Question

What were indulgences, as practiced prior to the Reformation?

Answer 1

"The Catechism of the Catholic Church describes an indulgence as "a remission before God of the temporal punishment due to sins whose guilt has already been forgiven, which the faithful Christian who is duly disposed gains under certain prescribed conditions through the action of the Church which..." Wikipedia Wikimedia

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Answer 2

In the Catholic Church prior to the Reformation, indulgences were ways in which a sinner could reduce his punishment. Indulgences usually involved the performance of some good deed or the saying of a specific prayer. They were also meant to reduce the punishment that a person would receive in Purgatory.

Indulgences became problematic by the Late Middle Ages, as they had become seriously commercialized. Indulgences were one of the main complaints from Protestant theologians. However, they remained common within the Catholic Church until the 20th century.