In 1517, Martin Luther, a Roman Catholic Priest and professor at Wurttemberg University, in southeastern Germany, close to both France and Switzerland, became frustrated at what he saw going on at the upper levels of the Roman Catholic Church. Luther thought, and taught, that the Church ought to be everywhere pretty much like it was in his little German state: small, relatively poor, simple, and designed to teach simple people the simple Gospel of Jesus Christ. Wurttemberg was, at the time, only one of several hundred tiny, weak German states. In the immediate vicinity of Luther’s home turf were not only Wurttemberg, but France, several Swiss Cantons, Baden, Hollenzollern, and others. The Holy Roman Emperor technically supervised them all, and the prince of each had a vote in electing the Emperor, but in fact, there was no unified “Germany”, as we know it, today. The Church was much more the “power” than was the civil governor. And, the Church had problems.
In the previous couple of hundred years, the Church had launched the Crusades, endured the “Babylonian Captivity of the Church”, where there were as many as three Popes at a time, most not even in Rome, split with the Christian East, and set out on a terribly expensive building program in Rome, itself. A series of corrupt Popes, to finance all this, had come up with some interesting fundraising ideas. For example, they had begun selling “masses”, especially in Monasteries. That is, a local Prince or Count could endow religious services with the idea that God would be impressed with his largesse and take away some of his own (the nobleman’s) sins, at Judgement Day. This worked so well that someone came up with the idea of endowing prayers and masses to obtain forgiveness of sins committed by one’s ancestors. The whole idea of “indulgences” was one that Luther opposed, and listed among his 95 theses. He also had issues with the idea of Purgatory (which is necessary, if one is to believe in indulgences for the departed), with the veneration of saints, and many other such ideas, most of which were being used to enrich Rome at the expense of the common people.
Well, the then-sitting Pope was not impressed with Luther’s ideas, and summoned him to Rome, for a trial for heresy. Luther started there, but on the way was “detained” by a German Prince who agreed with him, and who, by the way, didn’t care for the Holy Roman Emperor who, by the way, was at that time merely a tool of the Pope. Soon, all of Germany was in an uproar over which to support: The Pope, or Luther.