music, and art. Their influence and wealth grew rapidly, and they
built a series of increasingly elaborate monastic churches at Cluny.
Abbot Hugh of Semur (1024–1109) began construction of the
third church at Cluny in 1088. Called Cluny III by art historians, the
building is, unfortunately, largely destroyed today, although scholars
have reconstructed it on paper (FIG. 17-8). At the time of its erec-
tion, Cluny III was the largest church in Europe, and it retained that
distinction for almost 500 years until the completion of the new
Saint Peter’s (FIG. 24-4) in Rome in the early 17th century. Contem-
poraries considered Cluny III a place worthy for angels to dwell if
they lived on earth. The church had a bold and influential design,
with a barrel-vaulted nave, four aisles, and radiating chapels, as at
Saint-Sernin, but with a three-story nave elevation (arcade-tribune-
clerestory) and slightly pointed nave vaults. With a nave more than
500 feet long and more than 100 feet high (both dimensions are
about 50 percent greater than at Saint-Sernin), Cluny III epitomized
the grandiose scale of the new stone-vaulted Romanesque churches
and was a symbol of the power and prestige of the Cluniac order.
SAINT-PIERRE, MOISSACMoissac, an important stop in
southwestern France along the pilgrimage route to Saint James’s
tomb at Santiago de Compostela, boasts the most extensive pre-
served ensemble of early Romanesque sculpture. The monks of the
Moissac abbey had joined the Cluniac order in 1047. Enriched by the
gifts of pilgrims and noble benefactors, they adorned their church
with an elaborate series of relief sculptures, the oldest of which are in
the cloister (FIG. 17-9). “Cloister” (from the Latin claustrum,“en-
closed place”) connotes being shut away from the world. Architec-
turally, the medieval church cloister embodied the seclusion of the
spiritual life, the vita contemplativa.At Moissac, as elsewhere, the
cloister provided the monks (and nuns) with a foretaste of Paradise.
In its garden or the timber-roofed columnar walkway that framed
the garden (FIG. 17-9,left), they could read their devotions, pray, and
meditate in an atmosphere of calm serenity, each monk withdrawn
into the private world where the soul communes only with God. The
physical silence of the cloister matched the vow of silence that
the more austere monastic communities required of their members.France and Northern Spain 43717-8Restored cutaway view of the third abbey church (Cluny III), Cluny, France, 1088–1130 (John Burge).
Cluny III was the largest church in Europe for 500 years. It had a 500-foot-long, three-story (arcade-tribune-clerestory) nave, four aisles, radiating
chapels, and slightly pointed stone barrel vaults.