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Cluny and Gregory VII 20 CLVNY AND GBEGOBY VII Jan. Cluny and Gregory VII N the desolate years that opened the tenth century Cluny set Downloaded from I the example of religious duty and discipline and of dignity of service. Born in an age of coarse materialism, she sought to recall to men that interest in spiritual things which seemed to have been lost, and to do so by setting up an ideal in direct contradiction to the spirit rife in the world around her. The spirit of devotion http://ehr.oxfordjournals.org/ •which was the motive of her foundation she hoped to stimulate beyond her own walls.1 Thus from her origin she was zealous for monastic reform. Such indeed was necessary, for the invasions of the Normans had almost swept away monasticism in Gaul.2 Into Burgundy however the Normans had scarcely penetrated, and the position of Cluny made her a good centre for radiating reform. Protected by her gently swelling hills, she lay near one of the pilgrim routes to Eome, and close to the highways of the Saone at UB Giessen on July 14, 2015 and Bhone; while placed as she was on neutral ground, conveniently distant from and practically independent of both Teutonic emperor and Frankish king, the conditions were favourable for the mainten- ance of her principle of monastic autonomy. The character of her early abbots too, men of eminent virtue, made for her success, as also did the rule they adopted—the Benedictine modified by Benedict of Aniane and the Aachen capitularies.3 Not only so, but unlike the almost contemporary but more ascetic reform of the Italian hermits, who looked to the East for their inspiration, Cluny, essentially Western, stood for moderation. Her abbots were praised in that they afflicted their bodies only with holy and moderate fasts, thus avoiding the glory of men and spiritual pride. In the Life of Maiolus, his biographer spends a chapter in extolling the 1 Already in 931 Odo obtained for this purpose from John XI authority to take other monasteries under his direction and to receive monks from other monasteries, even against their abbots' will. 2 In the life of Odo we are told how Adhegrinus, his friend, sought in vain throughout ' Francia' for a monastery where the regular life was lived. Finally giving up the hopeless quest, he started on pilgrimage for Rome, to stumble by chance on the little monastery of Baume in Burgundy, with Berno as abbot. Here he found what he had formerly sought for in vain, and immediately made known the joyful tidings to Odo, who joined him there: Joannes, Vita Odonis, i. 22; Migne, Patrol. Lat. cxxxiii. J Ibid. 1911 CLUNY AND GBEGOBY VII 21 mean and in condemning excess,4 while in the same way one of the chief virtues of Odilo is given as moderation.5 It is essential, we believe, to regard Cluny as working on purely monastic lines, and for a monastic reform. Such being her mission, she does not seem to have been especially interested in the secular church. For following the tradition of monasticism she looked upon the monk as alone fulfilling literally the words of the Gospel, and thus following a higher ideal than that of the secular clergy. In the Lives of her abbots we find office in the church regarded as involving too many worldly interests, and therefore to be shunned. Thus Maiolus, already archdeacon of Macon, and of such virtue and Downloaded from eminence that the archbishopric of Besancon was almost forcibly thrust upon him, resisted ; and despising the glory of the world he pre- ferred to enter Cluny.'1 More emphatically is this thought present • in the life of Odilo. Dedicated from childhood to the service of the church, Odilo had early been received at St. Julian's, Brioude. http://ehr.oxfordjournals.org/ His career was thus assured, for St. Julian's was a fashionable community consisting of fifty-four canons who held the rank of bishop, and where only those might enter who could prove noble birth on both sides for four generations back. To Odilo, however, the life there seemed an enjoyment of the fleshpots of Egypt, and he fled.1' Other prominent Cluniac leaders,8 serene in the consciousness of a higher calling and engrossed in their own reform, declined to be consecrated bishops. Odilo himself at UB Giessen on July 14, 2015 refused the archbishopric of Lyons notwithstanding the anger of John XIX, who reminded him of the heavy hand of Borne and recalled him to obedience by a threat.9 Twice also we find Gregory VII rebuking Hugh for lack of zeal towards the Eoman church. Grata nobis et dulcia sunt verba vestra, he wrote, sed multo uberiori delectatione nos ceperemus si vestra caritas ardentius erga Romanam ferveret ecclesiam;10 and again, Cur, frater carissime, non perpendis, non consideras in quanto periculo, in quanta miseria i Mensura ubique est laudabilts. Rebus enim in omnibus, etiam inbonis, est vilium quidquid excesserit modum : Sinus, Vila Maioli, ii. 8; Jligne, cxxxvii. 