cluny iii and the pilgrimage to santiago de compostela

7/29/2019 Cluny III and the Pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela

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Cluny III and the Pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela

Author(s): O. K. WerckmeisterSource: Gesta, Vol. 27, No. 1/2, Current Studies on Cluny (1988), pp. 103-112Published by: International Center of Medieval ArtStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/766998

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Cluny III and the Pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela*O. K. WERCKMEISTERNorthwestern University

AbstractThe third abbey church at Cluny is designed ona plan whose essential features are those of themass-audience churches on the pilgrimage roads toSantiago, particularlySaint-Martinat Tours and Saint-Sernin at Toulouse. I am attemptingto show that thisadaptation was prompted by a Cluniac takeover at-tempt on the pilgrimage roads. Inthe years from 1082to 1096, while Abbot Hugh had to deal with the uncer-tainties and ultimate cessation of gold contributionsby King Alfonso VI of Leon and Castile to the abbeybudget, he embarked on an effort to increase the in-ternational scope of money contributions by expand-

ing the abbey's connections with the pilgrimage toSantiago de Compostela. Clunyacquired the abbey ofSaint-Martial at Limoges in 1063. Since 1082 AbbotHugh pursued a protracted legal and political cam-paign to take control of Saint-Sernin at Toulouse andSainte-Foy at Conques. However, Pope Urban II'sdecision at the council of Nimes in 1096 confirmingthe independence of both sanctuaries put a stop tothis scheme.The change fromthe closed-off, staggered monks'choir of Cluny II to the open ambulatory choir ofCluny III amounted to a programmatic shift in thedirection of makingthe monastic liturgyaccessible toa lay audience. It suggests that the church was de-signed either in order to serve in some way as a start-ing sanctuary for rites connected with the send-off onthe pilgrimage, or in order to attracta mass audienceto the monastic office on its own terms. However,themass appeal of the new abbey church apparentlynever materialized. Cluny's financial failure in thetwelfth century contrasts markedlywith the affluenceof the great established pilgrimagesanctuaries.

The ProblemIn 1088, Abbot Hugh of Cluny started the construc-tion of the third and last in a sequence of progressivelylarger abbey churchesreplacingone another in his growingmonastery. He designed it on a plan whose essential

features were those of the mass-audience churches destinedfor the pilgrimage roads to Santiago de Compostela,particularly those of Saint-Martin at Tours and Saint-Sernin at Toulouse (Fig. 1). Like these two pilgrimagechurches, Cluny III had four aisles, an ambulatory aroundthe main apse with five radiating chapels, two secondaryapses on either arm of each one of the two transepts, anda two-tower faCade (Fig. 2). To what extent are theseanalogies due to a similarity of liturgical functions? Why

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FIGURE 1. Comparative plans of 5 pilgrimage churches: Tours, Saint-Martin; Limoges, Saint-Martial; Conques, Saint-Foy; Toulouse, Saint-Sernin;and Santiago de Compostela (after Conant).

would the monastic community of Cluny undertake acomparatively giant building for a mass audience whennot directly involved in the pilgrimage traffic?Thus far,Cluny III has been perceived in terms of its monasticcommunity rather than its lay audience. The judgment ofConant, to whom we owe the historical and archeologicalreconstruction of the vanished monument, is representa-tive in this regard:

The Ecclesia Major, Cluny III, was the hearth of thewhole spiritual household of the Cluniac order. [...]Actually it could have held the entire membership,standing, of the Cluniac Order, had the Order ever beenGESTA XXVII/ 1 and 2 ? The International Center of Medieval Art 1988 103


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assembled. The great church must be understood inthese terms, as a focus for the devotion of the wholeOrder, and logically a more splendid building than anywhich Abbot Hugh had seen in forty years of journey-ing throughout westernEurope.1Conant's appraisal of Cluny III as the supreme symbolicmonument of medieval monasticism is aesthetically deter-mined by values of greatness and beauty. His functionaldetermination remains hypothetical, predicated on theideal projection of a monastic mass community whichnever assembled. The conclusions I propose to draw fromthe similarities between the design of Cluny III and that ofthe pilgrimage churches are more realistic in intent. I willarguethat the adaptationof the pilgrimagechurchplan waspromptedby a political scheme: a Cluniac takeoverattempt

on three of the five pilgrimageroads leadingto Santiago deCompostela.Cluny's pilgrimage connection has not been studiedthus far in architectural history, and yet it presents themost obvious opening for an art historical understandingof the new church. Aymery Picaud's pilgrims'guide con-tained in the Codex Calixtinus ends on the assertion thatthe book "is being written," that is to say, copied, readand used, "above all" in the abbey of Cluny,2 althoughthat abbey figures nowhere in the travel routes he de-scribes. And Bernard of Clairvaux criticizes the attractionof money-paying masses through the cult of relics as amajor feature of contemporary monastic, including Clu-niac, art production,3although there is no evidence of thepublic cult of the relics of any outstanding saint at theabbey itself. Both these texts are hard to understand in

