Above:  Tombs of St Maiolus and StOdilon, Abbots of Cluny, Souvigny.

Cluny, pilgrimage and saints’relics

One of the characteristics of Cluniac monasticism was veneration of relics and the promotion of pilgrimages. It was for that reason that Cluny III included an ambulatory around the outside of the choir, enabling pilgrims to venerate the abbey’s relics without disturbing the services in the choir. Amongst their most prized relics were those of Peter and Paul, patrons of the abbey, transferred to Cluny from the Vatican catacombs via the Benedictine abbey of S Paulo-fuori-le-Muri, Rome, which had passed to Cluny when its reform was entrusted to Abbot Odon in 937. In 981 they were solemnly placed in the high altar of Cluny II when the church was consecrated by Bishop Hugh of Bourges.

It was the relics of Peter and Paul which earned Cluny the reputation of being the second Rome and brought a steady stream of pilgrims. Cluny also possessed several reliquaries used in processions, of which the most important was a head reliquary of St Peter, containing parts of the bodies of St Peter and St James, a portion of the True Cross and a piece of the Virgin’s gown. Other relics possessed by Cluny and listed in the Liber Tramitis, an 11C Cluniac customary, included bones of St Stephen, Saint Cecilia, St George, St Denis and St Gregory as well as relics of St Maiolus and St Odilon, abbots of Cluny buried at Souvigny, and the bodies of St Marcellus, St Odon and St Hugh. At Cluny there were 25 altars including the high altar and the altar for the morning mass, reflecting the saints held in greatest veneration, remembered in the litany of saints chanted daily at Cluny and on behalf of the dead and dying.

These altars included ones to such monastic saints as  Benedict, Nicholas and Martin, specifically Gallican saints including Denis, Eutropius and Martial, the apostles Andrew and James, the Holy Cross, Mary Magdalen, Michael the Archangel (above the great doorway), Gabriel the Archangel (in the bell tower), Stephen, Vincent, Agatha, Sebastian, Thomas of Canterbury and Popes Marcellus and Clement,

 

 

 together with altars to Orentius, Nazarius and Celsus, Ledger and Guinefort, and the Eleven Thousand Virgins, no doubt in most cases with relics of the saints embedded in them.

Cluniac iconography

Cluniac iconography, drawn in part from Byzantine models and from the images of the Beatus of Lliebana, reflected the liturgy at Cluny in its devotion to particular saints and feast days during the liturgical year. The church itself was seen as a representation of the Heavenly Jerusalem to which the Christian soul was bound and its liturgy a foretaste of the singing of the angels. Hence at the west door there was a representation of Christ, holding the Book of Life (of which the books of the dead maintained by Cluny were a clear reflection), in a mandorla, borne aloft by angels, and surrounded by the four mystical beasts. Above, in the vault of the narthex, a keystone represented the Agnus Dei, symbolic of Christ’s sacrifice and resurrection. Passing beneath this portal meant entering the promise of God’s Kingdom, an idea which was reinforced daily in the

 

symbolism of the Mass, in which the whole community shared in the reality of Christ’s risen body and the promise of eternal life. Dominating the choir both in Cluny II and Cluny III was another representation of Christ in Majesty, this time in fresco on the vault of the apse, which would have been visible as soon as one entered the church. This representation at Cluny III comprised not only Christ himself in a mandorla surrounded by the four beasts and angels but also the 24 Elders of the Apocalypse with their viols and bowls of incense representing the prayers of God’s people and singing God’s praises.

Cluniac iconography also referred directly to the abbey’s twin patron saints, in its arms, for example, which incorporated the twin keys of St Peter and the sword of St Paul. But its most common depiction in Cluniac churches, often found in dependencies of Cluny, was the Donatio Legis, the giving of the twin charge by Christ to Peter and Paul, usually represented by the handing of keys to Peter and a book to St Paul, a reference both to the dual responsibilities of administering the sacraments and preaching on the one hand and to Peter’s and Paul’s respective roles in the church, keeping the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven and preaching the word. One of the finest representations of this theme is the apse painting at Berzé-la-Ville, a grange chapel rebuilt and decorated in St Hugh’s last years as abbot as his place of retreat, where Christ in a mandorla hands Peter and Paul, flanked by the other apostles, scrolls. Above the figure of Christ is a Lamb of God and a hand of God reaching down and almost touching Christ’s halo, while slightly below and on either side of the mandorla are two pairs of figures, one possibly representing the first two Holy Abbots of Cluny, Sts Odon and Maiolus (or, perhaps, two archbishops) and the other pair Sts Vincent and Laurence, deacons, while below to left and right are the martyrdoms of Sts Vincent and Blaise respectively and other saints associated with Cluny. Other common Cluniac themes, seen in Cluny’s dependencies, included representations of the Exaltation of the Cross, bejewelled and borne aloft by angels and the washing of the feet, reflecting the Cluniac liturgy. All of these can be found in the art of Lewes Priory and its dependent parish churches.