Finally, however, in spite of the great strength and the wonderful organization of the Church, it became apparent that it was no longer possible to keep all of western Europe under the sway of the pope. In the autumn of 1520, Professor Martin Luther called together the students of the University of Wittenberg, led them outside the town walls, and there burned the constitution and statutes of the mediæval Church, i.e., the canon law. In this way he publicly proclaimed and illustrated his purpose to repudiate the existing Church with many of its doctrines and practices. Its head he defied by destroying the papal bull directed against his teachings. [Sidenote: Origin of the two great religious parties in western Europe,--the Catholics and Protestants.] Other leaders, in Germany, Switzerland, England, and elsewhere, organized separate revolts; rulers decided to accept the teachings of the reformers, and used their power to promote the establishment of churches independent of the pope. In this way western Europe came to be divided into two great religious parties. The majority of its people continued to regard the pope as their religious head and to accept the institutions under which their forefathers had lived since the times of Theodosius. In general, those regions (except England) which had formed a part of the Roman empire remained Roman Catholic in their belief. On the other hand, northern Germany, a part of Switzerland, England, Scotland, and the Scandinavian countries sooner or later rejected the headship of the pope and many of the institutions and doctrines of the mediæval Church, and organized new religious institutions. The Protestants, as those who seceded from the Church of Rome were called, by no means agreed among themselves what particular system should replace the old one. They were at one, however, in ceasing to obey the pope and in proposing to revert to the early Church as their model and accepting the Bible as their sole guide.[262] [Sidenote: Revolt against the mediæval Church implied a general revolution.] To revolt against the Church was to inaugurate a fundamental revolution in many of the habits and customs of the people. It was not merely a change of religious belief, for the Church permeated every occupation and dominated every social interest. For centuries it had directed and largely controlled education, high and low. Each and every important act in the home, in the guild, in the town, was accompanied by religious ceremonies. The clergy of the Roman Catholic Church had hitherto written most of the books; they sat in the government assemblies, acted as the rulers' most trusted ministers, constituted, in short, outside of Italy, the only really educated class. Their rôle and the rôle of the Church were incomparably more important than that of any church which exists to-day. [Sidenote: The wars of religion.]