Cluny:
In Search of God's Lost Empire

Edwin Mullins

New York: Bluebridge Books, 2008. ISBN: 978-1-933-34617-5. Pp. 256

Review © 2009 Branislav L. Slantchev

If there is one medieval order that fascinates popular imagination, it is the Knights Templar. The story of their stupendous rise and dramatically abrupt end at the hands of the French crown has fueled speculation and conspiracy theories for at least two centuries. The Order is thought to have amassed property, wealth, financial influence, and political power to such an extent that it was seen as a threat to what was then the mightiest monarchy in Europe. But in the rankings of medieval orders according to wealth and influence, the astonishing Cluniacs far outstripped the Templars in spread, penetration, weight with the Holy See, historical importance, and majesty. Although almost nothing remains of their splendid abbey in Burgundy, the surviving transept shows why the Pope had St Peter's Basilica built with the express notion of exceeding this abbey in size. This was the place that set the tone for religious discourse, and although it lost the fight with the pugnacious Cistercians, it nevertheless managed to patronize the flowering of beautiful music and incredible Romanesque art in service of religion.

The abbey had humble beginnings when St Berno acquired a land grant from Duke William of Acquitaine around 910. What Berno got, however, was much more than a right to found an abbey. He also got the new foundation exempt from taxes in perpetuity, and, quite remarkably, free of any secular or ecclesiastical control—the abbey was answerable solely to the Pope. Although William endowed the new foundation well to assuage his guilty conscience (for murder), no one could have foreseen that within a century this Benedictine abbey would control over 1,500 daughter houses, with their countless properties, and would be regularly endowed by kings (especially from Spain). Mullins traces the colorful history of the autocratic abbey whose wealth allowed it to hire workers to replace the monks, freeing them from manual labor and allowing them to focus on book copying, singing, and, of course, perfecting the elaborate Cluniac liturgy (or, to wallow in unholy opulence according to critics), and its famous abbots whose far-flung influence allowed them to consort with kings, be confidants to popes, and arbiters of European affairs in their role as mediators.

Despite its unfortunately bombastic subtitle, Mullins' book does a creditable job of presenting a coherent historical narrative. Although he does not shy away from the less glamorous episodes in this story, he rightly focuses on the abbey's glories. First, of course, are the men who built it, St Berno, St Hugh (under whom the abbey reached its apogee), and Peter the Venerable (who is among its most sympathetic rulers). Peter is famous for his insistence that Christians should study Islam, and his tolerant (for the times) call spurred translations from Arabic that would enrich the European world, not the least with the forgotten legacy of the Greeks whose works had all but disappeared in Europe but had survived in Arabic translations. He is also well-known for his defense of Abelard who stood for rationality against the mysticism of St Bernard of Clairvaux. Peter, unfortunately, lost the battle with Bernard and religious practice would revert to the unadorned architecture of the Cistercians, at least until it would be displaced by Renaissance and the exuberant Baroque. It was Peter's vision of the Church that would triumph in the long run.

Mullins also spends time on the artistic and musical achievements of the Cluniacs. These are the sections of the book that could have seen greater emphasis. I, for one, would have dearly loved to see photos of the surviving works of art that Mullins describes (e.g., the tympanum from the Vezelay Abbey that is modeled on the Cluniac lost original, or the surviving carved capitals). I would have also liked to see more discussion of the Cluniac library. It would have been nice to see some reconstructions of Cluny III in more detail, and examples of the liturgy. Maps with the most important daughter houses would have been a welcome addition for those of us who like to visit these places.

Another weakness with the book is that it spends far too little time on the Abbey's decline. There is no analysis of the reasons behind it except that grants slowed down to a trickle, management was incompetent, and the daughter houses became rebellious. I would have liked more history here: how the emergent nation-states of Europe fragmented the Order and how its allegiance to the Pope undermined its usefulness to these monarchs. The sad coup-de-grace to the long decline would come with the French Revolution, which saw the immediate suppression of the Abbey and all its dependencies in France. The great church was demolished and sold to three locals who used it as a quarry, destroying priceless works of art in the process. Today we have less than 10% of that awesome building to marvel at, and practically all of its furnishings are irretrievably lost. The Templars, for all their fabled wealth, never had a network like Cluny, never built on such a scale, and never contributed so much to history. The decline of the great Cluniac Order is a tragedy even if it never made for a gripping conspiracy theory.

June 21, 2009