Deconstructing / Reconstructing Monastic Reform

To the monolithic conception of the "Gregorian" reform, always the same from 1046 to 1122, a much more articulated vision has been substituted which tends to highlight the specificity of the various reform proposals of individual popes during the period considered. The German historiography on Investiturstreit, which focuses on the political aspect of the history of relations between the papacy and the empire, has extended the chronology of reference at least up to the Ottonian age, highlighting the reform projects present within the imperial court, which often they also involved the papacy. In Italy this tendency clashed with the resistance of the historiographic paradigm of the "iron century" crisis, fueled by the perception of a corrupt papacy because it was at the mercy of the Roman aristocracy. Only in recent years the valorization of popes like John XV has allowed to overcome this black legend of the papacy, opening significant horizons for the study of specific projects of pontifical reform already in the tenth century. Recent studies in Italy have instead tried to observe the metamorphosis of papal reform programs in the first half of the twelfth century: for example, the two opposing popes during the schism of the Pierleoni differed only for political reasons or had also different reform projects elaborated on basis of different ecclesiologies?