The essays published in this volume cover many aspects of the history of Cluny from its foundation until the end of the twelfth century. Four of them are published here for the first time, and others appear in a revised form. The three articles on Cluny in the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth centuries constitute a brief survey of Cluny at the height of its prestige and influence. Others, such as the articles on Cluny and the Investiture Controversy and the First Crusade, deal with the influence of Cluny outside its walls. Yet others are concerned with the relations between Cluny and other orders, between Cluny and its dependent houses, and between the abbey and town of Cluny. The remainder study the internal history of the abbey, the administration, legislation, and finances of the order, and its development and problems, especially in the twelfth century.

"Founded in 910 by Duke William of Aquitaine, the abbey of Cluny rose to prominence in the eleventh century as the most influential and opulent center for monastic devotion in medieval Europe. While the twelfth century brought challenges, both internal and external, the Cluniacs showed remarkable adaptability in the changing religious climate of the high Middle Ages. Written by international experts representing a range of academic disciplines, the contributions to this volume examine the rich textual and material sources for Cluny's history, offering not only a thorough introduction to the distinctive character of Cluniac monasticism in the Middle Ages, but also the lineaments of a detailed research agenda for the next generation of historians. Contributors are: Isabelle Rosé, Steven Vanderputten, Marc Saurette, Denyse Riche, Susan Boynton, Anne Baud, Sébastien Barret, Robert Berkhofer III, Isabelle Cochelin, Michael Hänchen, Gert Melville, Eliana Magnani, Constance Bouchard, Benjamin Pohl, and Scott G. Bruce"--

"The rhinoceros, that is, any powerful man, is bound with a thong so that he may crush the clods of the valleys, that is, the oppressors of the humble."—Odo of Cluny, Vita Geraldi i.8 To the second abbot of the great monastery at Cluny, Saint Odo, tenth-century Europe was a world filled with violent men oppressing at whim the poor and the powerless. As royal authority waned, local magnates, unrestrained by any authority, divine or human, seized the opportunity to enhance their positions. Odo, along with Cluny's other founding spiritual and ideological leaders, created within the protective walls of the monastery a model of restraint, instituting in place of the instability of everyday life an interpretation of the Benedictine Rule that stressed ritual, order, and lawfulness. Such were the beginnings of the monastery that Pope Urban II in the eleventh century would call "the light of the world," the fountainhead of what would become one of the most far-reaching religious reform movements in European history. Barbara Rosenwein in Rhinoceros Bound focuses on Cluny's founding and early growth within the context of a society shaped by the needs of those set adrift in the social upheaval of the tenth century. Examining in the first chapter traditional approaches to Cluniac studies, the author reveals that historians have generally considered Cluny's eleventh-century role in church reform without analyzing the peculiar combination of forces and founders that created the Cluniac ideal and gave it its original momentum. This fundamental problem is the topic of the second chapter. She then examines how the early Cluniacs perceived the world outside the monastery and how they viewed their own world inside of it. Rosenwein concludes with a chapter on Cluny in the tenth century that combines traditional historical techniques with contemporary sociological insights. She provides in this study a significant reassessment of a period crucial to the political development of Europe, as well as a case study of institutional response to acute and political change.

The articles in this volume deal with the history of the abbey of Cluny, both its relations with the outside world and its internal organisation and spirituality, from its foundation in 910 until the end of the twelfth century. After an opening article on the early history of Cluny, relating it to previous monasticism and the monastic world of the tenth century, there are a group of articles on how monks were admitted to Cluny, how they were organised, what they did, and on the monastery’s privileges. Two articles are concerned with Cluny’s relations with the abbey of Baume and another with Cluny and the First Crusade. Finally there are a group of articles on Cluny in the twelfth century. One deals with the relations between the abbots and the increasingly assertive townsmen of Cluny and another with the confused period following the death of Peter the Venerable, when there were a series of relatively short-term abbots, and one apparent anti-abbot.

An unconventional parlor maid upends the lives of an aristocratic family in prewar England Cluny Brown refuses to know her place in society. Last week, she took herself to tea at the Ritz. Then she spent almost an entire day in bed eating oranges. So, to teach her discipline, her uncle, a plumber who has raised the orphaned girl since she was a baby, sends her into service as a parlor maid at one of England’s stately manor houses. At Friars Carmel in Devonshire, Cluny meets her employers: Sir Henry, the quintessential country squire, and Lady Carmel, who oversees the management of her home with unruffled calm. Their son, Andrew, newly returned from abroad with a Polish émigré writer friend, is certain the country is once again on the brink of war. Then there’s Andrew’s beautiful fiancée and the priggish town pharmacist. While everyone around her struggles to keep pace with a rapidly changing world, Cluny continues to be Cluny, transforming those around her with her infectious zest for life. “An entertaining story of England just before the war . . . Top drawer reading.” —Kirkus Reviews

In the summer of 972 a group of Muslim brigands based in the south of France near La Garde-Freinet abducted the abbot of Cluny as he and his entourage crossed the Alps en route from Rome to Burgundy. Ultimately, the abbot was set free, but the audacity of this abduction outraged Christian leaders and galvanized the will of local lords. Shortly thereafter, Count William of Arles marshaled an army and succeeded in wiping out the Muslim stronghold. The monks of Cluny kept this tale alive over the next century. Scott G. Bruce explores the telling and retelling of this story, focusing on the representation of Islam in each account and how that representation changed over time. The culminating figure in this study is Peter the Venerable, one of Europe's leading intellectuals and abbot of Cluny from 1122 to 1156, who commissioned Latin translations of Muslim texts such as the Qur'an. Cluny and the Muslims of La Garde-Freinet provides us with an unparalleled opportunity to examine Christian perceptions of Islam in the Crusading era.

Order and Exclusion is a rare and magnificent book of medieval history with clear relevance to today's headlines. Through the lens of the polemics of Peter the Venerable, abbot of Cluny, Dominique Iogna-Prat examines the process by which christianity transformed itself into Christendom, a powerful spiritual, social, and political system with pretensions to universality. Iogna-Prat's close examination of a set of writings central to the history of Catholicism resolves into a deeply troubling study of the origins of attitudes that continue to shape world events. Iogna-Prat writes that "versions of fundamentalism nourished by the soil of an often terrible common history" show that Christianity, Judaism, and Islam have all been capable of intolerance.Peter the Venerable's writings had a far-reaching impact: the powerful network of Clunaic houses expanded from the founding of the original monastery of Cluny to dominate Christendom by the twelfth century. This Christendom, Iogna-Prat demonstrates, defined itself in part through its increasingly bitter struggles against its perceived enemies both within and without. Peter the Venerable's all-pervasive logic pitted the "order" of the monastery and its hierarchical society against all those--heretics, Jews, Muslims, lepers--outside its bounds. In his proclamations against Jews and Muslims, Peter devised a Christian anthropology: in his view, to be non-Christian was to be non-human. The power of the Church came at a great and lasting price.

Vols. - include the Shorthorn Society's Grading register for beef Shorthorn cattle; v. - include the society's Herd book of poll shorthorns.