In those days the monarchy of the Roman church was broken, and large portions of her dominions seceded to form new organizations, governed by other powers and animated by a different spirit.
[Sidenote: Antecedents of the Reformation] Other generations have seen one revolution take place at a time, the sixteenth century saw three, the Rise of Capitalism, the end of the Renaissance, and the beginning of the Reformation.

All three, interacting, modifying each other, conflicting as they sometimes did, were equally the consequences, in different fields, of antecedent changes in man's circumstances.

All life is an adaptation to environment; and thus from every alteration in the conditions in which man lives, usually made by his discovery of new resources or of hitherto unknown natural laws, a change in his habits of life must flow.

Every revolution is but an adjustment to a fresh situation, intellectual or material, or both.
[Sidenote: Economic] Certainly, economic and psychological factors were alike operative in producing the three revolutions.

The most general economic force was the change from "natural economy" to "money economy," _i.e._ from a society in which payments were made chiefly by exchange of goods, and by services, to one in which money was both the agent of exchange and standard of value.