European society was going through great and rapid changes during the 1400's. Three of the major institutions of the Middle Ages were being overthrown: the supreme governor ruling over the bodies of all men throughout Europe, the supreme religious leader governing the souls of men, and the dominant scholastic teaching which was subduing their minds. [1] These cataclysmic changes were hastened by Gutenberg's invention of the printing press and durable, movable type.

Even the medieval religion was undergoing changes...

Within a few decades this new technology was used to speed Luther's writings across Europe. Methods of warfare were being revolutionized by the introduction of firearms and heavy artillery. Knights in armor and castle fortifications were no longer adequate for defense. Even the medieval religion was undergoing changes, for not only Luther but many of the people felt that the Roman Catholic Church had become “an unwieldy bureaucracy, a tool of human lust for power which served the ecclesiastical leadership and not the people they were called to serve.” [2]