Monastic Reform in the 10th Century

Monastic Reform in the 10th Century

Beginning with the founding of the monastery at Cluny, there arose and developed a spirit of reform in the Church. This reform movement was led by such serious reformers and leaders like St. Romuald and the Camaldolese, St. Bruno and the Carthusians, and St. Bernard of Clairvaux and the Cistercians.

The strong influence of Cluny
A strong reform spirit had been rising in the Catholic Church beginning in the end of the ninth century. The reform movement influenced the monastic spirituality started by St. Benedict of Nursia in the West, and St. Basil in the East. This religious tide continued to rise with the founding of the monastery of Cluny in France (908-910).

The Benedictines who began Cluny reformed monasticism and went back to the original spirit of the ideal monastery - one that is independent from worldly control and influence. Cluny characterized itself by strict adherence to the rule of St. Benedict: involving severe asceticism, absolute obedience to the abbot, and special attention to liturgical worship. Under the leadership of great abbots such as Berno (909-927), Odo (927-942), Aymard (942-954), Majolus (954-994), Odilo (994-1048), Hugh (1049-1109), and Peter (1122-1156), Cluny grew into the strongest religious force in the Western Church. It became a force for good that influenced many monasteries.

New forms of monasticism and ascetic life
Cluny increased the vitality of monastic life and intensified the desire for perfection in the Christian life. Religious men and women of all classes turned to monasticism in great numbers. Not all however were attracted to the Benedictine rule and so sought the ideal life known as vita apostolica - a guide to living in poverty and voluntary renunciation. These men and women who lived the vita apostolica either became hermits in the wilderness, (either isolated or in colonies), while others became wandering preachers and penitents.

St. Romuald (951-1027) and the Camaldolese Order
One of those who lived this new spirit of monasticism was St. Romuald of Ravenna, Italy. A biographer reports of St. Romuald wanting to inspire the world with his sense of contrition and "to change the world into nothing but a hermitage".

Beginning his life as a wild youth, St. Romuald converted and tried living in a monastery at Classe. Then he lived under the school of the hermit Marinus. After this training, he entered the monastery at Cuxa. Finally, he decided to return home to Ravenna, to find his own ideal life in imitation of the ancient desert fathers. His life of solitude, prayer, zealous ardor for God, the care of souls, and preaching penitence, would eventually spellbound many of the people. His way of life and prayer attracted even great leaders such as Emperor Otto III, Adalbert of Prague, and Bruno of Querfut.

As for the numerous young people who followed St. Romuald, he founded Fonte Avellana, Vallambrosa (1012), Camaldoli (1023), and other monastic establishments. These communities contained a mixture of hermits and cenobites. But it was the five hermitages St. Romuald built at Camaldoli that soon developed into the mother house of the Camaldolese Order - a monastic order with a spirituality combining eremitical and cenobitic life under a modified Benedictine Rule. From the monasteries that St. Romuald founded came the most ardent zealots for reform in the Church. One of these ardent zealots was St. Peter Damian (1007-1072), who eventually became a doctor of the Church. St. Peter Damian was a Camaldolese.

St. Nilus the Younger
Serious reformers in the Church continued to lead this reform movement in monasticism. In Calabria, Italy, it was St. Nilus the Younger (c. 910-1004) who led the reform in that part of Europe. St. Nilus secured a grant of land from Count Gregory of Tusculum to found a Basilian monastery at Monte Cavo (Grotta Ferrata) near Rome. St. Nilus had a reputation for holiness and spiritual wisdom that attracted many to ask his spiritual advice and consolation.

St. John Gualbert and the Vallambrosans
Another serious reformer was St. John Gualbert (d. 1073) of Florence, Italy. While St. John Gualbert was at the hermitage of Camaldoli, he decided to found a monastery of his own, which he did at Vallambrosa (Vallis Umbrosa), near Fiesole. His monastery followed the primitive rule of St. Benedict. His followers came to be known as the Vallambrosans. Their school of religious life stressed charity and poverty. The Vallambrosans spread all throughout Italy, particularly in Tuscany and Lombardy.

