The Dawn of the Reformation

Forerunners

Throughout the history of the Church there have always been those who sought to return the Church to its original purity. Some of these reformers, such as Patrick, Benedict, Francis and Dominic, have been accepted and supported by the Church authorities and encouraged in their work. Others have not.

The Waldenses

In 1176 Peter Waldo, a wealthy merchant from Lyons, became convinced that the way to heaven was through a life of poverty and service to Christ. He sold most of his possessions and gave the money to the poor as Jesus had told the rich man in Matthew 19:21. He founded a movement of both men and women who called themselves the "Poor in Spirit". He and his followers went about preaching repentance. They requested the Third Lateran Council in 1179 to recognise and license their work but the Catholic Church refused them, considering that they were simply ignorant lay people. When they continued preaching without the Church's permission, they were excommunicated. Excommunication actually brought them even more popularity and the Waldensian movement spread. During the next few centuries they were severely persecuted. In fact it was not until the middle of the 19th Century that they won toleration.

The Lollards

John Wycliffe, c1320 - 1384, was determined that the English people should have the Bible in their own language. It was unsatisfactory to him that the people should be reliant on priests, some of whom were illiterate anyway, to interpret the Bible for them. Wycliffe was well qualified for the task, being master of Balliol College, Oxford. He translated much of the Bible although the task had to be completed after his death by John Purvey and Nicholas of Hereford. Wycliffe came to hold the view that the Bible, not the Church or the Pope, is the sole authority for Christian belief. Because of this he rejected the doctrines of purgatory and transubstantiation and condemned the use of relics, pilgrimages and indulgences. He sent his followers (called Lollards) out in twos to preach the gospel but they were suppressed in 1401.

The Hussites

John Hus, c1372 - 1415, was professor of philosophy at Prague University. He had been strongly influenced by an indigenous reform movement in Bohemia. Bohemian students who had studied at Oxford took home with them the ideas of Wycliffe which confirmed those of Hus. John Hus condemned simony (the habit of buying position in the Church) and called for a reform of the priesthood. He insisted upon the right of lay people to take both bread and wine in the Eucharist. His movement, the Hussites, spread across Bohemia despite excommunication by the pope. Hus was finally condemned by the pope and burned at the stake as a heretic but his followers founded the Bohemian Brethren some years after his death. They are now known as the Moravian Brethren and were to become, in the 18 century, the flame that ignited a great revival.

Savonarola

A hundred years later a Florentine monk, Girolamo Savonarola, led a reform movement. At the time the government of the city-state had been overthrown and Savonarola became the religious leader which gave him the opportunity to reform the Church in Florence. He attacked the corruption of the Catholic Church and questioned the authority of the pope. He insisted that salvation was not dependant on submission to the Roman hierarchy. Pope Alexander VI eventually condemned Savonarola and he was imprisoned and later executed.

Others

The people named above were not alone in their work. In Northern Europe there flourished a mystical movement sometimes referred to as The Brethren of the Common Life. They emphasised the authority of the Bible, which they read regularly, prayer, meditation, religious education and personal faith. They included Jan Van Ruysbroeck (The Seven Steps of Spiritual Love), Thomas a Kempis (Imitation of Christ) and many others. They established excellent schools amongst whose students were Bucer, Erasmus and Luther.

By the beginning of the 16th Century, Catholic Europe was pent up ready for some kind of social and spiritual revolution just waiting for a spark to set off the explosive force.