now in Fulda cathedral in Germany. A chapel and sacred spring mark the site.