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reference to the abbey of Cluny alone. Actually, theyaddress Abbot Hugh's geopolitical response to the chang-ing economic conditions under which his abbey operatedat the time when the new churchwas built.From Agricultural to Exchange Economy

Cluny's domain had been amassed mainly in the tenthcentury.4 It was subdivided into eighteen autonomousseigneuries, each of which was administered by one resi-dent monk and controlled by the prior on annual in-spection tours. Such a centralized administration of thedomain, however, considerably reduced its yield. Since thepeasanttenants'obligations were not sufficientfor the workneeded on the abbey's own holdings, paid laborers had tobe hired. The scattered lots leased out to tenants fartheraway required numerous lay officials for collecting rents.Here one of the drawbacks of medieval estate economybecame apparent: the running expenses accumulate assoon as the manor grows in extension, and the big estate isless profitable than the small one. Thus, the community ofCluny could not subsist on the yield of its domain, buthad to purchase additional food. Still more money wasneeded for charity and wages. The abbey's income had tosupport about three hundred monks living in great com-fort, and, in addition, numerous servantswho, along withtheir families, tended to them. Moreover, the abbey regu-larly provided for numerousvisitors. Still, before 1080, theproduction of the domain, food and money combined,apparentlysufficedto sustain this consumption.Between 1080 and 1120, new sources of money fromoutside its holdings fundamentally changed the abbey'sbudget towards dependency on monetary exchange. Afterthe congregation had been consolidated, every dependentabbey had to pay the mother abbey a fixed annual con-tribution which, however, may have amounted to no morethan a few pounds of silver. More substantial were thecash contributions from a few outstanding lay magnateswho in earlier times had supported Cluny with land dona-tions. Already in 1062 King Ferdinand of Le6n and Castilehad committed himself to an annual payment of 1,000mancus in gold. In 1077, his son, Alfonso VI, doubled thisamount, which far exceeded the income from Cluny'sdomain.The land donations of the tenth century, made inreturn for intercessory rites, had been fed into Cluny'sown production, as they became part of the domainexploited by the monks. The new money contributions, onthe other hand, if they were not spent outright, were notinvested in purchases of more land but in what may becalled a 'sacred economy', since it was founded on thedevelopment of the monastic liturgy towards ever moreextensive services for the lay community. The main in-vestment was the rebuilding of the abbey church. It couldnot be accomplished through the domestic labor force

absorbed by its daily tasks, or through the services of thetenants who were unaccustomed to heavy manual laborand inexperienced in professional building. The stone-cutting in the quarries, the huge transports of stone andwood for the lime ovens, the actual masonry, all requiredtrained specialists as well as supportive workers who hadto be paid or fed. Thus, purchases of food quickly in-creased in the abbey's budget. In 1122, only a quarter ofthe total food consumption came from the yield of thedomain. It has been estimated that by then Cluny wasspending 240,000 deniers on food each year. And the moreit spent, the higher food prices went up in the region,gradually decreasing the abbey's purchasing power in aninflationarymanner.The Patronage of King Alfonso VI

The mainstay of Cluny's income since 1077 was theregular contributions by King Alfonso VI of Leon andCastile.5 In that year Alfonso resumed payments anddoubled the amount of the annual census promised, in1062, by his father, Ferdinand I, but interrupted forperhaps ten years. This promissory note, however, wasbased on a self-defeating premise of Alfonso's reconquestpolicy: Islamic territorial rulers of Southern Spain whoacknowledged the king's supremacy were no longer in aposition to pay tribute once they came under attack andtheir territories became part of Alfonso's expanding king-dom. Thus, Zaragoza ceased to be tributary before 1081,Toledo in 1083 and Seville in 1086 at the latest. In 1085,the year when Alfonso conquered Toledo, he also had tointerrupt his payments to Cluny. In a letter to AbbotHugh of 1088 or 1089-90, he apologized for his past lackof payments and expressly promised support for the newchurch building already in progress. The 10,000 talentsmentioned in the letter were back payments for the fiveyears of the doubled annual census. They were againtribute money from the Islamic territorial ruler Abdallahof Granada, who in 1089 wanted therebyto secure his self-protective alliance with the Christian king against theAlmoravid Sultan Yussuf. When Alfonso assured Hugh intheir meeting at Burgos in 1090 of what he ventured to call'eternal' payment of the census, he perhaps expected fur-ther tribute payments of this kind. However, from the year1090, when the reconquista began to be reversed by theAlmoravids, until Alfonso's death in 1109, the time of hisdefeats by the Almoravid counterattacks, nothing more isknown about any of his payments to Cluny. Thus, theprincipal income on which the abbey had come to dependwas subject to political uncertainty.In the years 1077 to 1090, Abbot Hugh increased theliturgical services on behalf of King Alfonso VI twice,commensurate with the augmefted contributions whichthe latter had promised him. In the accord concerning thedoubling of the census on July 10, 1077, the king had

