Fifteenth Century
Sabbath keepers in Norway drew the condemnation of a church council held in 1435:
"The archbishop and the clergy assembled in this provincial council at Bergen do decide that the keeping of Saturday must never be permitted to exist, except as granted in the church law."—Keyser's "Norske Kirkes Historie," Vol. II, p. 488.
Sixteenth Century
With the setting free of the Word of God by the Reformation, and the protest against the doctrine of papal tradition, multitudes saw that the Sunday institution was not of divine origin; while not a few went farther, recognizing the claims of God's Sabbath. Moravia was a refuge, in those early Reformation days, for many believers in the Reformed doctrines, and among these were Sabbath-keeping Christians:
WALDENSES HUNTED BY THE ARMIES OF ROME
"Destitute, afflicted, tormented;... they wandered in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth." Heb. 11:37, 38.
"Even most prominent men, as the princes of Lichtenstein, held to the observance of the true Sabbath. When persecution finally scattered them, the seeds of truth must have been sown by them in the different portions of the Continent which they visited.... We have found them [Sabbath keepers] in Bohemia. They were also known in Silesia and Poland. Likewise they were in Holland and northern Germany.... There were at this time Sabbath keepers in France,... 'among whom were M. de la Roque, who wrote in defense of the Sabbath against Bossuet, Catholic bishop of Meaux.' That Sabbatarians again appeared in England by the time of the Reformation, during the reign of Queen Elizabeth (a.d. 1533-1603), Dr. Chambers testifies in his Cyclopedia [art. 'Sabbath']."—Andrews and Conradi, "History of the Sabbath," pp. 649, 650.
In this century also, Sabbath keepers appeared in Norway, Sweden, and Finland. In 1554 King Gustavus Vasa, of Sweden, addressed a letter of remonstrance "to the common people in Finland," because so many were turning to keep the seventh day.