[Illustration: Fig. 250.--The Small Cloister of the Chartreuse at Pavia, with the cupola of the church in the background (close of the Fourteenth Century).] The two Councils of Rheims and of Mayence (1049), devoted exclusively to disciplinarian reforms, are characteristic of the state of monastic institutions at this period, just as the journey of Pope Leo IX. through France and Germany indicates the exact condition, the resources, the manners, and the habits of the religious houses. The illustrious pontiff, when visiting these houses, made them splendid presents, promised them important privileges, and instituted minute inquiries into the studies pursued within their walls. At the Abbey of Gorze, in 1149, he even went so far as to note with his own hand the nocturn responses in the “Office de Saint-Gorgon.” [Illustration: Fig. 251.--Saint-Jean des Vignes, an Abbey of Regular Canons at Soissons (1076), the entrance-gate guarded by a barbican and bastilles.--From an Engraving in vol. i. of “Architecture Monastique,” by M. Albert Lenoir.] At about the same period, William, Abbot of St. Bénigne de Dijon, re-established in several dioceses the monastic rules and studies; Sigebert, a monk in the monastery of Gemblours, came to Metz to teach the Holy Scriptures, philosophy, and the dead languages; St. William of Hirsange reformed the cloister discipline in Germany; St. Robert, Abbot of Molême, founded the Cistercian order; St. Gualbert, the order of Vallombrosa, in the Apennines; St. Bruno, the Carthusian order, which he established both in the neighbourhood of Grenoble and in Calabria. It is impossible to depict the profound disorder which reigned in the religious houses during the eleventh century, owing to the social disturbance which had followed the terrors of the year 1000. There were but a few solitary monasteries, remote from the troubles and vanities of the world, which still adhered to the rules (Fig. 251), and the monastic schools were nearly everywhere closed, and the notes of song had ceased to be heard in the churches, when, in the year 1095, the inspired voice of a monk, Peter the Hermit, summoned the Christian peoples to the Holy War. At this voice, which seemed to come down from heaven, the whole world was stirred up to deeds of energy; the young were inspired with a current of warlike and adventurous ideas which converged upon one single object--the deliverance of the holy places.