Founding of Cluny Abbey
Duke William I of Aquitaine founded a Benedictine abbey at Cluny in Burgundy and placed it under the protection of the Pope alone; Cluny became the centre of a reform movement and the head of a great network of monasteries.
- Date
- between 909 and 910exact date unknown: an interval is given
- Place
- Clunytoday: Cluny, Saône-et-Loire, France · Western and Central Europe
- Participants
- William I of Aquitaine, Berno of Cluny
- Threads
- Early medieval Europe (500–1000)
- Also known as
- Cluny Abbey; Аббатство Клюни; Cluniac Reforms; Клюнийская реформа
By his foundation charter, dated 11 September in a year given as 909 or 910 in different works, William the Pious gave his villa at Cluny to the apostles Peter and Paul, appointed Berno, abbot of Baume and Gigny, as the first abbot and forbade any lay lord or bishop — even the donor’s own family — to interfere in the monastery or its property. Free elections of the abbot and direct subjection to the Holy See made Cluny unusually independent.
Under a series of long-lived abbots — Odo, Odilo, Hugh — Cluny gained the right to reform other abbeys, which became its dependent priories. The Cluniac movement renewed the strict observance of the Benedictine Rule, developed an elaborate liturgy of prayer for the dead and supported the reforming papacy of the 11th century; its third abbey church, begun in 1088, was for centuries the largest church in the West.
Connections
Related events
- Benedict of Nursia founds Monte Cassinobetween 529 and 530 · Western and Central EuropeThe Cluniac reform was a return to the strict observance of the Rule of Saint Benedict
Adjacent events in the thread
- Hungarian conquest of the Carpathian Basinbetween 894 and 895 – 907 · Western and Central Europe
- Golden Age of Bulgaria under Simeon I893 – 27 May 927 · Balkans and Anatolia
Meanwhile in the world
Other regions, within 25 years of this event
Eastern Europe
- The Pechenegs first come to the Rus’ land915
- Ibn Fadlan’s embassy to the Volga Bulgars21 June 921 – 12 May 922
- Gnezdovo inscriptionbetween 925 and 960
Balkans and Anatolia
- Golden Age of Bulgaria under Simeon I893 – 27 May 927
- Rus’–Byzantine Treaty of 9112 September 911
- Oleg’s campaign against Constantinople907
- Battle of Achelous20 August 917
Middle East and Egypt
- Great Rus’ raid on the Caspianbetween 913 and 914
The same period
Sources
- Wikipedia (English): Cluny Abbey
- Wikipedia (Russian): Клюни
- Rosenwein B. H. Rhinoceros Bound: Cluny in the Tenth Century. — Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1982.
- Pacaut M. L’Ordre de Cluny (909–1789). — Paris: Fayard, 1986.
- Wikidata: Q220301