Beginning of Essay
Religious and intellectual institutions underwent significant changes throughout the middle ages. In some cases, advances were made, and in others, there was a major decline. Through all of these times, the people of the middle ages learned what didn’t work, w ....

Middle of Essay
.... what one might call a moral decline. The purity and poverty which was the ideal for monks was being abandoned. Simony, the buying of clerical positions, was common, as was the practice of priests being married. In 910, Duke William of Aquataine wanted to do something to correct this problem. He founded the abbey of Cluny, which was an independent monastery. Cluny was kept independent from any kind of secular control. It sought to bring back the ideals of the original monasteries. This came to be known as the Cluniac movement. With the new relative stability in the church, cathedral schools developed. These were schools attached to cathedrals ....