What must be appreciated is how common it was for indulgences to fund simony (the buying or selling of ecclesiastical privileges), as well as other clerical abuses. At the turn of the sixteenth century, indulgences were a booming industry. To give some immediate context, Raymond Peraudi, who collected funds for indulgences throughout Germany just prior to Tetzel, was able to raise more than half a million guilders (the basic monetary unit in that place) between 1486 and 1503 to support crusades.3 Throughout the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, indulgences also funded the luxurious living of
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