However, while Cluny was a wonder of the new monastic world, it was also a far cry from the original ideal of reformed, stripped-back Benedictine practice. The monks who had been paid handsomely by high-net-worth clients to sing perpetual masses for their souls wore fine linen and ate well. Their liturgy was complex, highly structured, and beautifully performed. The ordinary brothers’ throats may have ached from perpetual chanting, but their hands were not calloused from manual labor, which was given over to serfs.
