The argument was more or less as follows: the Reformation was a religious revival; religious revivals presuppose a period of decadence before them; therefore the late Middle Ages must have been religiously decadent. This argument had some logic: the reformers (like everyone else, including most churchmen) did criticize 'abuses' (the breaking of accepted rules) within the Church. However, that does not mean that the reformers rebelled against the Church because of its failings alone. Indeed, they rebelled just as fiercely against many of its ideals and its successes.
Although there were many reasons for the reformation as the humanist were concerned, the main reason for the German people was thought not be the corruption of the church but the reasoning behind the indulgence fees. The German people did not mind paying the indulgences, but what they did mind was the fact that the pope was using the money to build extravagant and expensive monasteries in Rome. The Germans felt that they were not receiving justice. They were paying huge amounts of money for a building in another country that many would never see in their life time.
Another reason for the reformation was the renaissance on Catholicism. The renaissance was important in the context of the reformation of the church because it encouraged a new intellectual outlook and a re-examination of accepted ideas. The renaissance created humanism, an intellectual movement in which some important academics became preoccupied with studying, understanding and translating original scriptures. The fresh outlook also started the basis of discussion of reform of the practices of the clergy.
Many of the problems came from the very top. The pope in Rome hardly set a fine example. In 1500 the papacy was seen as a powerful institution politically as well as spiritually. The popes were always Italian usually from well off families. The popes seem more concern in their growing wealth rather than their spiritual duties.
Further more there was more evidence of corruption filtering down through the ranks, for example:
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Simony: Priests used to sell there own benefice. This enabled them to make more money of people without the declaring it to the papacy, thus allowing them to keep all of the money rather than giving the pope a share.
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Nepotism: Where a bishop or cardinal would appoint a high ranking position to a person who was a relation rather than basing it on talent.
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Pluralism: When a bishop was head of more than one church thus not being able to make all the services but reaping the rewards of having two churches. E.g. twice the amount of money.
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Absenteeism: When a priest was unable to make services as he had other duties to attend to.
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Clerical marriages: Priests were not allowed to marry, but many did and had illegitimate children whom were maintained by being provided with good positions in the church.
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Illiteracy: When priests were unable to understand the bible, but still gave services as though they had been educated in the Old and New Testament. Consequently misleading many.
To many the church had lost its true sense of vocation and the ensuing resentment from the masses made it deem reform was inevitable.
It becomes obvious that the Reformation was only established because somebody, somewhere in the political process, very much wanted it to be. Analysing the pressures or infighting which led to the crucial corporate decision only serves to identify individuals or groups of people: it does not, of itself, explain why they wanted the Reformation so much. The crucial push for the new order came from many different sections of society: guildsmen, civic oligarchs, or landed nobles. The motives of such diverse people as the agitators for the Reformation are therefore a complex topic in themselves. No single explanation of the Reformation's appeal should be expected to fit even most--let alone all--instances. The many and varied explanations devised by many historians to explain why the Reformation attracted lay support resolve themselves into three basic groups:
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Political and material explanations: These suggest that the Reformation was adopted because it justified the injustice of people in seizing greater wealth, or more power, from the riches, status, and privileges of the old Church.
- Explanations based on the Reformation's alleged appropriateness to a class, order, or constitution. These claim that the reformers' message, as perceived by the laity, seemed to 'coincide' with the world-view of classes or estates which adopted it; or that a particular form of the Reformation was specially well suited to the political experience and thinking of certain types of communities.
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Psychological and Spiritual Explanations: These look at the essential, spiritual message of the Reformers, and account for laymen's response to it in terms of psychological needs which may be supposed to exist in everyone, rather than in specialized interest groups. These offer the most far-reaching kind of argument, but also the hardest to prove; and are therefore better left until the possibilities of the others have been exhausted.
In conclusion there were many reasons why the people of Germany in the early sixteenth century were prepared to undermine the traditions of the Roman Catholic Church. The above three reasons generalise the overall motives of why so many were physically and spiritually saw what was happening to the church as wrong, but many historians forget to acknowledge the fact that raw emotion had a lot to do with it. The reformers all had one thing in common they felt betrayed by the church and angry and it is this anger that led many people to follow in the foot steps of Martin Luther.
