So the Reformation spread with amazing rapidity, first among the cities and then among the peasants of that land.

In the fifteenth century the influence of Huss and the humanists had in different ways formed channels facilitating the inrush of Lutheranism.

The unpopularity of a wealthy and indolent church predisposed the body politic to the new infection.

Danzig, that "Venice of the North," had a Lutheran preacher in 1518; while the Edict of Thorn, intended to suppress the heretics, indicates that as early as 1520 they had attracted the attention of the central government.

But this persecuting measure, followed thick and fast by others, only proved how little the tide could be stemmed by paper barriers.