The Reformation's Key Audiences Are Urban Denizens

The Reformation continues to find its key audiences in urban denizens. These wealthier, more literate audiences would have plenty of reasons to be attracted to Luther's ideas. Church exemptions from city taxes, the large amounts of real estate that could be reclaimed from church offices were among them. Even indulgences themselves had created mercantile problems. They had to be paid an actual coin, resulting in huge amounts of precious species bleeding out of German lands into Italy.