Quote from : You Are What You Speak: Grammar Grouches, Language Laws, and the Politics of Identity Book

A contemporary Catholic opponent of Martin Luther complained, "Even tailors and shoe-makers – even women and ignorant persons, who could read but little – studied it (the German Bible) with the greatest avidity as the fountain of truth. Some committed it to memory and carried it about in their buttons. Within a few months such people deemed themselves so learned that they were not ashamed to dispute about the faith and the Gospel, not only with Catholic laymen, but even with priests and monks and Doctors of Divinity.