Blessed Robert of Abrissel and Blessed Vitalis of Savigny
In the north of the Alps, we find two more serious reformers in the persons of Blessed Robert of Abrissel (c. 1047-1117), and Blessed Vitalis of Savigny (c. 1063-1122). They too lived the vita apostolica as an example to the people to whom they preached penitence and religious revival.

Blessed Robert of Abrissel first became a hermit in the Craon Forest in 1095. In the following year, he founded the La Roé monastery for the many disciples he had attracted with his holiness. He was appointed "preacher" by Pope Urban II and in 1099 founded the double monastery at Fontvrault for the many postulants that could not be accommodated by the La Roé monastery.

Blessed Vitalis of Savigny was said to have been chaplain to William the Conqueror's half-brother Count Robert of Mortain. In 1095, he became a hermit. He too, like Blessed Robert of Abrissel, attracted numerous disciples and soon founded in 1112 the Savigny Abbey on the border between Normandy and Britanny. Blessed Vitalis became known and famous for his preaching.

St. Bruno of Cologne and the Carthusians
St. Bruno of Cologne (c. 1030-1101) was the founder of the Order of Carthusians (1084). After his ordination in 1055, St. Bruno became a canon at St. Cunibert's. Then he became a professor of theology in Rheims (1056). It was at Rheims that he soon received a chancellorship through an appointment given by the Rheims archbishop, Manasses. However, political disputes and strife led him to the decision to pursue an eremitical life. So he became a hermit under Abbot St. Robert of Molesmes (who later founded Citeaux), and then moved to Grenoble with six companions in 1084. At the Grand Chartreuse, a wild mountainous area near Grenoble, St. Bruno and his companions built an oratory and individual cells, and roughly followed the Rule of St. Benedict. This became the Carthusian Order. The fame of St. Bruno of Cologne and the Carthusians spread so greatly that in 1090, St. Bruno was brought to Rome against his wishes by Pope Urban II (who was St. Bruno's student at Rheims) and made papal adviser in the reform of the clergy. St. Bruno however persuaded Pope Urban II to allow him to resume his eremitical state.

St. Bruno and his silent Carthusians were few in number but they always preserved a spirit of genuine religiosity and inner strength through prayer and introspection. The Order survived the late Middle Ages and the Reformation without any loss.

St. Robert, St. Bernard and the Cistercians
Even within the ranks of the school of Benedictine monasticism, the penetrating spirit of reform also arose. It was the Order of the Cistercians who instigated this reform.

In 1098, St. Robert of Molesmes (c. 1024-1110), together with twenty companions, founded a strict Benedictine monastery in the wilderness of Citeaux, France. Emphasized in their school of monasticism was apostolic poverty, solitude for prayer, and regular manual labor. The Cistercians rejected the traditional feudal order in the monastic sphere because of the wealth that accompanied it. And the man who would be effecting all these ideals in its fullness was St. Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153).

St. Bernard in April 1112 brought 30 companions with him to Citeaux - many of whom were his relatives. St. Bernard's influence in the monastery gave impetus and strength to expand the ideals of Citeaux. In 1115, St. Bernard moved to Clairvaux with 12 companions and established a new community. He was so active that during his lifetime he founded about 68 monasteries. And at his death, the Cistercian Order had grown to 350 monasteries. Though St. Bernard of Clairvaux is noted as a great reformer, theologian, and doctor of the Church, he is best and fondly remembered as a monk, saint, and mystic.

Conclusion
The spirit of reform in monasticism was born because of the ecclesiastical decline happening between the ninth and tenth centuries. Monasteries were becoming dependent on both worldly and spiritual magnates. But it was the monastery founded at Cluny that began the foundation for the reform of this situation. After Cluny, many serious reformers and leaders followed in its spirit. It was the influence of these great spiritual reformers that the quality of monastic life was brought to a better level. Monastic spirituality is soon to be known not so much according to the number of visible achievements (such as the founding of many monasteries), but rather by the inwardness and depth in which the life of Christ is imitated.