Hugh of Cluny

Hugh of Cluny (1024–1109), abbot. The eldest son of Dalmatius, count of Semur (near Autun), related to the dukes of Aquitaine and to several Burgundian noblemen, Hugh seemed destined to a notable worldly career. But he was both too studious and too clumsy as a youth to be a knight and, in defiance of his father's wishes, was professed as a monk at Cluny in c.1040. About four years later he was ordained priest. Promotion came very early, for Odilo, then abbot, appointed him as prior in 1048. By then he had become tall and handsome, able and sympathetic; his achievements revealed him as single-minded and detached, with wonderful interior order and balance.

On the death of Odilo in 1049 he was elected abbot of Cluny. Already this was a very important monastery with as many as sixty dependencies, but its expansion in Hugh's abbacy of sixty years may be gauged from the fact that at his death these dependent monasteries (with very various forms of association) numbered about 2, 000. They were situated in Italy, Spain, England, and France. Indeed the expansion of Cluny in the 11th century was comparable with that of Cíteaux in the 12th. His abbacy was also marked by the development of constitutional and administrative procedures, by the wide-spread endowments and the construction of the new and enormous church and monastery. The former, consecrated by Urban II in 1095, was the biggest in Christendom.

His influence was also very great outside the monastic Order. He became an important adviser to as many as nine popes, and Cluny was a staunch supporter of the programme of Reform initiated by Leo IX and Gregory VII. Hugh personally took part in such varied events as the condemnation of Berengarius in 1050, the reforming councils of 1055 and 1060, and was papal legate in Hungary (1051–2), Toulouse (1062 and 1068), and Spain (1073). He also mediated between pope and emperor at Canossa (1077) and set in hand the foundation of the priory of St. Pancras at Lewes (Sussex) c.1078. He also helped to initiate the first Crusade at the Council of Clermont (1095).

Few of his writings survive, but he must be recknoned as one of the most influential figures of the second half of the 11th century. He was canonized in 1120. Feast: 29 April.

Bibliography
Click here for a list of abbreviations used in this bibliography.

• AA.SS. Apr. III (1675), 641–78; A. L'Huillier, Vie de Saint Hugues (1888); N. Hunt, Cluny under Saint Hugh (1967); H. E. J. Cowdrey, The Cluniacs and the Gregorian Reform (1970); F. Barlow, ‘The Canonization and the Early Lives of Hugh I, abbot of Cluny’; Anal. Boll., xcviii (1980), 297–334