ABSTRACT
DURING THE LATER Middle Ages, a number of groups and individuals increasingly criticized many aspects of western Christianity, including doctrines they judged to have no Biblical basis, institutions such as the papacy or church courts, the tax collection methods and fiscal policies of the church, the ways in which priests and higher officials were chosen, and the worldliness and morals of priests, monks, nuns, bishops, and the pope. Various measures were suggested to reform institutions, improve clerical education and behavior, and even alter basic doctrines, and occasionally these reform efforts were successful on a local level; in several instances reform movements led to dissident groups breaking with the Roman Church.
