The spiritual influence and temporal wealth of these two great monastic orders radiated out from Cluny, Citeaux, Fontenay, Pontigny and Vézelay to play a pivotal role in the history of western civilisation. Founded in 910, the Benedictine abbey of Cluny – the biggest church in Christendom, until St Peter's Rome was built in the 16th century – had some 2,000 sister houses throughout Europe by the early 12th century: and exerted enormous political, artistic and religious influence on the lives of all, serfs and sovereigns alike.
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