[2] In the early 10th century, Western monasticism, which had flourished several centuries earlier with St Benedict of Nursia, was experiencing a severe decline due to unstable political and social conditions resulting from the nearly continuous Viking raids, widespread poverty and, especially, the dependence of abbeys on the local nobles who controlled all that belonged to the territories under their jurisdiction.
[3] 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.
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.
[7] 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.
[4] An increasingly rich liturgy stimulated demand for altar vessels of gold, fine tapestries and fabrics, stained glass, and polyphonic choral music to fill the Romanesque churches.
At Molesme, Robert tried to restore monastery practice to the simple and severe character of the original Rule of Saint Benedict, called "Strict Observance".