A Severe Persecution of the Christians, in the Year 984

In the time of Emperor Otho the Third, or the year 984, Mistavus, King of the Vandals, began (according to the testimony of the ancients) a severe persecution against the Christian believers, in the borders of Hamburg, Brandenburg, Havelburg, and the adjacent countries; we will say nothing of his tyranny at Altenburg, since this, as can be seen, was directed chiefly against the Romanists.

This persecution was caused by the hatred which the King of the Vandals held against Otho the Third, because Otho had intended to give him his daughter in marriage and afterward refused to do it, on account of the opposition of Theodoric, Margrave of Brandenburg, who said that he ought not to give such a noble maiden to a dog (so he called Mistavus, the King of the Vandals). Mistavus, enraged at this, resolved to take revenge for it, yet not on those who had injured him, namely, Otho and Theodoric, who were the chiefs of those countries; but on their subjects, who were certainly quite innocent of what their chiefs had done; but this is generally the case, that subjects must suffer for the misdeeds of their rulers.

He then attacked those Christians who lived nearest, persecuting them in an atrocious manner, a grievous matter for human nature, but pleasant for the spirit, namely, of those who, through love, were inseparably united to their God and Savior, and so could say with Paul: "Neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Romans 8, verses 38 and 39).

Concerning the tyrant Mistavus, the author of their distress, it is stated that he raised a violent persecution in the year 984 against the Christians living in the countries lying nearest; also, that Hamburg, Brandenburg, and Havelburg had their share of this persecution. Compare P. J. Tzwisck, page 248, column 2, with the account of Merula, folio 649, and Georg. Hist., book 5.

The reader, in order to understand our object rightly in noting this persecution, will please read, and accept as explaining the persecution last mentioned, the various notes which we have placed throughout this century.