author
Bartholomäus Sastrow
1520–1603
A 16th-century civic leader whose vivid memoir opens a window onto everyday life, politics, and religious upheaval in Reformation-era Germany. Written late in life, his autobiography remains the reason he is still widely remembered today.
1 Audiobook
Bartholomew Sastrow: Being the Memoirs of a German Burgomaster
by Bartholomäus Sastrow
About the author
Born in Greifswald on August 21, 1520, Bartholomäus Sastrow became a German official, imperial notary, and later mayor of Stralsund. He lived through the turbulent years of the Reformation and built a career in public service in northern Germany.
He is best known for the autobiography he wrote in 1595, when he was about seventy-five. That memoir is valued not just as the story of one man’s life, but as a rich firsthand account of 16th-century urban society, law, religion, and politics.
Sastrow died on February 7, 1603. Today, his reputation rests largely on the historical importance of his life writing, which gives modern readers a rare, personal view of the world of Lutheran Germany.