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stipulated a continuous, specific commemoration of him-self, his ancestors, and his descendents in the MorrowMasses of the Dead. Hugh's promise of continuing prayerfor the future members of the dynasty was in return forthe hereditarycommitment of the king's successors to thedoubled census. The association was strengthened whenthe king and the abbot met at the council of Burgos in1090. In return for Alfonso's payment of 10,000 talents,for his promise in the future to subsidize the constructionof the church, and for his confirmation of the doubledcensus ad perpetuum, Hugh promised to decree that hisown successors as abbots would celebrate the liturgicalcommemoration of the most important members of thedynasty forever. After his return,he issued a set of statuteswhich address themselves to all the present and futuremonks of Cluny. In the new abbey church built throughAlfonso's gifts, one of the principal altars was to bereserved for the recital of Masses for his salvation only.The new liturgical privilegecomplemented Alfonso's dailycommemoration in the Masses of the Dead already estab-lished in the accord of 1077.This projection of large-scale, long-distance royalpatronage into eternity was the boldest undertaking ofCluny's sacred economy. The huge new abbey churchwhich was erected on this calculation had no physicalconnection with its patron. Alfonso VI never crossed thePyrenees to visit it, and when he died he was buried in thenew 'Pantheon' of San Isidoro at Leon, the royal burialchurch of his own kingdom.6 Accordingly, the new abbeychurch contained no throne loge or any other provision forthe presence of a king, nor did it contain an area for royalburial. Indeed, no feature of the architecture or the imageryknown to us makes reference to this patronage which wasas crucial as it was remote. The relationship of the churchwith its patron was purely financial and spiritual. Was thechurch then designed as an autonomous abode for themonastic opus Dei, securely based on "eternal" royalsupport? Or was it already designed with a differentaudience in mind, as an alternative to the political riskswhich this remote patronageentailed?The Quest or a New Audience

The payments froni the Spanish kings had provided asudden, excessive, and one-sided expansion of Cluny'soutside funding resources. They were initially by no meansearmarkedfor the building of the new abbey church, andtheir interruption put the upkeep of the abbey itself injeopardy, not just that of the construction site. Thus, thegradual economic transition from agriculture to moneyexchange was soon followed by a social transition of laypatronage from aristocratic, landed, settled individuals tolower-class, mobile, coin-carryingmasses.Just in the years 1082 to 1096, while Hugh was plan-ning and building his new church and at the same time

dealing with the ups and downs of Alfonso VI's contribu-tions, he embarked on an effort to increase substantiallythe international scope of money contributions from adifferent source. To this end, he undertook a concertedeffort to expand the abbey's connection with the pilgrim-age to Santiago de Compostela. He must have realizedthat Cluny's transition from a predominantly agriculturalto a largely money-based economy was irrevocable andrequired new resources. In 1063, he had already acquiredone of the four major pilgrimage sanctuaries in France,the abbey of Saint-Martial at Limoges. Saint-Martialjoined the ranks of preeminent Cluniac abbeys-Vezelay,Saint-Gilles, Saint-Bertin, and Moissac-which were ex-empt from the demotion of their head to prior, althoughtheir abbots were appointed by the abbot of Cluny. Now,in 1082, Hugh embarked on a protracted political cam-paign to take control of two more key sanctuaries:Saint-Sernin at Toulouse and Sainte-Foy at Conques.TheAcquisition of Saint-Martial at Limoges in 1062

In 1062, Viscount Ademar of Limoges sold the abbeyof Saint-Martial to Cluny.7 Probably in the same yearKing Ferdinand I of Le6n and Castile undertook theagreement to subsidize Cluny permanently, and it is pos-sible that the proceeds of one transaction provided for theexpenses of the other. The viscount acted with the consentof Bishop Iterius of Limoges, but without that of theresident abbot, Mainardus, and his monks. In the charterof sale, he stipulated that the abbey must continue payinghim 200 solidi ainually at the time of vintage and providebread and wine on the occasion of visits by the count ofPoitiers. It appears that he saw the transfer as an eco-nomic improvementfor Saint-Martial and hence indirectlyfor himself.However, when the Cluniacs arrived to take posses-sion, Abbot Mainardusand his monks refused them entry,and the monks continued their resistance even after theabbot's death. Eventually Abbot Hugh of Cluny himself,accompanied by a detachment of his own monks, arrivedin secret and hid in the nearby church of Saint-Michel-des-Lions. Meanwhile, Viscount Ademar pretended tohold a new election of an abbot at Saint-Martial, butforced the community's own candidate, Gaufredus, out ofthe abbey, whereuponthe rest of the monks escaped. NowHugh entered the abbey, had all its residentsdetained, and

appointed as abbot a monk from Cluny, Ademar. Thefugitive monks of Saint-Martial at first did not return totheir cells but continued their resistance from the city.They finally did return, but only to rise violently againstthe Cluniac regime. Armed mercenaries of both partiesengaged in house-to-house fighting in the city. AbbotHugh of Cluny was unable to establish his authority. Onlywhen Peter Damian, the papal legate, who at this momenthappened to be at Cluny, travelled to Limoges and threat-106


