Extracts from Father Terry's Verbal Conscience website (http://www.frterry.org), Handouts 114, 111.

[Editor's note: The Histories of Ralph Glaber (the Bald or the Beardless), a restless monk (985-1050 A.D.), are
       among the best evidence of his time.]

1.  The beginnings of romanesque art in the eleventh century

       When the third year after the year 1000 approached, you could see churches being
       rebuilt almost everywhere, and above all in Italy and Gaul; although most of them had
       been very well constructed and did not really need this, keen rivalry moved each
       Christian community to have a more sumptuous church than that of its neighbors.
       One could have said that the very world was shaking itself, stripping off its old raiment
       and reclothing itself everywhere with a white robe of churches. At that time almost all
       the churches in the episcopal sees, those of the monasteries dedicated to all kinds of
       saints, and even the little village chapels, were rebuilt by the faithful to make them
       more beautiful.

       source: Ralph Glaber, Histories, II 1,4.
 

2.  Discoveries of Relics

       When the whole world was, as we have said, shining bright with new churches, a
       moment came in, the eighth year after the millennium of the incarnation of the Savior,
       when various indications made it possible to discover numerous relics of saints in places
       where they had long been hidden. As if they had been waiting for the moment of some
       glorious resurrection at a sign from God they were presented to the contemplation of
       the faithful and produced great comfort in their hearts. It is known that these
       discoveries first began in a city of the Gauls, at Sens, in the church of the blessed
       martyr Stephen. The archbishop of the city at that time was Lierri, who made an
       amazing discovery there of objects from the ancient cult: among other discoveries he
       is said to have set hands on a piece of Moses' staff. When news of these discoveries
       was noised abroad, innumerable faithful came, not only from the country of Gaul but
       even from all over Italy and countries beyond the sea; and it was not rare to see sick
       people return from there cured by the intercession of the saints. However, it all too
       often happens that if something begins by being useful to human beings, their guilty
       greed soon makes it a stumbling block. This city to which, as I have said, people rushed
       in crowds, amassed great riches as a result of their piety, and its inhabitants became
       excessively insolent as a result of so great a benefit.

       source: Ralph Glaber, Histories, III, 6.