Printing was early introduced from Germany and expanded so rapidly in these years [Sidenote: 1525-55] that no less than fifty new publishing houses were erected.

As Antwerp was the most cosmopolitan of cities, so Erasmus was the most nearly the citizen of the world in that era.

The great humanist, who did so much to prepare for the Reformation, spent in his native land just those early years of its first appearance when he most favored Luther.
{240} A group to take up with the Wittenberg professor's doctrines were the Augustinians, many of whom had been in close relations with the Saxon friaries.

One of them, James Probst, had been prior of Wittenberg where he learned to know Luther well [Sidenote: 1515] and when he became prior of the convent at Antwerp he started a rousing propaganda in favor of the reform.

[Sidenote: 1518] Another Augustinian, Henry of Zuetphen, made his friary at Dordrecht the center of a Lutheran movement.