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coats of arms 185

for ecclesiastical needs and privileges. In the latter years
of his reign, Clovis devoted much energy to the promul-
gation and codification of the Salic Law, the customary
unwritten laws of the Franks, and thus he provided a
legal unity for his kingdom. Baptized a few years earlier,
Clovis died at PARISon November 27, 511, at the age of

45. In keeping with Frankish tradition, his four sons,
    Chlodomer (d. 524), Childebert I (d. 558), Clothar I (d.
    561), and the illegitimate and eldest Theuderic (d. 533),
    divided his kingdom.
    Further reading:Gregory of Tours, The History of the
    Franks,trans. Lewis Thorpe (New York: Penguin Books,
    1974); John W. Currier, Clovis, King of the Franks(Mil-
    waukee: Marquette University Press, 1997); Edward
    James, The Origins of France: From Clovis to the Capetians,
    500–1000(New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1982); J. M. Wal-
    lace-Hadrill, The Long-Haired Kings: And Other Studies in
    Frankish History(London: Methuen, 1962); Ian Wood,
    The Merovingian Kings(London: Longman, 1994).

Cluniac reform SeeCLUNY ANDCLUNIACS.

Cluny, Abbey Church of SeeCLUNY ANDCLUNIACS.

Cluny and Cluniacs On September 11, 910, William
III the Pious (r. 909–918), the duke of AQUITAINEand
count of Mâcon, made a gift to Berno (d. 926), then the
abbot of Baume-les-Messieurs, of a group of lands situ-
ated near Mâcon in BURGUNDY. William renounced any
rights over the new Benedictine monastery and left the
election of the abott to the community. The monastery,
now called Cluny, was thus outside the control of any
feudal lord and ultimately directly under the protection
of the papacy. Its monks did little labor and devoted
themselves famously to an elaborate liturgy.
In 926, under the second abbot, Odo (927–942), the
monastery expanded quickly. In 931, a privilege of Pope
John XI (r. 931–935/936) gave Cluny a right to reform
monasteries that allowed the abbot to reform and take
charge of any institution at the request of an abbot and
to accept any monk whose monastery refused to be
reformed. From this Odo launched the Cluniac tradition
of reform.

SUCCESS AND MONASTIC REFORM

On the occasion of the consecration of its second church
in 981, the monastery acquired relics of the apostles Peter
and Paul and was transformed into a major pilgrimage
site on the road to Rome. Cluniac monks were further
granted a rare status that exempted them from all lay and
ecclesiastical control, except that of the abbot and the
pope. Cluny continued to become a regional power in
Burgundy, the Auvergne, and PROVENCEand extended its
power into Italy along the route to Rome. During the

12th century, a huge ROMANESQUE church, the third

building in less than a century and a half, was built and

was among the largest and most elaborate in western

Europe. Under the abbacy of Hugh of Semur of Cluny

(1049–1109), Cluniac foundations spread over much of

Europe; and they became the instruments of the GREGO-

RIAN REFORMmovement and participants in the INVESTI-

TURECONTROVERSY. They were important agents of the

papacy. Cluny continued to play an important, but

steadily more marginal, role in Benedictine monasticism

throughout the rest of the Middle Ages as its members

and order became better known for their great wealth and

extravagant liturgical practices than their austerity, learn-

ing, and asceticism. The order and the great church at

Cluny were dismantled during the French Revolution.

See alsoCISTERCIAN ORDER;PETER THEVENERABLE.

Further reading: Barbara Rosenwein, To Be the

Neighbor of Saint Peter: The Social Meaning of Cluny’s

Property, 909–1049 (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University

Press, 1989); Rhinoceros Bound: Cluny in the Tenth Century

(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1982);

H. E. J. Cowdrey, The Cluniacs and the Gregorian Reform

(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1970); Noreen Hunt, Cluny

under Saint Hugh, 1049–1109(Notre Dame, Ind.: Univer-

sity of Notre Dame Press, 1968).

Cnut the Great SeeCANUTEII THEGREAT.

coats of arms SeeHERALDRY AND HERALDS.

A view of the ruins of the Abbey of Cluny from the anti-

church, or narthex, through the nave to the still-standing right

side towers and belfry (Courtesy Edward English)