astic life against what could be very heavy odds. When kings, nobles, or bishops wished to found or reform a monastery they generally turned to another one, attracted by the renown of the institution or particularly of its abbot. In northern Germany John of Gorze was especially active, but his influence was personal and after his death was increasingly taken over by the Burgundian monastery of Cluny, founded in 909 and favoured by an extremely impressive succession of abbots. During the eleventh century under Abbots Odilo ( 994-1049) and Hugh ( 1049-1109) the relationship between Cluny and the houses it reformed became increasingly one of affiliation, though the closeness of the bond still varied considerably; the result was a dramatic increase in the number of houses affiliated to Cluny, from thirty-eight in 998 to several hundred on Hugh's death. The importance of these affiliations lay not so much in the subjection of so many houses to Cluny--despite extensive rights over them the abbots of Cluny generally kept them on a loose reign--as in their exemption through that affiliation from the authority of their local bishops. This could be very much to the advantage of those nobles entrusted with the estates of a church, its advocates, because it substituted a distant authority for the local one with which they might be at loggerheads. At the same time it gave the monasteries a source of appeal beyond local pressures and intimidations if either advocate or bishop proved too troublesome. So far as kings were concerned Cluny was less immediately threatening. The abbots of Cluny were respectful of them, did not challenge their rights over churches within their kingdoms, and on occasion mediated between antagonistic popes and kings. Even so kings were cautious because the subordination of monasteries to a centre outside their own sphere of influence struck at the roots of their control over them.
Towards the end of the eleventh century a new and more austere form of monasticism began to exercise strong attractions. Older monasteries were closely bound to society since much of their activity had come to centre on the liturgy, and in particular on prayer for their founders, benefactors, and those who had been admitted into confraternity with them.
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