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FIGURE3. Mapof thePilgrimage outes o Santiagode CompostelaafterPersonandLeroux,basedon Cohen).

ened the monks of Saint-Martial with excommunication,did they finally submit.With this violent enforcement of their acquisition, theCluniacs had annexed the key sanctuary on the ViaLemovicensis (Fig. 3),8 upgraded in 1031 by the elevationof its patron saint to apostolic status. The Via Lemo-vicensis was located to the east of what one may call the"royal" route in France, the Via Turonensis, which ledfrom Saint-Denis to Saint-Martin at Tours, two sanctu-aries firmly controlled by the Capetian kings and, accord-ingly, beyond contestation. Once the new Cluniac abbot ofSaint-Martial, Ademar, had secured his authority, hecompleted, or at least embellished, the pilgrimage churchof his abbey with an ambitious artistic program whichincluded the silver plating of the barrel vault of the nave.9Saint-Martial became the major Cluniac pilgrimage sanc-tuary in France.Abbot Hugh was, therefore, following a successfulprecedent when twenty years later, he set his sights on

major stopovers along the two other pilgrimageroads withCluniac starting sanctuaries. Conques lay on the ViaPodiensis leading from Le Puy to the Cluniac abbey ofMoissac.'o Toulouse lay on the economically crucialsouthern Via Tolosana which started at the Cluniac abbeyof Saint-Gilles."lTheImmediate Failure at Toulouse

The Cluniac penetration of Toulouse, aided by thecounts of that city, had been gradual."2 t had started in1055, when the Cluniac Abbot Durandus of Moissacbecame bishop. In 1067 Count Guilhem IV introducedCluniac monks from Moissac into the allod and villa ofSaint-Pierre-des-Cuisines. Then, around 1073, BishopIsarn, Durandus's successor, invited the monks of Moissacto revitalize the important city parish of La Daurade. Inorder to secure their independence, the canons of Saint-Sernin in the same year adopted the Augustinian rule of107


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communal life and placed themselves directly under theHoly See. Pope GregoryVII exempted them and accordedthem protection.However, the newly secured autonomy of the canonsof Saint-Sernin did not deter Hugh of Cluny, in leaguewith Count Guilhem IV and Bishop Isarn, from reachingfor this most important missing piece of their scheme. In1082, Isarn decided to subject the church to the CluniacAbbot Hunaldus of Moissac, the canons were expelled, andCluniac monks moved in. Saint-Sernin became a Cluniacpriory.However, Pope GregoryVII opposed the move. Hislegate even excommunicated the newly arrived Cluniacmonks, although Gregory VII himself subsequently liftedthe excommunication. Already in July 23, 1083, CountGuilhemIV backtracked,and somewhat later Abbot Hughof Cluny himself orderedhis monks to return the sanctuaryto the canons, who carried on with the construction oftheir pilgrimage church. In 1090, Pope Urban II renewedthe privileges granted by Gregory VII. Bishop Isarn heldout until December, 1093, when he agreed to restore toSaint-Sernin most of its possessions and burial rightspreviously usurped by the cathedral. In the same year, hedeposed Abbot Hunaldus of Moissac, who actually hadusurped his office from the rightful abbot, Ansquetil. OnMay 4, 1096, the pope visited Toulouse and on thisoccasion consecrated the chevet and transept of Saint-Sernin for the independent canons. Soon afterwards, atthe council of Nimes, Urban II confirmed Saint-Sernin'sindependenceonce again.The Protracted Struggleat Conques

Although the Via Podiensis was economically lessimportant than the other pilgrimage routes, it was ofparticular interest to Abbot Hugh since it actually ex-tended beyond Le Puy to Cluny itself.'3 Thus, it offeredthe potential of magnifyingthe attraction of his abbey as astarting sanctuary on the lines of Saint-Denis or Vezelay.'4Perhaps it is for this reason that Hugh engaged in astruggle for the abbey of Conques drawn out much longerthan in the case of Saint-Sernin.The takeover attempt at Conques was launched byway of the abbey of Figeac, which had been intermittentlyunited to that of Conques since the late ninth century.'5In1035 it split off, but Count Begon, the lord of Calmontd'Olt, subjected it to Conques by force of arms. In orderto regain independence from Conques, Figeac in turnsubjected itself to the Cluniac congregation. Since CountBegon's father, Hugh of Calmont, had become a monk atCluny, he prevailed on his son to change sides in favor ofFigeac. As a result, in 1083 or earlier, the count trans-ferred the rights he had previously grantedto the abbot ofConques to the abbot of Cluny. Protracted litigationensued.When Abbot Stephen II of Conques appealed toPope Gregory VII, the latter, in a bull of 1084, reaffirmed

