Christian Religious Dissent before Luther

There were several dissenting movements prior to Martin Luther that revolved around questioning Church authority and dogma. In the early Thirteenth Century, the Albigensian heresy or Catharism became especially prominent in central southern France (where the town of Albi was located). Albigensian belief was dualistic: that is, they saw the universe as a struggle between good and evil. They believed that the physical world was inherently corrupt, evil and the creation of Satan, while the …

…authorities to be burned at the stake on July 6, 1415. The followers of Jan Huss and his fellow martyr Jerome of Prague became known as the Czech Brethren and later as the Moravians. The Moravian Church survives to this day, and has had a considerable influence on the Lutheran movement. Work Cited: Rabb, Theodore K.. Origins of the Modern West. McGraw-Hill, Inc., 1993 Albigencian, The Albigencian Crusades, History.net <http://militaryhistory.about.com/cs/albigenscrusade/>