Explore the Precursor Catholic Reformation of this artwork, Counter-Reformation.
The 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries saw a spiritual revival in Europe, incubated by the rise of preaching friars,  the standardization of the Paris Bible, lay spiritual movements (such as the devotio moderna), the examples of nascent saints such as Catherine of Bologna, Antoninus of Florence, Rita of Cascia and Catherine of Genoa,  printing, Christian humanism, an urbanized laity who could not flee the towns for monasteries,: 130  and other reasons.
A series of ecumenical councils were held with reformist agendas:Council of Constance (1415)
Council of Basel (1431)-Ferrara(1438)-Florence(1449)
Fifth Council of the Lateran (1512–1517)The kinds of positive reforms considered were not necessarily the ones that pre-occupied the Hussites (e.g., communion under both kinds, married priests) and later Protestants (e.g., indulgences, justification). Ending schism and war (especially papal war) was regarded by some prelates as the pre-condition for reformation.: 174 At times, the reform talk in the councils tended to lack enough specificity to result in an effective program—except for a tendency to follow the Observantist faction of the monastic orders (that less slackness regarding external observances would aid fervour in internal piety) or to promote a top-down ("head and body") institution-centric focus: ii  that reform needed to start at and from the Pope, or bishops, or councils, or princes, or canon law.  There was considerable support for the evangelical counsels' ideal of poverty as a way to short-circuit careerism, though John Wycliffe's doctrine of mandatory apostolic poverty was decisively rejected at the Council of Constance.
Issues such as papal nepotism and the wealth, dioscese-absenteeism, and pre-occupation with secular power of important bishops were recognized as perennial and scandalous problems. These resisted serious reform (by successive popes and councils with those bishops, unable to compromise their own interests) for centuries, causing friction as radical reformers periodically arose in response, such as Savonarola.: ch.1 In the half-century before the reformation, the phenomenon of Bishops closing down decadent monasteries or convents had become more common, as had programs to educate parish priests.: ch.1   In the half-century before the Council of Trent, various evangelical Catholic leaders had experimented with reforms that came to be associated with Protestants: for example, Guillaume Briçonnet (bishop of Meaux) in Paris, with his former teacher Jacques Lefèvre d’Etaples, had statues other than Christ removed from his churches (though not destroyed), replaced the Hail Mary with the Pater Noster prayer, and made available vernacular French versions of the Gospels and Epistles.: ch.1 Conservative and reforming parties still survived within the Catholic Church even as the Protestant Reformations spread. Protestants decisively broke from the Catholic Church in the 1520s. The two distinct dogmatic positions within the Catholic Church solidified in the 1560s.
Bible bishops humanism Christ friars Council of Constance evangelical counsel Antoninus of Florence Europe Savonarola Council of Basel Christian humanism absenteeism Council of Basel (1431)-Ferrara(1438)-Florence(1449) communion under both kinds papal nepotism ecumenical councils priests devotio moderna Rita of Cascia body Catholic Guillaume Briçonnet (bishop of Meaux) reform John Wycliffe indulgences Catherine of Bologna Fifth Council of the Lateran Florence Catholic Church priest reformist Protestant Reformation Jacques Lefèvre d’Etaples Protestant Catherine of Genoa French Reformation Paris Bible Council of Trent Protestants doctrine destroyed Pope Hussites