As Europe's debt crisis gathers momentum, threatening to spin the euro-denominated world back into the Dark Ages, you might want to recall that the Edict of Worms was never enforced.
That edict was issued in May 1521 by Charles V, banning the writings of Martin Luther and labelling him a heretic and an enemy of the Holy Roman Empire, of which Charles was the head and Luther a subject.
Pope Leo X would have loved to sink his claws into the rebellious monk. If his order for Luther to be taken to Rome had not, like the edict, been ignored Luther would have landed up in the Tiber, with the others who likened 16th century Rome to Sodom and Babylon.
However, the ruler of what is now Germany refused to hand Luther over to the pope's emissaries.
That's because Luther had friends in high places - wealthy princes weary of the trade in papal indulgences that Luther had ridiculed.
Leo needed this trade to fund his new basilica, the same one from which the current pope reads out sermons at Christmas time.