dispute with its seigneurial neighbors. The principle of Cluny’s immunity from the
bishop of Mâcon, first enunciated in the 10th century, became a principle for which
Cluny had to argue strenuously against bishops unwilling to recognize it.
During Hugues’s long years as abbot, Cluny reached perhaps the pinnacle of its
international prestige. Cluny, which had reformed a number of other monasteries in the
10th and early 11th centuries, was given the direction of a great many more by popes,
bishops, and laymen. People as distant as the king of Castile arranged for generous gifts
to Cluny. Hugues was asked to lend his assistance to emperors and popes, including
being a mediator at Canossa during the Investiture controversy. In his monastery, he
sponsored a thorough reworking of Cluniac customaries.
Under Hugues’s leadership, the number of monks at Cluny tripled, from about one
hundred to 300. Hugues and his brothers established the nunnery of Marcigny in 1055 as
a house for the wives and daughters of men who wished to enter the monastery. He
sponsored a new and enormous abbey church, called Cluny III by art historians. The
church, finished shortly before his death, was the largest church in the West until the late
Renaissance.
Constance B.Bouchard
[See also: CLUNIAC ORDER; CLUNY; ODILO]
Odilo. Vita sancti Hugonis, ed. Herbert Edward John Cowdrey. In “Two Studies in Cluniac
History, 1049–1126.” Studi gregoriani 11(1978):1–297.
Hallinger, Kassius, ed. Consuetudines Cluniacensium antiquiores cum redactionibus derivatis.
Sieburg: Schmitt, 1983.
Raynald of Vézelay. Vita, ed. R.B.C.Huygens. In Vizeliacensia II. Textes relatifs à l’histoire de
l’abbaye de Vézelay. CCCM 42 supplementum. Turnhout: Brepols, 1980.
Hunt, Noreen. Cluny Under Saint Hugh, 1049–1109. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press,
1968.
Rosenwein, Barbara. To Be the Neighbor of Saint Peter: The Social Meaning of Cluny’s Property,
909–1049. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1989.
HUGUES DE SAINT-CHER
(ca. 1195–1263). Nothing is known of Hugues’s origins, except that he was born in Saint-
Cher, not far from Vienne in the south of France. He had become a doctor of canon law
and a bachelor of theology even before he joined the Dominicans at Paris in 1225, where
he studied under Roland of Cremona, the first Dominican to hold a chair in theology at
the University of Paris. Hugues soon set upon a vocation that would make him one of the
most prominent churchmen of his day. He first served in an administrative capacity as
provincial of the Order for France from 1227 to 1229. Subsequently, he took up the posts
of master of theology (1230–36) at the university and prior of the Dominican convent of
Saint-Jacques (1233–36). After leaving his posts at the university and the convent, he
resumed his duties for the next eight years as provincial-general of the Order of Preachers
for the French province, while continuing to maintain a lively interest in the scholarly
activities of his order in Paris. He became vicar-general of his order in 1240 and attained
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