Problems of the Late Medieval Church: Origins of the Reformation

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While it is accurate to recognize the "religious uniformity" of Western civilization at the beginning of the sixteenth century, this is not to be confused with universal religious happiness. A wide range of scandals, embarrassing episodes, and corrupt practices contributed to a serious decline in confidence in the Church. The firewood for a great religious conflagration had been piling up for two centuries before Luther came along.  Luther lit the match, and the blaze roared.

 Problems within the Papacy.   The prestige of the popes declined as a result of a number of factors.  We have already discussed the questions raised in many minds about the motives behind of the calling of the later Crusades.  People began to suspect they were less about the Holy Land and more about the power of the Holy Father. That most Europeans ignored repeated papal calls for additional Crusades testifies to the declining authority of Rome.

For much of the 1300s, the popes abandoned Rome and established the papacy in a small city in southern France called Avignon.  The Avignon Captivity of the papacy undermined the prestige of the popes for several reasons.  Abandoning the "city of Peter" looked bad.  The elaborate papal palace and luxurious style of living practiced by the Avignon popes looked even worse.  The Avignon Captivity, which lasted until 1370, led to an even stranger episode for the papacy: the so-called Great Schism (split).  At the death of the pope in 1370, a group of cardinals in Avignon and a separate group of cardinals in Rome each elected popes.  From 1370 to 1417, you had at least two, and sometimes three, different men claiming to be pope. Very embarrassing.

Then there was the problem about the group of popes elected in the 1400s to early 1500s, a group of popes known to history as the "Renaissance Popes."  Even the Catholic Encyclopedia says "the popes of the Renaissance had become Italian princes among other princes, who warred and intrigued for worldly interests.  Excessive pomp, luxury, and immorality set the tone for the papal court."  Three popes who sat in the chair of St. Peter between 1490 and 1521 illustrate the point.  Alexander VI spend a fortune bribing the College of Cardinals to win his election.  He had a series of mistresses and openly acknowledge a number of illegitimate children, receiving them at the papal palace.  Pope Julius II, known to history as the "warrior pope" had a single ambition: to extend the power and territory of the Papal States in Italy.  Pope Leo X, unfortunately, occupied the papacy when Martin Luther came on the scene. He coveted the papacy for different reasons.  He used the resources of the Church to become one of the greatest patrons of the arts, spending lavishly on grand, artistic projects.  The modern historian Barbara Tuchman commented ironically that Leo X wasn't really a bad man and that he would have made a good pope "if only he had been religious."  That comment says it all about the Renaissance Popes.

  Questionable Practices.  A range of questionable or corrupt practices caused comment and scandal for the Church. Some examples:

• Indulgences.  The practice of selling indulgences for the forgiveness of sins.  This is the issue                 that first captures the attention of Martin Luther.

• Simony.  The selling of high Church offices, such as bishops and archbishops.

• Absenteeism.  The common practice of bishop absent from their dioceses, not serving the

• duties of bishop, but collecting the tithes and revenues for personal use.

• Nepotism.  The papal practice of granting high offices to family members.

  The tragedy for the Church was a leadership who ignored the problems and refused to listen to voices calling for reform.   By the time the Church begins a significant effort to reform itself in the middle of the 1500s, the Protestant Reformation was well underway and much of the population of Northern Europe had already left.

The Protestant Reformation represents one of history's more dramatic confrontations between an established institution and  rebellious ideas.  When Martin Luther challenged the Catholic Church in 1517, he set in motion a religious revolution. A consequence was that much of the northern half of Western Europe broke away from the Roman Catholic Church.  The remarkable religious uniformity that marked Western civilization for more than a thousand years was at an end.  The age of the Reformation chronologically overlaps the period of the Renaissance, and, indeed, the spirit of questioning established ideas--such an essential part of the Renaissance spirit-- played an important role in the Protestant challenge to the Catholic Church.  Martin Luther may not be a "Renaissance Man" in the sense of Michelangelo or Leonardo, but he certainly is a "man of the Renaissance."

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