in 1456) the abbey fell into "commendam." The rise of the Cistercians
and the mendicant orders were contributory causes, and also the
difficulties experienced in keeping houses in other countries subject to
a French superior. And so the great system gradually became a mere
congregation of French houses. Of the commendatory abbots the most
remarkable were Cardinals Richelieu and Mazarin, who both initiated
attempts to introduce reforms into the Cluny congregation, the former
trying to amalgamate it with the reformed congregation of St Maur, but
without effect. Martene tells us that in the early years of the 18th
century in the monastery of Baume, one of Berno's original group of
Cluny houses--indeed the parent house of Cluny itself--no one was
admitted as a monk who had not sixteen quarterings in his coat of arms.
A reform movement took root in the Cluny congregation, and during the
last century of its existence the monks were divided into two groups,
the Reformed and the Unreformed, living according to different laws and
rules, with different superiors, and sometimes independent, and even
rival, general chapters. This most unhappy arrangement hopelessly
impaired the vitality and work of the congregation, which was finally
dissolved and suppressed in 1790, the church being deliberately
destroyed.

Cluniac houses were introduced into England under the Conqueror. The
first foundation was at Barnstaple; the second at Lewes by William de
Warenne, in 1077, and it counted as one of the "Five Daughters of
Cluny." In quick succession followed Thetford, Montacute, Wenlock,
Bermondsey, and in Scotland, Paisley; a number of lesser foundations
were made, and offshoots from the English houses; so that the English
Cluniac dependencies in the 13th century amounted to 40. It is said that
in the reign of Edward III. they transmitted to Cluny annually the sum
of L2000, equivalent to L60,000 of our money. Such a drain on the
country was naturally looked on with disfavour, especially during the
French wars; and so it came about that as "alien priories" they were
frequently sequestered by the crown. As the communities came to be
composed more and more of English subjects, they tended to grow
impatient of their subjection to a foreign house, and began to petition
parliament to be naturalized and to become denizen. In 1351 Lewes was
actually naturalized, but a century later the prior of Lewes appears
still as the abbot of Cluny's vicar in Eng