Ordinary people had never been more pious than shortly before the Reformation began. Traveling preachers stoked up fear with stories of witches, demons and devils. In 1487, the "Hammer of Witches" was published, further fanning the flames of terror. During plague years and famines, the number of witch trials shot up as people lived in dread of the apocalypse. They believed wars and catastrophes heralded the arrival of Judgment Day. When the Turkish army under Suleiman the Magnificent laid siege to Vienna for the first time in 1529, Christians in Europe took this as a sign that the world would soon be coming to an end.
They believed that the church was the only place where they could find salvation and protection from such threats. Pilgrimages and the worship of saints and relics experenced the peak of their popularity. At the same time, the behavior of the clergy was subject to increasing criticism. Cardinals, bishops, priests and monks preached the virtue of poverty to the people while they lived in abundance themselves. "Many, many people here are just waiting for the right man to speak out against Rome," wrote a theologian about the European Christians in 1516.
The Reformation was only a question of time.
