Meanwhile, in ignorance of the impending blow, the greater part of Germany was preparing for the national Council or Synod at Speier. The news of the convention at Ratisbon stimulated the Reformers' zeal. The cities held meetings first at Speier and then at Ulm, where they were joined by representatives of the nobles of the Rhine districts, the Eifel, Wetterau, and Westerwald. They bound themselves to act together, and ordered preachers to confine themselves to the Gospel and the prophetic and apostolic Scriptures. These gatherings represented but a fraction of the strength of the party of doctrinal reform. The almost simultaneous adoption of Lutheranism by Prussia, Silesia, and part of Pomerania, by Brandenburg-Culmbach, and by Hesse, Brunswick-Lüne-burg, Schleswig, and Holstein proves that the proposed national Council at Speier would have commanded the allegiance of the greater part of north Germany, and might, through its adherents in great cities like Strassburg, Augsburg, and Ulm, have swept even the south within the net of a national revolt from Rome. That consummation was postponed by the united action of Charles, of Clement, and of the Princes and Bishops at Ratisbon; but the Empire was riven in twain, and while the rival parties were debating each other's destruction, the first rumblings were heard of a storm which threatened to overwhelm them both in a common ruin. The peasant, to whom scores of ballads and satires had lightly appealed as the arbiter of the situation, was coming to claim his own, and the social revolution was at hand.
