Prior of St. Peter's
Michael Sattler was born around 1490 at Staufen in the Breisgau, in southwestern Germany. He entered the Benedictine abbey of St. Peter in the Black Forest, a few miles from Freiburg, and probably rose to be its prior, second in authority to the abbot. He knew Latin well and some Greek and Hebrew, and in the monastery he read the letters of Paul.
What he read unsettled him. He later explained that he had seen in the monks the pride, greed, and immorality that Paul condemned, and that he could not find their way of life in the New Testament. In May 1525, during the Peasants' War, rebel bands from the Black Forest occupied the abbey and presented their grievances. Sattler probably left the monastery about then. He married Margaretha, a former Beguine, one of the lay sisterhoods of the time, who shared his convictions and would share his death.
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