Under such heavenly guidance, even the very beasts of the forest ministered to the growing community. When Odon had completed the early church, which Jean de Salerne modestly speaks of as an oratory and chapel, replaced, a century later, by a larger one, the bishop came to consecrate the building. Forgetting the poverty of the monks, he brought with him such a lordly retinue of attendants and servants, that the abbot was sorely troubled as to how his guests were to be worthily received, and suitably fed. On the day of the ceremony, when the grey dawn had driven westward the shadows of the night, a great wild boar emerged from the neighbouring forest, and ran, at full speed, to the monastery. The guardian of the church, who was busy adorning the exterior porch, struck with terror at the sight, retreated hastily, shut the door behind him, and drew the bolts. But the fierce animal, fierce no longer, began to lick the door--leaving upon it marks of white foam--and to tap gently with its hoof, as though to beg admittance. But all who saw the beast, fled, until, weary with much knocking, it lay down across the threshold. When the bishop and his suite arrived, a cry of terror rose from the company. They aroused the neighbours, who came, armed with sticks. But the boar, instead of shewing fight, offered himself voluntarily to death, and his flesh, prepared with all the art of the monastic cooks, satisfied the refined tastes of the prelates. Every day Cluny grew in grace, in wisdom, in numbers, in riches, in influence, in power civil and spiritual. One after one, she founded new monasteries, and reformed those already in existence, until, under Odilon, in the beginning of the 11th century, a cluster of priories had been built upon lands ceded to the abbey, and Cluny was attaining an importance greater than any other order had acquired until that day. In the plains, upon the summits of the hills, by the banks of river and stream, in the depths of the forests, in the solitude of the valley, even in remote and silent places, were springing up little communities of monks, whose clocher, was, for the peasants, a symbol of charity, of refuge, of God come down among men;[73] and every year, nobles, not a few, gave lands in the neighbouring comtés to the Abbey of Cluny.