The Reformation caused profound confusion in the German countryside. Priests and evangelists competed for the hearts and minds of peasants. They were told to stop fasting during Lent and to abandon their saints and images. The purgatory and indulgences were a sham, priests should marry, and anyone could obtain a divorce. Soon peasants questioned the authority of the Church and the power of the landowners. By the spring of 1525 southwestern and central Germany were rocked by a peasant rebellion with economic and political demands. On one estate the trouble began when the wife of a count insisted that the tenants gather wild strawberries for her on a religious holiday.