POPULAR LITERATURE OF THE TIME In accordance with the conventional view the Reichstag at Worms was a landmark in the history of the Reformation.

This is, however, only true as regards the political side of the movement.

The popular feeling was really quite continuous, at least from 1517 to 1525.

With the latter year and the collapse of the peasant revolt a change is noticeable.

In 1525 the Reformation, as a great upstirring of the popular mind of Central Europe, in contradistinction to its character as an academic and purely political movement, reached high-water mark, and may almost be said to have exhausted itself.