<P> The impetus for the reforms lay in abuses thought to be a result of secular interference in the monasteries and of the Church's tight integration with the feudal and manorial systems . Since a Benedictine monastery required land, it needed the patronage of a local lord . However, the lord would often demand rights and assert prerogatives that interfered with the operation of the monastery . Patrons normally retained a proprietary interest and expected to install their kinsmen as abbots . Local aristocrats often established churches, monasteries, and convents that they then considered as family property, taking revenues from them, and leaving the monks that remained subsisting in poverty . </P> <P> Some monasteries were established by feudal lords with the intention of retiring there at some point . The Benedictine Rule, in these monasteries, was modified to schedule matins when it would not interrupt sleep, and expanded the vegetarian diet . Monks in these houses wore richer, warmer clothing and were free to disregard the rules pertaining to fasting . The Cluny reform was an attempt to remedy these practices in the hope that a more independent abbot would better enforce the Rule of Saint Benedict . </P> <P> William I, Duke of Aquitaine (935 - 963) had acquired a piece of land in Burgundy . In 910 he founded Cluny Abbey and asked Abbot Berno of Baume Abbey to preside . The Abbot of Cluny retained authority over the daughter houses his order founded . By the twelfth century the Congregation of Cluny included more than a thousand monasteries . </P> <P> Berno had established St. Peter's monastery at Gigny and Baume Abbey on the rule as interpreted by Benedict of Aniane, who had sought to restore the primitive strictness of the monastic observance wherever it had been relaxed . The rule focused on prayer, silence, and solitude . </P>

One of the most important aspects of the cluniac reform movement was that the monastery at cluny was