Ignited in 1524, the Peasants' War spread across the Germanic regions of the Holy Roman Empire until its suppression in 1525. Many factors, including changes in social and economic structures, played a role in inciting the peasants to revolt. The move from an entirely agrarian economic base during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries served as a backdrop to the development of new social classes, ones that could not and did not coincide with the traditional feudal hierarchy. Although initially the grievances cited by the peasants were essentially based on individual abuses on the part of government of the Church, this shifted as time went on, and would come to encompass these minor issues within a general dissatisfaction with the entire feudal order.
