Section 6: Aspects of the Reformation (c1500–1563)

On the eve of the Reformation, pluralism -- the practice of a single clergyman or bishop holding two or more church offices (benefices) at the same time -- was one of the most visible symptoms of institutional corruption within the Catholic Church. A bishop might simultaneously control several dioceses, or a parish priest might collect income from multiple parishes he never visited. Because each office came with revenue attached to it, pluralism was financially attractive to clergy and to the noble families who often placed relatives into Church careers as a source of income rather than a vocation.

The structural problem this created was neglect of duties. An office such as a bishopric or parish came with specific pastoral obligations -- preaching, administering sacraments, supervising clergy, resolving disputes, catechizing the laity. A pluralist could not physically perform these duties in more than one place, so most offices were left to poorly paid, often poorly trained deputies while the office-holder collected the income and lived elsewhere. This is closely linked to absenteeism: many pluralists never resided in the dioceses or parishes they nominally governed at all.

The consequence for the Church's moral credibility was severe. If bishops treated their office as a source of personal income rather than a spiritual responsibility, ordinary believers had grounds to question whether the clergy were fit to guide them spiritually at all. This criticism predated Luther by decades and fed directly into the broader climate of resentment -- alongside simony (the sale of church offices) and the sale of indulgences -- that humanist critics and, later, Protestant reformers exploited. Pluralism therefore belongs to the pre-1517 background of Catholic corruption that explains why reform ideas found such fertile ground once Luther's protest began.

Absenteeism was the practice of clergy -- particularly bishops, but also parish priests -- holding office in a diocese or parish while rarely, or never, actually residing there or attending to its duties. A bishop might hold a bishopric purely for its income and prestige while living at a royal court, in Rome, or on other estates, leaving the spiritual care of the diocese to poorly paid, poorly trained deputies or simply neglected altogether. Absenteeism was closely linked to pluralism -- the holding of multiple church offices simultaneously -- since a cleric who held several benefices at once could not possibly reside in all of them. Together, these practices meant that many parishes and dioceses across Catholic Europe on the eve of the Reformation lacked consistent pastoral care, preaching, or oversight.

This mattered because it struck directly at the Church's claimed spiritual mission. If bishops and priests were meant to guide souls, administer sacraments, and model moral leadership, absenteeism showed a Church whose senior clergy often treated their offices as sources of income and status rather than pastoral responsibilities. This fed into the wider pattern of criticism -- alongside simony and the sale of indulgences -- that the Church had strayed from its original mission, and gave humanist and later Protestant critics concrete, everyday evidence of institutional neglect rather than abstract theological complaint.

Absenteeism was one of the specific abuses the Council of Trent (1545-1563) targeted directly. Convened under Pope Paul III and concluded under Pius IV, Trent reaffirmed core Catholic doctrines -- transubstantiation, the seven sacraments, salvation through faith and works -- while also introducing disciplinary reforms aimed at the practical failings that had made the Church vulnerable to criticism. Among these reforms, Trent explicitly insisted on bishops' residency in their dioceses, and pushed for the establishment of seminaries to properly train clergy, on the recognition that corruption and ignorance among the clergy had helped fuel Protestant criticism in the first place. This reform did not challenge Catholic teaching; it addressed the institutional behaviour that undermined confidence in the Church delivering that teaching.

On the eve of the Reformation, one of the most damaging criticisms levelled at the Catholic Church was simony -- the practice of buying and selling church offices, positions, and honours for money rather than awarding them on the basis of vocation, learning, or moral fitness. The term derives from Simon Magus, a figure in the Acts of the Apostles who tried to purchase spiritual power from the apostles; by the early sixteenth century, invoking the word carried an automatic charge of corruption and spiritual illegitimacy.

Simony operated at every level of the ecclesiastical hierarchy. Wealthy families could purchase bishoprics or abbacies for younger sons regardless of their theological training or genuine calling; clergy could pay for promotion to more lucrative benefices; and popes themselves distributed cardinalships and offices as instruments of political patronage. This was closely linked to pluralism (holding multiple church offices simultaneously, often without residing in or performing the duties of any of them) and absenteeism, since an office purchased as an investment was frequently treated as a source of income rather than a spiritual responsibility.

The consequence was a serious blow to the Church's moral credibility. If a bishopric or a papal office could simply be bought, then the Church's claim to spiritual authority -- that its officeholders were chosen by God's grace and served as legitimate intermediaries between believers and salvation -- looked hollow. This is what made simony such potent ammunition for critics: it was not an abstract theological quarrel but a visible, worldly transaction that ordinary believers and secular rulers alike could see and resent. Renaissance popes such as Alexander VI, Julius II, and Leo X, who were often more engaged with politics, patronage, and the arts than with pastoral leadership, were frequently cited as symbols of a Church whose upper ranks had become entangled with wealth and worldly ambition rather than devoted to spiritual guidance.

