Towards the end of the fourteenth century, the doctrines of Wicklif had made great progress in the land.

Early in the fifteenth, the executions of Huss and Jerome of Prague, produce the Bohemian rebellion.

The Pope proclaims a crusade against the Hussites.
Knights and prelates, esquires and citizens, enlist in the sacred cause, throughout Holland and its sister provinces; but many Netherlanders, who had felt the might of Ziska's arm, come back, feeling more sympathy with the heresy which they had attacked, than with the Church for which they had battled.
Meantime, the restrictions imposed by Netherland sovereigns upon clerical rights to hold or acquire property, become more stern and more general.
On the other hand, with the invention of printing, the cause of Reformation takes a colossal stride in advance.

A Bible, which, before, had cost five hundred crowns, now costs but five.

The people acquire the power of reading God's Word, or of hearing it read, for themselves.