Cluny: The Lost Capital of Medieval Culture

Wine, Romanesque architecture, and the monastic life, all reached their high point in the Middle Ages, tucked away in the province of Burgundy. You may not have heard of Cluny, but, from its humble founding in 910, it quickly constructed the largest church in Europe and built an independent network of over 1,500 monasteries. It’s only possible to overlook the great abbey due to its tragic dismantling after the French Revolution, when its church became a quarry.

Remembering Cluny matters for more than nostalgia, as it the Abbey made enormous contributions to the entire Church and her history:

• St. Odilo, for example, first established the feast of All Souls there in the early 1000s.
• He also worked for the Peace of God that sought to limit warfare and protect vulnerable people and places, providing another example of how monasteries stabilized Europe in the early Middle Ages.
• As part of its efforts to direct warfare to the good, the Abbey proved instrumental in supporting the First Crusade, preached by a former Cluniac monk, Pope Urban II, as well as the Reconquista in Spain. Ironically, its abbot, Peter the Venerable, also commissioned the first translation of the Koran into Latin.
• Cluny perfected Romanesque architecture and sculpture, not only in its own enormous church, but also in its dependent monasteries, as can still be seen at Vézelay, and surrounding churches such as the cathedral at Autun.
• It also helped make Burgundy a center for wine production, using monastic patience and dedication to classify the region’s terroir.

If monks are the stars of what I call the Beer Option, the same must be said of the vine. The Church needs wine for the Mass and the monks greatly advanced viticulture in the Middle Ages, especially in Burgundy, not only due to Cluny, but the work of its offshoot Cîteaux (founded by some disaffected Cluniac reformers, such as Robert of Molesmes), itself motherhouse to more than a thousand monasteries throughout Europe.

I recently hosted a wine tasting related to an upcoming pilgrimage I’m leading, The Vine & the Cloister, in search of the remnants of this great monastic culture. One of the wines we tried, Clos du Moulin aux Moines (Enclosure of Windmill of the monks), dates back to Cluny’s vineyards from the 10th century. We sampled the Bourgogne red “Clos de la Perrière” Monopoly, in particular, “a wine of pinot noir from Côte de Beaune, fruity and seductive, produced by old organic vines located on Corpeau, village on the South-east of Puligny-Montrachet.” The fruits of Cluny’s efforts can still be tasted today!

Like this wine, though much of this great monastic culture has been lost, there is still much to discover. Of all the things that I do to promote Catholic culture and to create experiences to encounter the beauty of our faith, I have found that pilgrimages are the most powerful. On pilgrimage, we do not simply visit as tourists and take pictures (even if we do snap a few); we enter into the vision and spirit of the communities and events that built these incredible sights. We follow the trail of the saints and join them in prayer, seeking to imitate not only their footsteps on their original soil, but in pointing us to our true homeland. On The Vine & the Cloister trip (Sep 18-28), we’ll be visiting the ruins of Cluny, along with the great Romanesque churches of Vézelay and Autun and the Clos du Vougeot vineyard, that preserves the old Cistercian castle and cellars.

From Burgundy, the group will move south to Provence, to sip the popes’ wine at Avignon, not far from their remarkable 14th century palace; will honor St. Anne, Our Lady’s mother, at her miracle-working shrine in Apt; and will climb to St. Mary Magdalene’s cave at Saint-Maximin-la-Sainte Baume, where we’ll stay at a medieval monastery turned hotel. From there, we’ll set sail to the ancient monastic island of Lérins, once home to St. Patrick, where the Trappist monks continue to make wine within the Riviera. Continuing back along the coast, we’ll stop at the Roman ruins of Nîmes on the way to Carcassonne, the best-preserved medieval city. Our last stop will be Toulouse, with its beautiful churches, including the oldest of the Dominican Order, the church of the Jacobins, where we’ll venerate the relics of the Angelic Doctor, St. Thomas Aquinas.

Overall, I’m aiming for a holistic experience of Catholic history and culture and an opportunity for spiritual transformation. Burgundy and Southern France provide a unique opportunity, off the beaten past of the usual pilgrimage circuit, to see how Catholic culture embraces and integrates the beauty of nature, culture, art, and faith.