Cluny. By the early part of C12 the great Benedictine abbey of Cluny in Burgundy (destroyed) had the largest Romanesque church in Europe, with double aisles, double transepts with apsidal chapels, an ambulatory with radiating chapels, and a huge barrel-vaulted nave. This type of plan, devised to permit more altars to be placed in chapels, proved influential. The double transept is known as the Cluniac transept.

Bibliography

Conant (1979);
Eschapasse (1963);
J. Evans (1972)

CLUNY

CLUNY (Heb. קלינו), town near Mâcon, central France. Although there were no Jews residing in medieval Cluny, those living in the region, notably in *Chalon-sur-Saône, had transactions with the famous abbey of Cluny, lending money to it to ensure the security of religious objects. *Peter the Venerable, abbot of Cluny (d. 1156), opposed the practice, and the Statutes of Cluny of 1301 expressly forbade borrowing from Jews. Nathan b. Joseph *Official took part in a religious *disputation with the abbot of Cluny. During another disputation in Cluny, in 1254, the Jewish speaker was killed by a Christian knight.

bibliography:

Gross, Gal Jud, 594; G. Duby, La société … dans la région mâconnaise (1953), 401, 485; Bulletin des travaux historiques et philologiques (1892), 385, 393.

[Bernhard Blumenkranz]

Cluny a Benedictine monastery in eastern France, founded in 910 and introducing a period of monastic reform based on strict observance of the Benedictine Rule; the abbey was subject only to the pope, and all future Cluniac foundations, or priories, remained directly subject to the original mother house.

The abbey church, built between 1088 and 1130, and famous for its size and magnificence, was badly damaged in the French Revolution and effectively demolished in the 19th century.

Cluny. Benedictine (Benedict) abbey in Burgundy (France), founded in 909/10. It became a centre of renewal in the Church and in monastic practice. During the 12th cent., the influence of Cluny began to decline, although the abbey itself survived until 1790.