The largest influence in the 16th century was Martin Luther. He did not create a new dialect; most of his work was written in the language of Upper Saxony's chancellery, which was very close to his native dialect. Due to the prestige of that language, his work was more widely accepted. He was also able to influence the lexicon, both in choice of vocabulary and semantic selections. Since so many people read his work, orthography began to stabilize and with a canonical Standard German corpus of sorts being developed, although this was largely limited to the Protestant north. Despite the religious differences between the north and south of Germany, it was the existence of Eastern Central German that prevented the initial spread of Luther's linguistic forms. This divide was overcome in the Protestant parts of Central Germany as the prestige of Luther's dialect assured the acceptance of features from Eastern Central German. The differences were further reduced, as the need for coherent written communication became paramount and Eastern Central German, now highly identified with Luther, became the linguistic medium of the north. Low German, once the first language of the region and a subject of instruction, was displaced and restricted to use in comedic theater, and even there, it was used only by important figures.
