The intense hatred, common alike to the smaller nobility, the burghers, and the peasants, of the ecclesiastical hierarchy, was obviously due to its ever-increasing exactions.

The chief of these were the _pallium_ or price paid to the Pope for an ecclesiastical investiture; the _annates_ or first year's revenues of a church fief; and the _tithes_ which were of two kinds, the great tithe paid in agricultural produce, and the small tithe consisting in a head of cattle.

The latter seems to have been especially obnoxious to the peasant.

The sudden increase in the sale of indulgences, like the proverbial last straw, broke down the whole system; but any other incident might have served the purpose equally well.

The prince-prelates were in some instances, at the outset, not averse to the movement; they would not have been indisposed to have converted their territories into secular fiefs of the empire.