the supremacy of Conques, but decided that the abbots ofboth monasteries should remain in office as long as theylived and that the survivor should again rule over both.But when Abbot Stephen of Conques was the first to die,the monks of Conques refused to recognize Abbot Ayrardof Figeac and instead elected one of their own, Begon II.In 1095, the Cluniac abbot of Figeac appealed to thecouncil of Clermont, and his superior, Abbot Hugh ofCluny, was there to intervene on his behalf. As a result,Pope Urban II deposed Abbot Begon II on the spot.However, the latter refused to step down, and his monkssupported him. In the end, in 1096 at the council ofNimes, when Urban II confirmed the independence ofSaint-Sernin at Toulouse, he also acknowledged the per-manent separation of Conques from Figeac.The Cluniac Hold on the Via Lemovicensis

In 1083, immediately after Hugh's setback at Tou-louse, construction of a pilgrimage church was started atthe Cluniac abbey of Saint-Etienne at Nevers. In 1096, theyear when Pope Urban II, at the council of Nimes, defi-nitively confirmed the failure of both takeover attempts,construction was started on a new choir for the pilgrimagechurch at the Cluny-associated abbey of La Madeleine atVezelay. During these years, then, the Via Lemovicensiswas developed through the construction of two new pil-grimage churches, both devoted to apostolic saints. In1097 Urban II confirmed Cluny's rights to Saint-Martial,and in the same year, on December 15, the church ofSaint-Etienne at Nevers was consecrated.If Urban II in 1096 had stopped the Cluniacs atConques, he backed them all the more vigorously infurthering their control of Limoges.16 Bishop Humbaldusof Limoges had been newly elected while Abbot Ademarof Saint-Martial was out of town. The abbot, who wasentitled to vote, protested. Since Humbaldus was nof evena consecrated priest, the archbishop of Bourges declinedto recognize the election. Humbaldus put up armed re-sistance. Violent clashes ensued between the inhabitants ofthe city, partisans of the bishop, and those of the castrum,partisans of the abbot. When Bishop Humbaldus traveledto Rome and returned with a bull of investiture allegedlyobtained from Pope Urban II, Abbot Ademar was obligedto recognize him. However, when after the council ofClermont in 1095 Urban II himself visited Limoges, thesituation was reversed. As a former monk of Cluny,Urban II took up residence at Saint-Martial. On Decem-ber 29, he consecrated the cathedral of Saint-Etienne andon December 30, the newly reconstructedabbey church ofChrist the Savior. When the pope to his surprise en-countered Bishop Humbaldus in the course of the cere-monies, the falsification of the latter's bulls of investiturewas uncovered, and Urban II deposed and excommuni-cated him on the spot. On August 24, 1096, a new bishopwas elected: William, prior of Saint-Martial. In 1097

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Urban II confirmed all privileges and possessions of theabbey, enjoined its continued submission to Cluny, madeit exempt from the bishop, and subordinated it directly toRome. He also stipulated the abbot's right to be consultedon important issues of the see, to take part in episcopalelections, and to share in the administration of the dioceseduringvacancies. Urban'ssuccessor Paschal II reconfirmedthese privileges.TheImage of Christat Pentecost

Starting in 1120 while Peter of Montboissier, the laterPeter the Venerable, was prior, a team of sculptors beganto work at Vezelay on the portal of the new west faqade.Some of their works are so similar to the sculpture ofCluny that it has even been assumed that two of themactually came from there.17By that time, the two majorsculpture projects at Cluny, the choir and the west portal,were complete, and no figurative sculpture seems to havebeen projected for the nave still in progress. If the sculp-tors did move on to Vezelay, they would have participatedin an ambitious program of imagery exceeding that of themother abbey. Instead of the relatively abstract MajestasDomini in the tympanum at Cluny, the tympanum atVezelay presents a multifigured historical scene: the ap-pearance of the resurrectedChrist after his death, amonghis disciples, when he sends them on their mission into theworld (Matthew 28:18-19; Mark 16:15, 19). Extraordi-narily, the Holy Spirit, which Christ announces in the

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Gospels at this moment, already descends from his handsto the apostles at his side. This rare figure of the en-throned Christ in an image of Pentecost recurs in alectionary illustration painted around 1100 in the scrip-torium of Cluny,'8 and in a sacramentary illustration ofthe same date painted in the scriptorium of the cathedralof Limoges, by then firmly in Cluniac hands.'9 It seemssignificant that the exceptional iconography appears inthese three places at this time. On the tympanum atVezelay, it signals an expansive claim to a universal audi-ence advanced by the pilgrimage sanctuaries on the ViaLemovicensis.The Dedication of ClunyIII

