In another time and/or at another place, nobody serious would have accepted Martin Luther's obvious misreading. But these were the 1500s AD and the place was Germany.
The locals had long rankled at Latins calling them barbarous. Also Germans, like Italians, lacked a state willing and able to dictate terms to clerics in their lands such as the French and English had. When a German like Otto had become king or like Ludwig even a powerful king; their tendency was to meddle in Italy and to take the Papacy, or at least like Ludwig a "Papacy". The Popes Alexander VI and Julius II were too powerful to allow that. So the Germans found themselves too strong to listen to a Roman pope but too weak to get the pope to listen to them.
The balance did change over the 1520s - in the German favour. Charles V, indeed, was able to invade Rome. But by then many Germans in his train were Protestant.
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