5 Jotsaldus, Vita Odilonis, i. 13 ; Migne, cxlii: id in omnibus aclionibus et imperils modum teneret. 6 Sinus, Vita Maioli, i. 12 : Ne mundi lucrum cogerelur expetere, et ad mundi gloriam, quam menle sprcverat, per saeculare negolium deleclabiliter tendere, grave pondus procellosi culminis per custodiam re/ugit humilitalis, Creuloris omnium sequena exemplum . Ha vir Dei per coelestis studii disciph'nam mundi labilem conlempsil gloriam. ' Jotsaldus, Vita Odilonis, i. 1 : Tacitus secum deliberal ul Aegyplias olios desereret. 8 For instance, Poppo of Stablo and Richard of St. Vannes. A stumbling block to them lay also in the words of St. Matthew's Gospel against the taking of an oath. Halinard of Lyons raised the same objection before accepting the archbishopric. '' Te inultum relinquere nee debemus nee possumiis: Mansi, Concilia, xix. p. 418. "> Reg. i. 62; Jaffe, BibL ii. 81. 22 CLVNY AND GREGORY VII Jan. sancta versatur ecclesia . apostolicae sedis praeceptum oboedientiam in te ut te decet, non invenit.11 This did not prevent Gregory from ending with a request for Cluny's prayers, for Cluny's intercessory merit was established, as appears from the story attributing to Odilo the official foundation of All Souls' Day. The story runs thus. A hermit living on an island in the Mediterranean Sea was accustomed to see the souls of sinners thrust by demons into the flames of a neighbour- ing mountain. Frequently however he heard the demons complain that, owing to the efficacy of the prayers of Cluny, so many of the souls went free. Therefore he sent the urgent message, Let Downloaded from Cluny be ever more and more instant in prayer; and the better to fulfil this injunction Odilo decreed that in all Cluniac monasteries the day following All Saints' Day should be set aside for prayers for the dead.12 More instructive still is the legend of Pope Benedict VIII, who after his death found himself to his surprise not enjoy- http://ehr.oxfordjournals.org/ ing the splendour of light, but confined in the shades.13 One night therefore he appeared to a friend and begged for the prayers.of Odilo and his monastery. The pope, John XIX, hearing of this petition himself forwarded it to Odilo, and soon after Benedict was able again to appear humbly and joyfully to render thanks to the abbot for release from that boundless chaos.1* The fame of this soon spread abroad and greatly increased Odilo's reputation.15 Abbot Hugh also was regarded as gifted with something of the same at UB Giessen on July 14, 2015 power, for when Stephen IX was tormented on his deathbed by the presence of the evil one, only Hugh could keep the enemy at bay.10 Since the monastery had this reputation to sustain, we need not be surprised to find little of historical value in the Lives of the early abbots. They were, with the exception of that of Odo, written for edification. They treat of what was to the greatest glory of the abbot and the greatest interest to the writer, the monastic virtues. Of the Lives, those of Odilo and of Hugh will be the most important for our subject. Before considering these, however, we must note the tradition of Cluny that, founded by a lay prince, and in her development owing much to emperor, king, and noble, she had from earliest times stood in close connexion to the temporal power. It is true that she looked to Home as head, the charter of her foundation having placed her under the direct protection of Bome, so that, differing in this from the rule laid down by St. Benedict, 11 Reg. vi. 17. >2 Vita Odilonis, ii. 13. 13 Non splendort lucis, sed poenarum ... in umbris: ibid. ii. 14. 14 Ibid. ls Ibid.: Palam conslal omnibva quantum renerabilis Odilo de individual Trinitatia gratia possit, per quem uterus mortis raptala praeda potuit evacuari. 16 Bainaldus, Vita Hugonis, 5; Jligne, clix. 1911 CLUNY AND GREGORY VII 23 Cluny had ever been theoretically free from diocesan control. This indeed was necessary for her ascendency, and for this she required the support of Rome. And Eome had early seen the possibilities of the situation, and the less notice the new moyement took of the bishop, and the greater the growing distrust of the bishop for the monk, the more Eome rejoiced. For in the checking of the over- grown power of the bishop the papacy recognised that Cluny could prove an invaluable ally. Not that the Cluniacs seem to have preached any special doctrine as to the papal power.
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