**BERNONE, Blessed.** - Founder of Cluny, born c. 850 into a noble Burgundian family, died 13 January 927. He entered the Benedictine abbey of St Martin in Autun, where the reform of St Benedict of Aniane had been introduced. Through Bernone, c. 886, this reform was extended to the abbey of Baume and shortly afterwards (900) also to Gigny, another abbey founded by him. Having gone to Rome, he obtained from Pope Formosus that Gigny, with its dependencies, be placed under the protection and immediate jurisdiction of the Holy See. Bernone’s name is chiefly associated with the famous abbey of Cluny, built at the behest of Duke William the Pious of Aquitaine and entrusted to his direction; with the monks of Baume and Gigny, among whom was St Odo (q.v.), he introduced there the customs of St Benedict of Aniane. The founding charter of 11 September 900 (according to others, 910), also called the ‘testament of William the Pious’, granted the monks freedom to choose their abbot after Bernone’s death; moreover, the abbey was placed directly under the Holy See and declared exempt from the interference of any secular power. Other monasteries were entrusted to Bernone, who on his death left their care to his kinsman Guido, who governed Baume and Gigny, while Cluny and its other dependencies passed to Odo, the true founder of the Cluniac centralization.
**