It was in 1085 or 1086, after the setback at Toulousebut in the middle of the struggle for Conques, that AbbotHugh began his preparations for the construction of thethird abbey church at Cluny. On September 30, 1088, thefoundations were formally laid. In that year the ecclesias-tical policies of both the royal patron and the abbotreached their high points of success. Urban II, a monk ofCluny, became pope, and Archbishop Bernard of Toledo,originally also a Cluniac monk, was appointed primate ofSpain with jurisdiction over all bishops of the country,securing King Alfonso VI's political control over thechurch of his kingdom. Abbot Hugh of Cluny, for his part,received the pontifical insignia, which empowered him toaccept in his abbey monks from any other order.

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However, by contrast to the political prestige of itsabbot, Cluny's economic and social situation was alreadyprecarious.When Urban II arrivedto consecrate the cheveton October 25, 1095, he delivered a sermon which ad-dressed itself to nothing but emergencies.20The popeexpressly said that he had come to the aid of his formerabbey. He seems to have seen his most urgent task in anelaborate ceremony whereby he surveyed Cluny's localterritory place by place as a zone of a sacred bannus, of"immunity and security," within which no one was toencroach:Within these limits, no man, no matter of what standingor power, should ever dare, or even contemplate daring,to commit any invasion, big or small, or arson, armedrobbery, or theft, or take away a man, or hurt any manout of anger, or, what is much graver, to commithomicide, or to maim anyone.21

Urban II addressed this ban, complete with the threat ofexcommunication and anathema as punishmentsfor trans-gression, directly to the audience in attendance at theceremony on the unfinished site, and extended it into thefuture to their descendants.22Was Cluny now the scene ofsocial conflicts like Vezelay in 1104 and Santiago deCompostela in 1116, when overtaxed townspeople rebelledagainst their ecclesiastical lords pursuing ambitious build-ing projects?In any event, the setting of a sacred limitationzone of civil security within a potentially hostile environ-ment was the most urgent public appeal during theceremony whereby the pope was perambulating on thegeometrically outlined construction site, measured andcalculated as it was according to celestial and biblicalnumbers.TheLiturgicalDisposition of the New Plan

Which liturgical functions were the monks of Cluny tooffer to the expected large lay public in their new abbeychurch? Further research will have to find answers to thisquestion from the evidence of liturgical texts. The pil-grimage plan, to the extent it was adopted, suggeststhat thechurch was designed for an audience from outside theregion which the abbey wished to attract to its services inemulation of the great pilgrimagechurches.The ambulatorydesign of the Cluny III choir, which in pilgrimagechurchesserved for circulation of the lay audience, amounted to aprogrammatic shift from the closed-off, staggered monks'choir of Cluny II (Figs. 2, 4). However, crucial differencesfrom the standard pilgrimage design preclude Cluny III'sfunctions from beingthe same. First, the principalaltar wasnot built over a major saint's grave and therefore had nocrypt below it. Second, the transepts had no aisles andhence could not serve for continuous lateral movements of

people from the aisles of the nave into the ambulatory.Cluny III's comparatively narrow transepts were no morethan giant verticalenlargementsof continuous pairs of sidechapels projecting laterally on either side of the choir andnave respectively,a structurallydifferentarrangement romthe liturgical integrationof the transept into the nave in theplan of the pilgrimagechurches.Accordingly,the lay publicattending the mass services at Cluny lacked a centralturning point of movement and must have been stationaryratherthan dynamic. In this functional modification of thepilgrimage plan, the relative seclusion of the altar spacesprovided by the staggered plan of Cluny II was preserved."Non-integration of the aisleless, double transepts meantlittle invasion of these spaces by circulating crowds whileachieving the addition of quiet areas for altars needed forcommemorative rites."23Apparently it was the monastic office itself which wasstaged as a spectacle in the choir. Accordingly, the sculptedchoir screen, recently reconstructed,24was a low, free-standing arcade one meter in height in which two open

arches alternatedwith a blind one, differentfrom the higherchoir enclosures of many other churches of this time. Itplaced the chanting choirs of monks in plain view of thesurrounding audience. With this disposition, the monasticoffice was produced in competitive terms with the large-scale staging of the cult of relics in the pilgrimagechurches.If Hugh did plan to makehis new abbey churchthe startingsanctuary for the Via Podiensis, rites of send-off for thepilgrimage could have been performed here on a grandscale.25 f, on the other hand, he settled for a mass-audiencechurch in its own right on the strength of Cluny's interces-sory services and monastic opus Dei, his enterprisewouldhave been a competitive venture to pilgrimage itself,recalling a story related in Peter the Venerable's Demiraculis about a pilgrim from Cluny who despite hiscompliance with his pilgrimage vows still appeared tocertain people in their dreams, asking them for prayersonbehalf of his salvation.26Peter the Venerable'sAusterity Program

