Europe was definatley changing in the 1500's, it was sort of growing up and started to discover new ways of technology and education. The printing press emerged and expanded knowledge, theories, new ideas all across Europe Protestants were to open-minded to new ideas and new ways of life, they did not want to live their lives soley for god but for themselves. Because of this, many people began moving away from religion and heavily towards hummanism. However, the Catholic churches held all power and authority, they controled the books and the knowledge, and they enforced Catholic teaching and defended the official doctrine. The proggesive minds of the protestants did not want the Catholic Church System in power, the churches regressive ways were holding the world back from expansion and evolution. The conflict was just waiting to happen, and the result was the Reformation. Protestants all across Europe revolted in an attempt to take power away from the Catholic church. The Catholic Churches would do everything they could in order to stop the Reformation. They would prohibit books which promoted protestant ways, they would find and try protestants for not believing in the communities faith, and Jesuits would take over protestant land which they claimed was their's. This was the Catholic's Counter-Reformation which would end in a Protestant north and a Catholic south. .
The Counter- Reformation, was basically an attack against all protestants to stop the Reformation and to keep the peace, power and authority within the Catholic Churches. The Catholics thought of many different ways to stop the Reformation, one thing they thought of was a prohibition on books. They prohibited all books that sided with protestant ways such as humanism. These books promoted protestant ideas such as living your life for yourself and not for god; and learning for the sake of learning, not for god. The Catholic Churches thought that if they controlled and distrubuted the right books and the right version of the bible, then they would slow the spread of protestantism and keep the people loyal to the Catholic faith.
