The Roman Catholic Church in 1500

The “rotteness” of the Roman Catholic Church was at the heart of Martin Luther’s attack on it in 1517 when he wrote the “95 Theses” thus sparking off the German Reformation. In 1500 the Roman Catholic Church was all powerful in western Europe. There was no legal alternative. The Catholic Church jealously guarded its position and anybody who was deemed to have gone against the Catholic Church was labelled a heretic and burnt at the stake.