The hundred and fifty years before the Protestant Reformation used to be seen as a period of religious decadence. More recently, they have been understood as an era of rather anxious piety, in which the faithful purchased indulgences, went on pilgrimage, and engaged in a variety of superstitious practices to ward off the ills of a violent society. Yet the prominence of blood in the cult, prayers, art, and theological disputes characteristic of the period has been ignored.