personal convictions might have been, their attitude had to change entirely as soon as the doctrine was adopted by the common people and when the privileges of Church and State, so closely bound together, began to be questioned by the masses. That Charles V's policy was not prompted only by his affection for the Church is shown by the fact that, a few years before, he had subjected the pope's Bull to his "placet," taken measures to restrict mortmain (which exempted Church property from taxation), and had obtained the right to designate bishops. [_ANABAPTISTS_] It must be acknowledged that, as the new doctrines spread from the aristocracy to the people, they assumed a more extreme character. The first step in this direction was taken by Lutheranism, whose attacks against dogmas were far more precise and categoric than those of the Humanists. In the Low Countries, however, Lutheranism, at the beginning of the sixteenth century, was still tolerant. It mainly affected a few nobles and a number of rich bourgeois. Church and State, according to them, were separate entities, and one could remain perfectly loyal to the prince while denying the authority of the pope. They professed, in other words, the principle of liberty of conscience, and, while preserving the right to separate themselves from the dominant Church, they did not make any attempt to enforce their theories on any unwilling converts. The first "placard" issued against them by the emperor was extremely severe in terms, since it condemned all heretics to death, but was very lightly applied. The men were to perish by the sword, the women to be buried alive and recanters to be burnt. But the Belgian bishops were unwilling to denounce the Lutherans and to deliver them to the secular arm. Influenced by his Spanish advisers, some of whom had initiated the Spanish Inquisition, Charles, in 1523, transferred the right of prosecution from the bishops to three special inquisitors enjoying full powers. The first executions were too rare to impress the public mind in an age when such spectacles were so frequent for other reasons, and the "placards," which had received the sanction of the States General, did not provoke much opposition. A new stage was reached in 1530 by the appearance of Anabaptism, which had spread from Muenster into Holland and Gelder. Melchior Hoffmann, the leader of this movement, claimed to found the kingdom of heaven by the sword. He incensed the poor people by inflammatory speeches in which he invited them to install the new regime of brotherhood on the ruins of the old world. Their triumph would be the "day of vengeance." His success among the sailors and the agricultural labourers of the North, who endured great sufferings under the new economic conditions and owing to the war with Denmark, was very rapid, and ought to have been a warning to the governing classes. The Anabaptists did not make any distinction between Church and State, like the Lutherans, neither did they