Cluny: Millennial Monasticism
At the turn of the Second Millennium, monasticism was the dominant form of organized religious life in Europe and the Christian East. Since the difficult days of the Fourth Century, as the Roman Empire made the tumultuous transition from pagan world power to fragmented ecclesial hegemony, monks had been a stabilizing spiritual and political force, not only preserving art and culture, but synthesizing various philosophical and cultural world views from intensely ascetical Egyptian and Irish practices, to the more moderate customs of Italy and Greece. This dynamic form of religious life also contributed significantly to the development of the new art and architecture, which rejected Classical forms even as it incorporated these forms into its own unique creative expressions.
Towering above all monastic houses in the Tenth and Eleventh centuries was Cluny. At its zenith, Cluny counted in its monastic empire more than 1,500 monasteries and influenced many more. The abbots of Cluny were advisors to Popes, Emperors and lesser nobility and for years were the most stable authority in Europe. Founded in 909 by Duke William of Aquitaine, Cluny's beginnings were inauspicious. A farm with a small chapel was the sum total of the house's initial holdings. But Duke William created a situation in the foundations Charter that would allow the community to achieve influence beyond previous imagination. First, the monastery was founded not in William's territory of Aquitaine, but in neighboring Burgundy. Second, the Charter established that, contrary to contemporary practice, Cluny would be subject only to the Pope - and not local secular or ecclesiastical authorities.
The freedom that these two factors allowed in the new foundation in the ordering of their lives and - perhaps what is most important - the selection of their abbots, cannot be overestimated. Free of the local nobility, Cluny could select men from within its community to lead and guide it. Thus, the old problem of absentee abbots of the Plan of St. Gall and the reforms of Benedict of Aniane (see earlier articles) were solved. Freedom from local ecclesiastical control was a corollary to this insofar as many local bishops were political appointees - a matter that would eventually explode into the Gregorian Reforms and in which the Cluniacs would play no small part.
On the other hand, the Popes of the tenth and eleventh centuries were anything but strong men. Constant interference from local Roman families, petty bickering, political intrigue, and military ineffectiveness all plagued the papacy at the time. The Pope was in no position to involve himself in micro managing a distant monastery. Furthermore, as conflicts between Pope and Emperor increased after the death of Emperor Otto III (1002) and his mentor Pope Sylvester II (1003) the papacy sought allies wherever they could be found - and one of these was Cluny.
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