From one point of view this insurrection was simply the last, the most extensive, and the most disastrous of those revolts which, we have already seen, had been almost chronic in Germany during the later decades of the fifteenth and in the beginning of the sixteenth century. All the social and economic causes which produced them(320) were increasingly active in 1524-1525. It is easy to show, as many Lutheran Church historians have done with elaborate care, that the Reformation under Luther had nothing in common with the sudden and unexpected revolt,—as easy as to prove that there was little in common between the “Spiritual Poverty” of Francis of Assisi and the vulgar communism of the _Brethren and Sisters of the Free Spirit_, between the doctrines of Wiclif and the gigantic labour strike headed by Wat Tyler and Priest Ball, between the teaching of Huss and the extreme Taborite fanatics. But the fact remains that the voice of Luther awoke echoes whereof he never dreamt, and that its effects cannot be measured by some changes in doctrine, or by a reformation in ecclesiastical organisation. The times of the Reformation were ripe for revolution, and the words of the bold preacher, coming when all men were restless and most men were oppressed, appealing especially to those who felt the burden heavy and the yoke galling, were followed by far-resounding reverberations. Besides, Luther’s message was democratic. It destroyed the aristocracy of the saints, it levelled the barriers between the layman and the priest, it taught the equality of all men before God, and the right of every man of faith to stand in God’s presence whatever be his rank and condition of life. He had not confined himself to preaching a new theology. His message was eminently practical. In his _Appeal to __ the Nobility of the German Nation_, Luther had voiced all the grievances of Germany, had touched upon almost all the open sores of the time, and had foretold disasters not very far off.