In 1520, Cardinal Wolsey (in consequence of the Bull of Leo X against Luther, issued July 17th of that year) directed the English bishops to require that all the books and writings of one Martin Luther (_cujusdam M. L._) should be delivered up by all persons possessing them, under pain of the greater excommunication.[226] In 1522, Luther brought into print his famous German version of the New Testament; he printed of this a first impression of five thousand copies and three months later a second impression of the same number. The Bull of Leo X excommunicating Luther, issued in 1520, condemned his works individually and collectively. The existing copies are ordered to be burned and all persons are prohibited, under severe penalties, from printing, selling, distributing, or possessing any of Luther’s writings. The immediate effect of this Bull was to bring about a largely increased sale throughout Germany for everything that Luther had written, and to cause also a considerable demand for these writings in other countries. Köstlin estimates that by 1521 more than one hundred impressions had been printed of the German versions of Luther’s sermons and tracts. In 1564, the restrictions upon the publishers in regard to the printing of the Lutheran version of the Bible were removed and, at the instance of the Duke of Weimer, this version became common property (_literärisches Gemeingut_) for all Germany and was formally declared free of privilege. The circulation of the Lutheran tracts was taken charge of not only by the book-pedlars and colporteurs but by a large number of travelling preachers, _Prädikanten_. These “preachers” were in part old-time priests, but in many cases laymen of varying degrees of education or of ignorance. During the troublous times of the war of the peasants, the progress of the Reformation was checked and the circulation of the Lutheran publications in the districts affected by the uprising was for the time brought to a close.