the
successors of Clement II.

His intervention saved the papacy. For the popes nominated by him, Leo
IX. in particular, were men of high character, who exercised their
office in a loftier spirit than their corrupt predecessors. They placed
themselves at the head of the movement for ecclesiastical reform. But
was it possible for the relation between Empire and Papacy to remain
what Henry III. had made it?

The original sources of this reform movement lay far back, in the time
of the Carolingians. It has been pointed out how Charlemagne pressed the
monks into the service of his civilizing aims. We admire this; but it is
certain that he thereby alienated monasticism from its original ideals.
These, however, had far too strong a hold upon the Roman world for a
reaction against the new tendency to be long avoided. This reaction
began with the reform of Benedict of Aniane (d. 821), the aim of which
was to bring the Benedictine order back to the principles of its
original rules. In the next century the reform movement acquired a fresh
centre in the Burgundian monastery of Cluny. The energy of a succession
of distinguished abbots and the disciples whom they inspired succeeded
in bringing about the victory of the reforming ideas in the French
monasteries; once more the rule of St Benedict controlled the life of
the monks. A large number of the reformed monasteries attached
themselves to the congregation of Cluny, thus assuring the influence of
reformed monasticism upon the Church, and securing likewise its
independence of the diocesan bishops, since the abbot of Cluny was
subordinate of the pope alone. (See CLUNY; BENEDICTINES and
MONASTICISM.) At the same time that Cluny began to grow into importance,
other centres of the monastic reform movement were established in Upper
and Lower Lorraine; and before long the activity of the Cluniac monks
made itself felt in Italy. In Germany Poppo of Stavelot (d. 1048) was a
successful champion of their ideas; in England Dunstan (d. 988 as
archbishop of Canterbury) worked independently, but on similar lines.
Everywhere the object was the same: the supreme obligation of the Rule,
the renewal of discipline, and also the economic improvement of the
monasteries. The reform movement had originally no connexion with
ecclesiastical politics; but that came later when the leaders turned
their attention to the abuses prevalent among the clergy, to the
conditions obtaining in the Church in defiance