The remarkable rapidity with which ‘the Reformation’ was spreading in the years 1524, 1525 and 1526 was perturbing to the Catholics. This was also true, as Campeggio found to his undisguised alarm, of the great cities of south Germany, themselves so closely allied to their Swiss neighbours. If the Catholics did not close their ranks and defend what was left to them, there might be nothing left to defend. Pope and Emperor must find some basis for cooperation, perhaps in a free national council, perhaps in local anti-Lutheran alliances. The bishops of Austria, Bavaria and Württemberg, for example, must concert measures for the repression of heresy, and the well disposed among the princes must cooperate. A preliminary step towards this had been taken at Regensburg (28 June–8 July 1524), where Ferdinand of Austria, the Dukes of Bavaria, and Campeggio had discussed the situation with a number of south German bishops. At this ‘convention’ Eck and Fabri were the moving forces, and measures to improve the moral and intellectual conditions of the clergy were agreed. An active campaign against heresy was mounted and assurances of Imperial cooperation were readily forthcoming.

It was a characteristic challenge-and-response situation which had important repercussions in both Germany and Switzerland – in Germany where a number of princes and cities explicitly disassociated themselves from the Regensburg resolutions, and south of the Rhine where the idea of summoning a similar Swiss convention was actively canvassed by Eck.