The Cluniac order was a branch of the Benedictines and fell under the rule of the great abbey at Cluny in Burgundy; the Benedictine order was a keystone to the stability that European society achieved in the 11th century, and partly owing to the stricter adherence to a reformed Benedictine rule, Cluny became the acknowledged leader of western monasticism from the later 10th century.
In England the Cluniac houses numbered thirty-five at the time of Henry VIII's Dissolution of the Monasteries in the 16th century.
Under the strain, some English houses, such as Lenton Priory, Nottingham, were naturalized (Lenton in 1392) and no longer regarded as alien priories, weakening the Cluniac structure.
In 989 Bruno, Bishop of Langres, requested Mayeul, Abbot of Cluny, to send monks to re-settle the abbey, grown decadent, as a Cluniac house.
This was shown by his involvement in the founding of the St. Laurens abbey near Oostbroek at De Bilt, which was the first monastery in the diocese to join the Cluniac movement.
A Cluniac monastery, the priory was home to mostly French monks until the late 14th-century when it was freed from the control of its French mother-house, Cluny Abbey.
The affix "Longville" was added in the 13th century after the Cluniac priory of Longueville, Calvados, in Normandy, France, that held the manor of Newton at that time, and to distinguish this village from other places called Newton, particularly nearby Newton Blossomville.
In the 12th century Robert de Essex, also known as Robert FitzSwein, founded Prittlewell Priory as a cell of the Cluniac Priory of St Pancras, Lewes.
Rüeggisberg Priory - The original foundation of uncertain date, made by Lütold of Rümligen, was turned into the first Cluniac house in the German-speaking world by Cuno of Siegburg and Ulrich of Zell in about 1072, when the first cells were built.
The king favoured the Cluniac order and the monastery was known as the "Spanish Cluny".
In 1024 a Navarrese monk, Paterno from Cluny, returned to Navarre and was made abbot of San Juan de la Peña, where he instituted the Cluniac custom and founded thus the first Cluniac house in Iberia west of Catalonia, under the patronage of Sancho.
They are part of a series painted by monks from Lewes Priory; this was the first Cluniac house in England and had close links to its mother priory at Cluny in Burgundy, and the art techniques developed at Cluny from the mid-10th century were very influential.