Cluny abbey's light of the world
And also
The tops
The abbey scale model, Cluny |
Hannes72 / CC-BY-SA
Founded in 910 by Guillaume of Aquitaine, the abbey became quickly prosperous. It was a real lumière du monde ("light of the world"), said pope Urban II to abbot Hugues in 1098: in the 12th century, 500 monks lived here!
Cluny order used to influence the religious, intellectual and politic life at that time, in Occident.
Cluny, at its peak, was the most important church of Christendom! Until Saint-Peter in Rome supplanted it...
And Cluny was plundered during wars of Religion, even the library was destroyed: the rich abbey was but a shadow of his former self...
Cluny was seized during the French Revolution. In September 1793, they destroyed all the tombs and sold the abbey's stones in 1798...