Why did early Europeans want church reform.

Requests for a reformation of the Roman Catholic Church can be dated back to the thirteen century, and one clear example was Hungarian theologian Jan Hus, who criticized the indulgences, an instrument used by the Church to raise money consisting on the sale of documents which supposedly erased the sins of the buyer or his living or death relatives. Also, he criticized the Crusades as they had ended up as expeditions searching for land and wealth and completely departed from any religious endeavor. After a relatively long resistance, Jan Hus was trialed and burned at the stake accused of heresy. However, the disgruntlement with the Church remained present in the minds of many Europeans who realized about the Church's secular ambitions while neglecting their spiritual duties.

Practically the same dissatisfaction with the Church concerning its corruption best represented by the sale of indulgences, the huge wealth of the high clergy which was not used to relief the poverty in Europe led to the German monk Martin Luther to openly express his dissent and write letters to the Pope requesting the reformation of the Church. As his pleas were ignored, he funded a new church based on strict principles closely adhering to the ultimate authority in doctrine according to Martin Luther: The Holy Bible, and not the Pope as the Catholic Church stated.