Hugh of Cluny

(1024–1109)

   Saint.

   Hugh was born of an aristocratic Burgundian family. At the age of fourteen he entered the monastery at Cluny, was chosen as Prior at an early age and succeeded odilio as Abbot in 1049. During his reign he presided over an extraordinary expansion in the influence of Cluny. When the new basilica was consecrated in 1095, it was the largest church in the Christian world. Hugh settled the usages of the whole order by 1068 and, in addition, he was the con- fidential advisor of nine Popes, including Leo IX and Gregory VII. He was involved in the condemnation of berengar; he tried to reconcile the Emperor Henry IV with the Papacy; he served as Papal legate on different occasions in Hungary, Toulouse and Spain and he initiated the First Crusade at the Council of Clermont. He must be considered one of the most influential churchmen of the eleventh century and he was canonised only eleven years after his death.

   H.E.J. Cowdrey, The Clunaics and the Gregorian Reform (1970);

   N. Hunt, Cluny under St Hugh (1967).