UGO di CLUNY, saint. — Son of Count Dalmazio di Semur, b. at Semur (Burgundy) in 1024, d. at Cluny on 28 Apr. 1109. A Benedictine at Cluny at fourteen, a priest at twenty, at twenty-five he had already succeeded Odilo in the office of abbot. Under his government, which lasted sixty years, Cluny (v.) reached its apogee, thanks to his energetic prudence and his wise balance in interpreting the Benedictine Rule.
He exercised a moderating influence with popes, emperors, and kings, whom he visited frequently: present at Canossa, he moved Gregory VII to mercy; he sought to temper the rigor of the legate Ugo di Die, whose companion he was for some time; and the easing observed in the government of the Church under Urban II is attributed to him. The part played by Cluny in the beginnings of the Crusade is also well known. The drafting, in 1068, of the Consuetudines explains the dissemination of the Cluniac Statutes; the Ordo Cluniacensis no longer indicated merely a way of interpreting the Rule of St. Benedict, but a confederation of abbeys and priories.
By mitigating the earlier rigorism, the Consuetudines distributed manual, intellectual, and artistic work in a balanced manner among the monks, oblates, and servants; the liturgy and chant reached their perfection in the secluded setting of the majestic basilica of St. Peter of Cluny, built by U. beginning in 1088 and later becoming the model for the Cluniac churches scattered throughout Christendom. Priories and abbeys, with a highly flexible diversity, elected their own leaders, or, receiving them from Abbot U., formed an immense family, wealthy and present everywhere, united by their common observance of the Rule. In France, Spain, and Italy, where it numbered approximately 80, 25, and 50 monasteries respectively, the Cluniac Order had nothing left to do but enlarge and extend its foundations. It entered England for the first time, however, after the conquest by Duke William, through Lanfranc and the Norman abbeys; Flanders, with the support of Countess Clemenza; Germany, where the expansion around the abbey of Hirsau would prove brilliant but short-lived because of internal dissensions provoked by the struggle between the priesthood and the Empire; Poland, the Latin East, and even Byzantium also entered Cluny’s orbit. When U. died, the Order, free from episcopal jurisdictions through the privileges of exemption, constituted, in the service of the Pope, on whom it directly depended, the center and effective instrument of the reform of the Church. Callistus II recognized the merits of Abbot U. as early as 1119, placing him among the saints. Feast day: 29 Apr. — Vedi tav. LXX.