Luther's enemies frequently compared the Reformation with the plague, seeing it as a bringer of spiritual death on a terrifying scale. So far we have sought to explain why the disease proved so highly infectious over such a wide area of northern Europe. It remains to consider the stages by which the epidemic spread – the stages by which the social and political doctrines associated with the Reformation first of all succeeded in gaining such an extensive popular following, and subsequently came to be officially recognised by the secular rulers of Germany, England and Scandinavia.

THE EARLY PROPAGANDISTS

The first stage in the evolution of Lutheranism as a political ideology took the form of a propaganda campaign in which a number of Luther's closest disciples began to clarify and extend his relatively fragmentary insights by producing a series of more connected treatises on social and political life. Amongst the most influential contributors to this development were Osiander, Eberlin von Günzburg and of course Melanchthon. Osiander's most important observations on politics only appeared at the end of the 1520s, but Eberlin and Melanchthon were amongst the earliest Lutherans to discuss the political implications of the new faith. Eberlin wrote extensively on political themes, his most original contribution being a vernacular tract entitled The Fifteen Confederates, which first appeared in 1521.