A History of Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years

by Diarmaid MacCulloch

The expansion of pilgrimage was only one symptom of profound changes in Church and society which Cluny Abbey embodied. What happened in the eleventh century was a Reformation, but unlike the more familiar Reformation of the sixteenth century, it was not a rebellion in the ranks but directed from the top, resulting in the most magnificent single structure of government which Christianity has known. Whether we approve of this achievement or not, it deserves the title of Reformation as much as the actions of Martin Luther and John Calvin, and we will not do it justice to see it, as later Protestants did, as a deliberate conspiracy by selfish clergy. The Church in the West was reacting creatively to change in the nature of power and wealth in the society to which it ministered. In the early medieval period, the chief way of gathering wealth was by warfare, yielding plunder and slaves; as we have seen, as late as the Carolingian period kings survived by giving handouts to their warlords (see p. 349). By the eleventh century this system was coming to an end. The change was symbolized by the collapse of Carolingian central authority in much of Europe over the previous century, which, whatever short-term disruptions it caused, was to lead to a new settled order in Western society. That was also encouraged by a gradual end to the wave of invasions of non-Christian peoples from north and east which had been a constant source of insecurity during the ninth and tenth centuries.

First Reformation