Developments preceding the Reformation

In 1409 the majority of cardinals decided to over-rule the law that stated the pope was the only person to call a general council, which enabled them to elect another Pope (Alexander V) intending him to take the place of the other two. Soon all three were saying their opponents were out of order, and one even called a Crusade against another. At the council of Worms in 1417 (where they had two years earlier burnt John Huss at the stake), they elected a concurrent fourth Pope, Martin V (who immediately disposed of the Council’s authority).
In 1420 Pope Martin V (Pope 1417-1431) effectively ended the Papal Schism, and returned the papacy to Rome.

Meanwhile, Europe became disillusioned, and began voicing their criticisms giving more allegiance to their state, and to the concept of a ‘National Church’ identity.
Additionally, opposition to Papal corruption was coming from England where the English rulers were deposing clergy and confiscating the property of those who were living inappropriately.

This schism of the Papacy allowed the reformers opportunity to preach against the Churches evil and question its corrupt authority and doctrines, which they would not have had earlier without suffering the immediate threat of execution.

3. The impact of the Black Plague upon Europe.

The 14th Century witnessed a catastrophic impact upon the European Church. To date, the greatest biological disaster known to man; The Black Plague.
For centuries Europe had enjoyed a level of prosperity with the growth of European trade and industry. However, things suddenly began to change. The French had broken away from Roman Church’s rule, England’s Edward III went to war with France, and the climate began to change causing many crops to fail.
It was also at this time that saw the alignment of the planets Jupiter, Mars and Saturn, which caused many to fear the expected end of the world. Clement VI (the fourth Avignon pope) troubled by this sought the counsel of astronomers for answers.

It is believed the Plague originated in Mongolia. Mongols were dying when their glands swelled to the size of lemons and became black and festered prior to their body suffering multi-organ failure. The disease spread with the Mongol army’s advance into China, India and into the Islamic world. It spread in little time from Beijing all the way to Constantinople.

When the Mongols reached their entry to Europe via the Black Sea port of Caffa, they found too many of their troops were dying of the plague to capture the city, so catapulted their infected dead into it. Some view this as the first germ-warfare assault recorded. Whilst the plague would almost certainly have entered Europe, this act certainly hastened its spread.
Once in Europe it spread very quickly via shipping and trade, first into Sicily, Messina, then into Italy proper. The people of Messina carried a venerated statue of Mary six miles to divert the plague (with no success).
In 1348 it entered France and Spain. Within four to five years it had spread throughout Europe.
In Pope Clement’s Avignon, 11,000 were buried in a six-week period. Three hundred per day in London were dying and 50% of Paris perished. Some towns lost as much as 75% of their population.
Sometimes ships would arrive into Mediterranean ports with 90% of their crew dead.

One very significant development smote the very core of Papal rule that had remained unchanged for centuries. As a result of Priests refusing to give final rights to the dead in fear of catching the death themselves, people began to pray directly to God themselves without fear of excommunication or punishment. In fact, it was encouraged by the clergy that they actually confess one to another, including even to the woman, which was previously forbidden.

Under the instruction of his physician, Pope Clement surrounded himself with fire in an interior room believing it would protect him from the virus. He survived.
Many towns passed rules of urban reform. For example, many kicked out their prostitutes and other ungodly people from their midst. As a further precaution in an attempt to reduce infection, they demanded the dead were sealed in their coffin within the house, before being taken to burial.

Middle Age Europe’s desperate measure to appease God was seen with the rise of the Flagellants from Germany. They exhibited self-inflicted wounds from whipping processions, during 33-day pilgrimages acted out from town to town.
Flagellation had previously become an accepted form of penance in the Christian church, especially in ascetic monastic orders, and was therefore seen by many as a powerful spiritual intercessory strategy. However in a move to gain influence over the populace, the Flagellants attacked the church, criticizing it for not identifying the cause of God’s anger. They then turned their attention to find a suitable target to turn their penitential acts of frustration upon.
Through false testimony under torture the Flagellants gained confessions that Jews were poisoning the drinking wells with dead frogs, animal parts and human hearts. As a result, evil acts of vicious cruelty soon raged throughout the empire toward the seed of those who had crucified their Christ, believing “this was the reason God’s curse was falling upon all who even breathed the same corrupt air as the Jew”. To the medieval catholic, no one offended God more than “the crucifiers of Christ”.

Despite his declaration “I am no saint”, and to his credit, Clement did take measures to stop the persecution of the European Jewry, albeit without success.
By 1351, sixty major, and 150 smaller Jewish communities had been exterminated, and more than 350 separate massacres had occurred. To tolerate a Jew was perceived as a sin. In 1349 in the city of Stausberg 2000 Jews were rounded up and burnt at the stake. The frenzy soon spread into Switzerland and France. It is estimated one third of the total Jewish populations of Germany and France perished. They had become in affect, the Plague’s scapegoat.
The Flagellants, whist initially praised as hero intercessors, were finally rejected as heretics when corruption and robbery eventually dominated their mission.

Between 1050-1648, Jews were expelled at regular occurrence from many countries including England, France, Hungary, Portugal, Spain, Lithuania, Ukraine and Germany by the arm of the Catholic Church.
In 1349 Poland’s King Kazimiers (the Great) invited Jews to the protection of his country. Many traveled there to safety (something that would repeat itself 600 years later, pre WWII).
Kazimiers safety lasted 300yrs.
Between 1648-1655 The Ukrainian Cossack Bohdan Chmielnicki led an army to massacre Polish gentry and Jewry. Taking advantage of the opportunity, the Roman Catholics sided with the Eastern Orthodox Church and joined the murderous rampage, assisting in the targeted expulsion. It was to leave a further estimated 65,000 murdered Jews.
It was not until the 20th Century, in 1965, that Vatican II revised Catholic policy conceding the Jews legitimacy to continue as a religion, and exonerated them for the murder of Christ.