By the early sixteenth century, an indulgence was, in Catholic theology, a remission of the temporal punishment for sin -- originally granted for acts of genuine penance, pilgrimage, or charitable works. In practice, however, the papacy and local Church officials increasingly sold indulgences directly for money, presenting them as a way to shorten a soul's time in purgatory, including the souls of deceased relatives. This shift from indulgences as a spiritual reward for penitential acts to indulgences as a purchasable commodity is the essence of the abuse critics identified: the Church appeared to be monetising salvation itself.

This practice must be understood alongside the Church's broader financial pressures on the eve of the Reformation. Popes such as Alexander VI, Julius II, and Leo X pursued expensive building projects (most famously the rebuilding of St Peter's Basilica), political ambitions, and lavish patronage of the arts. Indulgence sales became a routine method for raising Church funds to meet these costs, which meant a practice with spiritual justification was, in the eyes of critics, increasingly driven by fiscal need rather than pastoral concern for believers' souls.

By the early sixteenth century, the papacy itself had become a byword for the very corruption that critics of the Catholic Church condemned. Rather than functioning primarily as the Church's spiritual head, a succession of Renaissance popes governed as Italian princes: waging wars, building dynastic fortunes, and commissioning art to project power. Alexander VI (pope 1492–1503), born Rodrigo Borgia, is the clearest example of this pattern, though he was joined in this tendency by figures such as Julius II and Leo X.

Alexander VI's pontificate was marked by open nepotism and dynastic ambition rather than pastoral concern. He used his position to advance the political and territorial interests of his own family, most notably his son Cesare Borgia, whose military campaigns to carve out Borgia-controlled territory in central Italy were financed and politically backed from the papal office itself. Alexander VI also fathered multiple children while pope, an open scandal that damaged the moral authority the papacy claimed to hold as the guardian of Christian doctrine and clerical celibacy. His court was noted for its extravagance, political intrigue, and use of the papacy's financial and diplomatic resources for family advancement rather than reform of the Church or care for the faithful.

This behaviour did not exist in isolation. It sat alongside the wider structural corruption already spreading through the Church: simony (the selling of church offices), pluralism (holding multiple offices simultaneously while neglecting the duties of each), and the sale of indulgences, all of which were increasingly criticized as abuses of spiritual authority for financial gain. A pope who himself modelled worldly ambition gave these lower-level abuses tacit legitimacy — reform of pluralistic bishops or money-driven indulgence sellers was unlikely to come from a papacy that itself prioritized territorial politics, patronage, and dynastic wealth over spiritual leadership.

This immense Church wealth and the visible worldliness of the papal court generated resentment among both ordinary believers and secular rulers, who increasingly questioned why an institution claiming spiritual authority behaved like a competing secular state. Humanist critics, most notably Erasmus, argued that the Church had strayed far from its original mission of spiritual guidance and salvation, urging a return to scripture rather than the elaborate rituals and political entanglements symbolized by popes such as Alexander VI. This demand for reform existed for decades before Luther, but it had not yet coalesced into a unified movement — the worldly papacy was a long-standing condition, not a sudden trigger.

Pope Julius II (1503–1513) is one of the most frequently cited examples of a Renaissance pope whose priorities lay far from spiritual leadership. This period falls before the Reformation's prescribed starting point (c1500 in the broader syllabus sense, but the Reformation itself is conventionally dated from Luther's 1517 Ninety-Five Theses), so Julius II's pontificate should be treated as essential background context that explains why the Church was so vulnerable to criticism once Luther's challenge began — not as an event within the Reformation itself.

Julius II earned the nickname "the Warrior Pope" because he personally led military campaigns to expand and defend the Papal States, at times reportedly wearing armour and directing troops in the field. His pontificate was defined by shifting political and military alliances rather than doctrinal or pastoral concerns:

• He formed the League of Cambrai (1508) with France, the Holy Roman Empire and Spain to strip Venice of territories it had seized in the Romagna, temporarily allying with foreign powers against a fellow Italian state purely for territorial gain.
• He then reversed course and formed the Holy League (1511) against France, aiming to expel French influence from Italy and consolidate papal control over central Italian territory.
• He recaptured Bologna and Perugia for the Papal States, using military force to reassert direct papal political authority over rebellious cities.
• He commissioned lavish artistic and architectural projects — including beginning the rebuilding of St Peter's Basilica and patronizing Michelangelo and Raphael — spending immense Church wealth on prestige and patronage rather than reform or charity.