Cluny's boast was its
school and the splendour of its ceremonies and services; God was
served with a marvellous dignity and luxury undreamed of before, and
unequalled since Cluny declined. It was to this mother house of the
greatest Congregation of the time that William de Warenne turned with
his wife when war prevented them on the road to Rome, and we cannot
wonder that they were so caught by all they saw that they determined
to put the monastery they proposed to build under the Abbot of Cluny
and to found a Cluniac Priory at the gates of their town of Lewes.
They therefore approached the Abbot with the request that he would
send three or four of his monks to start the monastery. They did not
find him very willing; for the essence of Cluny was discipline, the
discipline of an army, and doubtless the Abbot feared that, so far
away as Sussex seemed, his monks would be out of his reach and might
become but as other men. But at last the Conqueror himself joined his
prayers to those of William de Warenne, and in 1076 the Abbot of Cluny
sent the monk Lanzo and three other brethren to England, and to them
William de Warenne gave the little church of St Pancras especially
rebuilt for their use with the land about it, called the
Island, and other lands sufficient to support twelve monks.
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