Clugny

Clugny, or Cluny, a French town on the Grone, a tributary of the Saone, in the department of Saone-et-Loire. It was renowned in the Middle Ages for the great Benedictine abbey, which was the parent of almost 2,000 affiliated convents in different parts of Europe. Cluny was second only to Rome in ecclesiastical importance, and its abbey church was second to none in Christendom before the building of St. Peter's at Rome. Of this only a few fragments remain. In 1790 the order was suppressed, and the magnificent library and records, which had been attacked and dispersed by the Huguenots (1652) and then strangely restored, was again attacked, scattered, and burnt in 1793; but much has been again recovered, and is carefully stored in museums, where it is of the utmost value for the light it throws upon monastic history and contemporary affairs. There is a certain amount of agricultural trade carried on, and the manufacture of paper, pottery, and vinegar. The abbots of Cluny had a house in Paris, the Hotel Cluny. This is now a museum of archaeological subjects.