The Founding of Cluny
11 September AD 910, estimated dateEstimated date
Duke William of Aquitaine gives his estate at Cluny for a monastery under the Rule of Benedict and renounces every right over it, placing it under the apostles Peter and Paul and the protection of the pope.
William I of Aquitaine, who styles himself “count and duke by the grace of God”, explains his gift in the charter’s opening lines. Wealth, he says, can be used to earn an eternal reward. He cannot himself despise the world, but he can support at his own cost those who do, and so share in their reward (Foundation Charter of Cluny).
He therefore hands over to the apostles Peter and Paul his estate of Cluny in the county of Mâcon, with its church, its dependants, vineyards, fields, woods, waters and mills. The gift is made for the souls of his lord King Odo, of his parents, of himself and his wife Ingelberga, of the Ava who had left him the property, and of all the faithful. A monastery is to be built there in honour of Peter and Paul, and its monks are to live by the Rule of Benedict (Foundation Charter of Cluny).
The conditions are what set the charter apart. Berno of Cluny is to be abbot for life; after him the monks are to choose their abbot freely, according to the Rule (Rule of Benedict 64), without interference from William’s family or anyone else. Every five years they are to pay ten shillings to the church of the apostles at Rome for its lights, and they are to have the protection of the apostles and the defence of the pope. They are to care daily for the poor, strangers and pilgrims. From that day they are to be subject neither to William nor to his kin, nor to the king, nor to any earthly power; and no prince, count or bishop, not even the bishop of Rome, may seize their property, give it away or set a superior over them against their will. Anyone who tries is threatened with the fate of Dathan, Abiram and Judas and with a fine of a hundred pounds of gold. The act was done publicly at Bourges (Foundation Charter of Cluny).
William thus gave up, for himself and his kin, the lordship over the house he had founded, and placed it under a distant protector (Foundation Charter of Cluny). The charter says nothing about how the monks would use this freedom. Its two provisions, free election of the abbot and freedom from every outside lord, are what it is remembered for; free election was a demand of the reformers of the following century (The Investiture Controversy and Canossa).
How this is dated
Estimated date. A scholarly estimate from primary evidence, with a margin of years.
The charter is dated on the third day before the Ides of September, that is 11 September, in the eleventh year of the reign of King Charles and the thirteenth indiction, with no year of the Incarnation (Foundation Charter of Cluny dating clause). The thirteenth indiction is the year 910 where the indiction was changed in late September or at the new year, and the twelve months from September 909 where it was changed on 1 September, so the indiction allows 11 September of either year. The regnal year decides nothing: counted from the death of King Odo in January 898, Charles’s eleventh year would be 908. A note in the margin of the abbey’s cartulary gives 910, and so does the editor of the charters, A. Bruel, Recueil des chartes de l’abbaye de Cluny, vol. 1 (1876), no. 112; the timeline follows them.
Primary sources
Foundation Charter of Cluny
- Foundation Charter of Clunysourcebooks.fordham.edu
- Foundation Charter of Cluny dating clausearchive.org
In context
Grows out of
- c. AD 530–550, estimated date
Leads to
- 1075 to 1077, firm date
- 1098 to 1115, estimated date