Between 1347 and 1350 it is estimated that the Black Plague claimed nearly half of the known world. The affect of loosing 15 million people changed the world, industry and the way people thought.
This had a dramatic affect on the Church.
People prayed for themselves, and confessed to each other for the first time in perhaps 900 years, which created good soil for the early Reformers to sow the truth of Gods word once more.
Industry changed due to the lack of laborers, which saw the printing press invented. Whilst food was now in abundance and wages rose, many of the upper class had to fend for themselves for the first time.
Death and destruction had become a common sight for the new generation growing up, which hardened many hearts toward God. Images of death were soon to be seen dominating much of the art during the Renaissance (picture).

4. The spiritual impact of the early Reformers.

As early as the late 12th C Peter Waldo 1150-1218 (picture) who translated part of the bible into French, had strongly attacked the Church’s wealth, abuse, and its clergy’s worldliness. His followers, the Waldenses, believed in the right of religious liberty and proclaimed the bible as the final authority for belief and practice. They campaigned that everyone should have the bible in his own language, and taught the dead go immediately to heaven or hell (disputing the Gregorian concept of purgatory). They rejected Roman Catholic miracles, festivals, fasts, orders, offices, transubstantiation, purgatory, and prayers to the dead as extra-biblical error.
They sent laymen into France preaching in the French tongue. The Pope vehemently forbade their work, but they refused to heed.

Beginning in 1184 the Waldenses endured 400 years of severe persecution. Many were martyred, however, the movement survived. Because they and other lay reform groups based their beliefs on the Bible, the Roman Catholic Synod of Toulouse in 1299 forbade lay people to have the Bible in their own language in an attempt to deter any other such uprisings. Because Waldo departed from the Roman Church’s fold, he and his ‘back to the bible movement’ as they were called, were labeled as heretics.

Later, Francis of Assisi (1182-1286) established the Franciscans (the Friars), who claimed to own nothing materially, and restored the ministry of preaching which had been largely abandoned, in an attempt to win back the populaces minds and hearts.
The ensuing 100 years or so saw the Papacy occupied with fearful reforms formulated to combat “heretics”.
The Dominican’s, founded by Dominic (1170-1221), who had friars of their own, arose to counter-preach to, and convert, a group called the Albigensians in South France by adopting a similar poverty life style. The Albigensians were a Gnostic sect.

However, their mission was soon to be extended when Innocent issued a seven-year crusade against heretical groups during his ‘get tough’ policy. Because of the Dominican’s superior training in theology, and their supposed freedom from worldly ambition, they became instrumental in carrying out interrogations under Innocent’s instructions.
Later, Dominic surmounted a proposal to prohibit the formation of any new religious group to combat the heretics. In support of this, Pope Gregory IX in 1233 established a system of “legal investigation” (initially in Albigensian centers) and put its enforcement into the hands of the Dominicans. This was the birth of the Medieval Inquisition.
The Dominicans therefore became the main enforcers of the Inquisition. As many as 700,000 people were murdered during the following 100 years.

When this, and the plague had ended, the “morning star” of the Reformation, John Wycliff 1329-1384 (picture), a doctor of theology from Oxford, made a further profound impact on the people and rulers of the European States. He challenged the issue of ‘lordship’ stating “any office should be of grace, removed from sin, and that “character” was the basis of receiving office”. He boldly questioned Papal authority declaring it was ‘the principle of falsehood’, and openly criticized the sale of indulgences.
Like Peter Waldo before him, Wycliff emphasized apostolic poverty and rebuked rich Church leadership. It was Wycliff who for the first time (using Scripture), challenged Augustine’s and Gregory’s doctrine of transubstantiation, and claimed all men had the right to read scripture for themselves in their own tongue.
He proceeded to translate the Latin Vulgate into English. Albeit his translation was literal, hard to read, and not coherent with the common tongue, however, he established an order of itinerant preachers called the Lollards to teach his translation.
It was also Wycliff’s influence that introduced to the latter Reformation, the Byzantium concept that not everybody in society belonged to the Church, but only those who were saved “on an individual basis”.

God used the Great Papal Schism of the Babylonish Captivity to bide John Wycliff time, which would have otherwise brought swift persecution and death. It allowed him to not only survive the Pope’s assaults, but also as a result of the support he gained from government leaders, he died in peace without burning. Albeit he was labeled a heretic and several decades later after the full impact of his ministry was realised, his bones were dug up, burned, and his ashes thrown into the Swift River.

Another major pre-reformer was a man who was influenced by Wycliff, Jan (John) Huss 1373-1415 (picture), the last pre-reformer before Martin Luther.
Huss issued paintings on walls illustrating the difference between Christ and the Pope. He attacked falsely forged miracles and encouraged people to instead seek Christ in scripture. Huss was excommunicated but continued to preach to large audiences in Prague. As a result of Papal warnings going unheeded, an interdict was eventually placed on Prague. The Pope then pronounced a crusade against the city. To preserve it, Huss left and continued his influence by completing his writings elsewhere.
Huss was officially labeled a heretic and condemned to death. It is said he sung praises to God unceasingly whilst being burned at the stake as his flesh fell from his bones.

By 1500AD the medieval ideal and Papal vision of a unified European Christen kingdom under the Pope ruling from Peter’s chair was significantly waning. The Papacy’s leadership and its Holy Roman political right arm had been challenged sufficiently to gain the peoples ear during the Reformation which was to come only a few decades later.