The Life and Thought of Michael Sattler

Book excerpt: C. Arnold Snyder’s full-length biography and analysis of the thought of Michael Sattler, the noted Anabaptist leader, martyr, and author of The Schleitheim Articles. This book is another case study in Anabaptist origins, as well as a being a biographical study of Michael Sattler. It is particularly stimulating in breaking new ground around the Roman Catholic (Benedictine) roots of Swiss and South German Anabaptism. This study, therefore, constitutes a major advance in Anabaptist historiography. The author of this volume is gentle, unassuming, and deceptively modest in his approach, but clear and incisive in his findings. The book is a model of careful historical method and scholarship. In stimulating the kind of fresh analysis and research indicated, the author has placed all of his colleagues in the field in his debt, and added significantly to our understanding of the early sixteenth century.