In every medieval century in Europe monastic life was renewed, and renewal might indeed be said to have been a characteristic of medieval monasticism. Moreover, many monasteries, in the German kingdom in particular, did not decline during the Ottonian era from the level they had reached in the Carolingian period. This chapter focusses on the impressive forces working for a renewal of monastic life in the tenth century; but in order to speak of reform monasticism in the tenth and eleventh centuries and of a movement which experienced a first wave in the tenth century. The careers of Benno and Eberhard of Einsiedeln, Einold of Gorze and Romuald all show that the eremitic monasticism of the tenth and eleventh centuries could not remain independent alongside coenobitic monasticism. However, the testament in which the first abbot of Cluny, Berno, defined his monastic inheritance dates from 927, when Abbot Odo, under whom Cluny became a centre of reform, took over the monastery.