|
|
Article: The long shadow cast by Cluny.(Cluny: In Search of God's Lost Empire)(Book review)
- Article from:
- National Catholic Reporter
- Article date:
- January 12, 2007
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2007 National Catholic Reporter. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
|
Book reconstructs the history of a great and ancient abbey
CLUNY: IN SEARCH OF GOD'S LOST EMPIRE By Edwin Mullins
BlueBridge, 245 pages, $24.95
Hardly anything survives now of the once mighty Benedictine abbey of Cluny, which stood in Burgundy, France, for nearly 900 years. The last incarnation of the abbey church, a massive Romanesque building known by modern historians as "Cluny HI," took more than 40 years to build, was dedicated in 1130 and was the largest Christian church in the world until St. Peter's Basilica was built in Rome in the 16th century. Pope Urban II (1042-99), once a monk there, wrote of Cluny that it "shines as another sun ...