31 OCTOBER 1931, Page 23

As an exact and impressive account of a monk's life

in the early Middle Ages Dr. Joan Evans's Monastic Life at Cluny, 910-1157 (Oxford University Press, 15s.) is well worth careful reading. To our easy-going generation the stern discipline and the unending round of services seem incredibly difficult, and yet such was the fascination of the Cluniac rule that 'laughter houses of Cluny rapidly multiplied all over France, With not a few in England and elsewhere. Dr. Evans gives a concise history of Cluny's foundation under Berno, and his successor Odo, describes the growth of the order under special

Papal favour, gives biographical sketches of some famous Cl u n hie monks, including Abelard, and then details of the adminis- tration and daily routine of the monastery. A particularly attractive chapter on " Art and Letters at Cluny ' reminds us of the good work that these hard-living ascetics did in architecture, sculpture, calligraphy and hymnology. Some of the beautiful Cluniac hymns are quoted, and there are good. photographs of such Cluniac churches as remain in whole or in part. A drawing of the mother-church as it was in 1617 gives some idea of the vast and noble pile that the Revolution plundered and the Empire destroyed.

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