Above: Moissac: demons take Dives’s soul as an angel looks on helpless and his widow grieves.

Cluny, the living and the dead

The monastery of Cluny is the most renowned in the entire world for the splendour of its liturgy, the strictness of its rule, the great number of its brothers and its fidelity to the monastic tradition. It is a signal refuge for sinners. How many blows has it landed against Hell, how many souls has it gained for Christ! In this sanctuary, one has seen multitudes without number come to lay down the too heavy burdens of this world in order to place their shoulders under the gentle yoke of Christ. Men of every profession, of every rank and dignity have exchanged there the pomp and luxury of the world for the poverty and humility of monks. Here, an implacable combat without respite against the spiritual enemy daily yields palms of victory to the soldiers of Christ. For them, truly, to live is Christ, and death is gain. From all these spiritual forces a perfume spreads out, and this dwelling place which is the whole world is filled with the odour of its balsam; because the fervour of the monastic life, which in our times had grown cold, has been rekindled above all by the example of the monks of Cluny. France, Germany, Great Britain are its evidence; Spain, Italy, all Europe are further proof. Everywhere the Cluniacs found new monasteries and restore ancient ones. These ranks of monks, ranged like celestial armies, stand before God in admirable order. Amongst all the spiritual exercises they have so great a zeal for divine worship night and day that the words of the Prophet seem to have been spoken of them: “Blessed are those who dwell in thy house, O Lord! They praise you eternally”. Peter the Venerable on Cluny (De Miraculis c.1142)

The spread of the Cluniac order owed a great deal to the importance it placed on intercessory prayer and charitable almsgiving on behalf of both the living and the dead. Peter the Venerable’s De Miraculis is full of examples of the fate of those such as Bernard le Gros, a local seigneur who had long harassed the monks and who, in his last years, had renounced his evil ways to go on pilgrimage to Rome, promising if he returned to become a monk at Cluny. He died on his homeward journey and subsequently appeared to one of Cluny’s estate officials to beg the mercy of the Abbot, St Hugh, in order that he could be released from his torments. Mounted on a mule and given some respite from the cold by a fox-lined cloak which he had given to a poor man in a rare act of charity, he had apparently been spared eternal damnation

by his belated repentance and Hugh arranged for multiple alms and masses to be offered on his behalf, knowing that through these suffrages the man was set free from his torments and granted rest with the faithful.

Images such as those of the fate of Dives in the entrance porch at the Cluniac abbey of Moissac, or the series on the same subject (now largely faded) at Lewes priory’s church at Hardham, were a graphic reminder of the terrible fate which awaited the unabsolved sinner. Cluny offered the hope that such a fate could be avoided. Dedicated to Peter and Paul, the latter representing the universality of the offer of salvation, the former the keeper of the gates of the Kingdom of Heaven, Cluny appeared to offer the best hope of salvation particularly to a class of feudal lords who had good reason to fear divine retribution. Led by motives such as these many lay lords sought admission to Cluny in their last days, often already on their death beds, putting on the monastic habit and receiving the tonsure of a Cluniac monk ad succurrendam. Dying and being buried as monks such

 

men benefited from the special prayers reserved for members of the community. Others, including William and Gundrada de Warenne, sought confraternity with Cluny, promising daily remembrance at a special mass and at each office as familiars of the community while alive and special remembrances when dead.

The Cluniac necrologies list over 80,000 names of those meriting such prayers and charitable alms, either as monks or as familiars, including  several members of the de Warenne family, their names transmitted by briefs across the Channel to the Cluniac Priory of Longueville-sur-Scie, just outside Dieppe, and thence to Cluny and the other major continental Cluniac houses.  On their deaths all monks and familiars benefited from the whole office of the dead being celebrated for them for 7 days and under St Hugh a daily mass was instituted at Cluny for all the dead buried in the cemetery there, a practice adopted by other Cluniac monasteries including Lewes. In addition to the general daily remembrance and anniversaries, Cluny remembered its dead on 3 special feast days a year, principal among these being All Souls Day, inaugurated on 2 November 1030 by Odilon and the second being the Feast of St Peter and St Paul (29 June). Benedict VIII appeared in a dream shortly after his death to ask the brothers at Cluny to pray his release from punishment and then subsequently appeared in the Chapter House at Cluny to thank Odilon and his brothers for their prayers, which had been effective in securing his release. St Hugh, himself, was seen as having a special relationship with St Peter, having been installed as abbot on the feast of St Peter’s Chair (22 February) and it was Peter himself who appeared in a vision to order Hugh to rebuild the church at Cluny. Hence Hugh was summoned to the bedside of the dying Pope Stephen IX, where he apparently protected him from the devil who had come in search of his soul. The ever watchful presence of the devil waiting for a lost soul easily explains the motivation of those whose resources enabled them to seek to avoid the fires of Hell by giving away large parts of their wealth in charitable donations and  founding monasteries.