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 lics, they contrived all imaginable measures to gain the superiority over them. By thousands and thousands of pamphlets they disseminated their erroneous principles, and, at the same time, they most virulently attacked and calumniated the Pope and the Catholic Clergy. Moreover, in many places crying acts of violence were committed, and people were forced by all sorts of oppression and persecution to renounce the Holy Catholic Faith.

44. The Catholics, on their part, made several attempts to restore peace to the Church, by entering into amicable discussions with their opponents; but the hatred which Luther bore to the Pope, the Head of the Church, continued implacable. To check the progress of heresy and wickedness, the Emperor Charles V. assembled in 1529 a second Diet at Spires, where a decree was issued that, until the decision of a General Council, Lutheranism should be tolerated wherever it had already been established, but should not be spread any further; that no one should be hindered from saying or hearing Mass; and that all invectives against any religion should be prohibited. The Lutherans protested