After 1077, Cluny's large new income in money hadmade Abbot Hugh believethat for the foreseeable future hewould be able to rely on the proceeds of the abbey'sliturgical services, first from royalty and aristocracy, andfailing that, from travelling masses. Hence his economicpolicy was based on maximumexpenditure,above all in thetwo main spiritual programs of the abbey, the building ofthe new church and large-scale poverty relief. After thisreliance on the sacred economy of Cluny was shaken, byboth the payment stop from the king of Spain and thefailure to annex the pilgrimage churches of Toulouse andConques, the mass appeal aimed for by means of the newabbey church apparentlydid not materialize.The record of

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Cluny's financial failure at this time contrasts with theaffluence of the great established pilgrimage sanctuaries,including its own associated abbey of Vezelay.When Peter the Venerable, the former prior of Veze-lay, became abbot of Cluny in 1122, he found it in afinancial crisis.27If he ascribed that crisis, as the sourcessay, to excessive payments from the treasure which hispredecessor Pontius of Melgueil had made to his mer-cenaries,he was unaware of the dynamics of Cluny'ssacredeconomy. For those expenditures of the immediate past didnot affect the continuing resources, and it is these whichwere no longer sufficient for the upkeep of the abbey andfor the continuance of the building campaign. The hugemonetary contributions from Spain were no longer forth-coming and were not matched by the contributions of theabbey's new patron, King Henry I of England. Further-more, prices continued to rise because the large expenseshad devalued the local currency. Since 1125, the monks'living standard had declined. As one monk described thedaily staple served in the refectory:"Bread is poor, black,and branny; wine is very much watered down, stale andreally bad."28Thus, in 1132 Peter the Venerabledevised an austerityprogram of drastically reduced expenditures. In a series ofstatutes, he argued against too costly dress, reduced theexpenses for lighting and festivities, and replaced certaindomestic employees with lay brothers. Concurrently, hesought to increase the production of the domain. Hisprogram of restoring the old agrarianeconomy\was even-tually codified in his Dispositio reifamiliaris of 1148,wherethe abbot established a Mesaticum, that is, an obligationfor each deanery to provide for the abbey's needs during aset period of time. However, production could only be in-creased on the estates directly exploited by the abbey, sincedues from the fiefs leased out to others were fixed bycontract. Hence Peter the Venerable had to borrow. Atfirst, Jewish merchants at the neighboring town of Maconextended loans against objects from the sacristyas security.Then, Christianmerchants from Cluny itself lent money. In1149, the abbey's debts amounted to over 2,000 marks ofsilver.It is remarkable that the proceeds from the liturgicalservices of the abbey church figure nowhere in Peter theVenerable's austerity program. The completion of thechurch was apparentlyno longer considered an investmentbut a liability. The precariousnessof art production in thistime of financial crisis was apparent when Peter theVenerable was forced to pawn the gold plating of theabbey's crucifix to the Jews of Macon, a gesture whosesymbolic overtones were hard to overlook, particularlyforsuch a doctrinaire anti-Jewish theologian. The business ofthe abbey of Cluny was torn between an old-fashionedconcept of agriculturalproduction, based on direct exploi-tation of the land, and an equally old-fashioned concept of

money economy built on the expectation that the liturgicalservices offered by the monks to the lay community wouldremain profitable. The precarious success of this sacredeconomy with a few high-placed patrons towardsthe end ofthe eleventh century had severed the abbey of Cluny fromits immediate socioeconomic setting in the region and madeit dependent on the politically uncertain spiritualconcernsof far-away Western Europeanleaders. It had prompted anoverinvestment in sacred art, perhaps even exaggeratedbeyond necessity by the monastic community's own spiri-tual notions of divine sacrifice and liturgical splendor.However, not only did the investment fail to bring in theexpected returns, but the exchange economy on which itwas predicated adversely affected the abbey's interests inthe region. And by contrast to Abbot Suger's flexible leasepolicies in managing the estates of Saint-Denis, which hadprompted an interrelatedgrowth of both agriculturalandmonetary economies, Peter the Venerable'sausterity mea-sures were based on the outmoded concept of direct landexploitation. But then, Suger was presiding over an abbeychurch which functioned as a focal sanctuary on thepilgrimage road, something Hugh of Cluny had failed toachieve.

