“On account of these and other causes the irritation and opposition to the Holy See had, on the eve of the great German schism, reached boiling point; this vexation is explained, as the _’Gravamina nationis Germanicæ_’ clearly prove, by the disorders of the Curia, and still more by its unceasing demands.” “That the smouldering discontent broke into open flame was the doing of those scoffers without faith or conscience, such as the Humanists, who persisted in pouring on the fire the oil of their sophistries.”[106] The Catholic historian from whom these words are borrowed rightly draws attention to the “mistaken policy” entered on by Luther’s followers when they attacked the hierarchical order on account of the disorders rampant in the life and administration of the Church. The success of their “mistaken policy” was a “speaking proof of the coarseness, blindness and passion of the German people at that time,” but in its practical results their policy helped to bring about an ever-to-be-regretted alteration and to open a yawning chasm which still exists to-day. “That the vexation was not altogether without cause no honest historian can deny, whatever his enthusiasm for the Catholic Church,” for “the action of Churchmen, whether belonging to the hierarchy or to the regular or secular clergy, cannot be misunderstood. Throughout the whole of Christendom, and particularly in Germany, the general state of things was deplorable.... Even though the evils of the waning Middle Ages may have been, and still continue to be, grossly exaggerated by Protestants, and though in the fifteenth century we see many cheering examples and some partially successful attempts at reform, yet there still remains enough foulness to account psychologically for the falling away.”[107] And yet the disorders in matters ecclesiastical in Germany would not have entailed the sad consequences they did had they not been accompanied by a great number of social evils, especially the intense discontent of the lower classes with their position and a hostile jealousy of the laity against the privileges and possessions of the clergy. Savage outbreaks of rebellion against the old traditional order of things were of frequent occurrence. In many localities the peasants were in arms against their princes and masters for the improvement of their conditions; the knights and the nobility, to say nothing of the cities, gave themselves up to the spirit of aggrandisement referred to above. It was just this spirit of unrest and discontent of which the coming mighty movement of intellectual and religious reform was to avail itself.