<P> Protests against Rome began in earnest when Martin Luther, an Augustinian monk and professor at the university of Wittenberg, called in 1517 for a reopening of the debate on the sale of indulgences . The quick spread of discontent occurred to a large degree because of the printing press and the resulting swift movement of both ideas and documents, including the 95 Theses . Information was also widely disseminated in manuscript form, as well as by cheap prints and woodcuts amongst the poorer sections of society . </P> <P> Parallel to events in Germany, a movement began in Switzerland under the leadership of Ulrich Zwingli . These two movements quickly agreed on most issues, as the recently introduced printing press spread ideas rapidly from place to place, but some unresolved differences kept them separate . Some followers of Zwingli believed that the Reformation was too conservative, and moved independently toward more radical positions, some of which survive among modern day Anabaptists . Other Protestant movements grew up along lines of mysticism or humanism (cf . Erasmus), sometimes breaking from Rome or from the Protestants, or forming outside of the churches . </P> <P> After this first stage of the Reformation, following the excommunication of Luther and condemnation of the Reformation by the Pope, the work and writings of John Calvin were influential in establishing a loose consensus among various groups in Switzerland, Scotland, Hungary, Germany and elsewhere . </P> <P> The Reformation foundations engaged with Augustinianism . Both Luther and Calvin thought along lines linked with the theological teachings of Augustine of Hippo . The Augustinianism of the Reformers struggled against Pelagianism, a heresy that they perceived in the Catholic Church of their day . In the course of this religious upheaval, the German Peasants' War of 1524--1525 swept through the Bavarian, Thuringian and Swabian principalities, leaving scores of Catholics slaughtered at the hands of Protestant bands, including the Black Company of Florian Geier, a knight from Giebelstadt who joined the peasants in the general outrage against the Catholic hierarchy . </P>

By the 1600s which parts of europe were mostly catholic which parts were mostly protestant