NOTES* The following paper, based on work in progress, is published hereat the urging of the editors, but I am responsible for its short-comings. I am juxtaposing short digests of well-known publicationson the various topics touched upon without attemptingto tackle thevast bibliographies attached to each of them. The conclusions which

might follow from such juxtapositions are submitted for discussion.My thanks to Walter Cahn and Ilene H. Forsyth for encouragingme with this project and for their constructivecriticisms.1. K. J. Conant, Carolingianand Romanesque Architecture800-1200,Pelican History of Art (Harmondsworth, 1954), 198-99.2. J. Vielliard, Le Guide du pelerin de Saint-Jacques de Compostelle(Macon, 1963), 124, pl. V: "Hunc codicem primum Ecclesia romanadiligenter suscepit; scribitur enim in compluribus locis, in Romascilicet, in hierosolimitanis horis, . . .et precipue apud Cluniacum."Cf. the facsimile of the page in Libro de la Peregrinaciondel C6diceCalixtino (Madrid, 1971). The last word is conspicuously extendedacross the entire last line of the colophon.3. Bernard of Clairvaux, XXX.4. The following account is derived from G. Duby, "Economie

domaniale et economie monetaire: Le budget de l'abbaye de Clunyentre 1080 et 1155,"Annales, E.S.C., VII (1952), 154-71.5. The following account is based on C. J. Bishko, "Liturgical Inter-cession at Cluny for the King-Emperors of Spain," Studia monas-tica, III (1961), 53-76; idem, "Fernando I y los origenes de laalianza castellano-leonesa con Cluny," Cuadernos de Historia deEspana, XLVII-XLVIII (1968), 31-135; XLIX-L (1969), 50-116.6. J. Williams, "San Isidoro in Le6n: Evidence for a New History,"AB, LV (1973), 172-84.

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7. The following account is based on R. de Lasteyrie, L'abbaye deSaint-Martial de Limoges (Paris, 1901), 83-91.8. E. Cohen, "Roads and Pilgrimage: A Study in Economic Inter-action," Studi medievali, XXI (1980), 321-41, esp. 329.9. de Lasteyrie, L'abbaye, 309. See D. Gaborit-Chopin, La decorationde manuscrits a Saint-Martial de Limoges et en Limousin du IXeau XIIIe siecle (Paris and Geneva, 1969), 18.

10. Cohen, "Roads," 327, 330.11. Ibid., 332.12. The following account is based on J. H. Mundy, Liberty andPolitical Power in Toulouse, 1050-1230 (New York, 1954), 14-18,45-46, 62-69; E. Magnou, L'introductionde la reformegregoriennea Toulouse (fin XIe-debut XIIe siecle), Cahiers de l'AssociationMarc Bloch de Toulouse, Etudes d'histoire r6gionale, 3 (Toulouse,

1958), passim; T. W. Lyman, "The Sculptural Programme of thePorte des Comtes Master at Saint-Sernin in Toulouse," JWCI,XXXIV (1971), 12-39, esp. 37-38.13. Cohen, "Roads," 331.14. Possibly the Parma Ildefonsus, a monument to the 'First Pilgrimage'on the Via Podiensis undertaken by Bishop Godescalc of Le Puy, isrelated to this initiative: see Schapiro (as in n. 18).15. The following account is based on G. Gaillard et al., Rouergueroman (La Pierre-qui-Vire, 1963), 89.16. The following account is based on de Lasteyrie,L'abbaye, 89-90.17. Salet, 154, 162-66. Diemer, 39, 86-87, 443, has pointed out that thesimilarities in themselves are not close enbugh to warrant such aconclusion. Conversely, Armi, 187 and passim, goes so far as to

assume that at least one sculptor went back and forth between bothabbeys.18. Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale, nouv. acq. lat. 2246, fol. 79v:M. Schapiro, The Parma Ildefonsus (New York, 1964), 42-44,fig. 37.19. Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale, lat. 9438, fol. 87: Gaborit-Chopin,La decoration, 127-30, 211-12, fig. 164.20. PL, CLIII, col. 563B.21. "Infra quos terminos, nullus homo, cuiuscunque conditionis acpotestatis unquam invasionem aliquam grandem vel parvam, autincendium, aut praedam, aut rapinam facere, aut hominum rapere,vel per iram ferire, aut quod multo gravius est, homicidium per-petrare, vel truncationem membrorum hominis, sacra autoritatearcente, ullatenus audeat, nec audendo pertentet."22. "Lex autem banni huius non vobis solis ponitus qui praesentesestis,sed et cunctis absentibus et filiis et posteris vestris."23. This sentence is borrowedfrom a letter from Ilene Forsyth.24. Armi/Smith.25. L. Vazquez de Parga, J. M. Lacarra, J. Uria Riu, Las peregrina-ciones a Santiago de Compostela, 3v. (Madrid, 1948-1949) I,137-38.26. E. R. Labande, "Recherches sur les pelerins dans l'Europe des XIeet XIIe siecles," CCM, I (1958), 159-69, 339-47, esp. 346, with ref-erence to Peter the Venerable, De miraculis, PL, CLXXXIX,col. 875.27. For the following, see Duby, "Economie," 162-66.28. Ibid., 166: "Panis parvus, niger, furfureus;vinum maxime aquatum,insipidumet vere vilum."

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