International Medieval Society, Paris
Société Internationale des Médiévistes, Paris

Symposium 2007 Abstracts

The first commemorative event held in the town of Cluny honored Abbot Odilo’s initiation of what in English we call the Feast of All Souls, in French the Commémoraison de tous les Fidèles trépassés or “Commemoration of the Faithful Departed” in Fall, 1898. It was the culmination of a year of religious activities on this theme and was titled a “jubilee”, implying an anniversary of fifty years but in fact marking the 900th year. The choice appears to have been a reference to the jubilee at Lourdes from 1897, itself celebrating 25 years, as part of an attempt by the Bishop of Autun to draw the Burgundian area into popular Catholic observances during a time when the tensions that would lead to the separation of Church and State only 7 years later were at their height.

Although the program suggests wide public participation, including pilgrimages from nearby towns and elaborate ceremonies, the mayor of Cluny was a socialist who took his role as representative of the Third Republic seriously and posted warnings about the illegality of religious rituals in civic spaces. His disdain for clerical activities was reinforced in a publication skewering the events as papal claptrap written by a local resident and published in Paris. The contrast between the historical memory of Cluny as a medieval abbey town dominated by saintly abbots presented during these commemorative religious events and the contemporary political climate of the local electoral majority serves to remind us how flexible the constructed identity of community can be.