Cluny Abbey (or Cluni, or Clugny, (pronounced: klyˈni) is a Benedictine monastery in Cluny, department of Saône-et-Loire, France. It was founded in 910 by William I of Aquitaine, Count of Auvergne, who installed Abbot Berno and placed the abbey under the immediate authority of Pope Sergius III. The abbey and its constellation of dependencies soon came to exemplify the kind of religious life that was at the heart of 11th-century piety. The town of Cluny, in the modern department of Saône-et-Loire in the region of Bourgogne, in east-central France, near Mâcon, grew round the former abbey, founded in a forested hunting reserve.