From the Diet of Worms to the Augsburg Confession - James Aitken Wylie

marriage, in the majority of instances, with those
with whom they had previously maintained
relations of a less honorable kind. Over against
these gratifying proofs of the progress of the
movement, others of a less satisfactory character
had to be placed. The Lutheranism which had
superseded the Romanian was, in many instances,
interpreted to mean simply a release from the
obligation to pay ecclesiastical dues, and to give
attendance on church ceremonies. Nor does one
wonder that the peasants should so have regarded
it, when one recalls the spectacles of oppression
which met the eyes of the visitors in their progress:
fields abandoned and houses deserted from the
pressure of the religious imposts. From a people so
completely fleeced, and whose ignorance was as
great as their penury, the Protestant pastor could
expect only inadequate and precarious support. The
ministers eked out the miserable contributions of
their flocks by cultivating each his little patch of
land. While serving their Master in straits, if not in
poverty, they saw without a murmur the bulk of the
wealthy Popish foundations grasped by the barons,
or used by the canons and other ecclesiastics who
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