Still, however, Benedict's rule was that by which the greater part of the Western monks were governed. But, although they were under the same rule, they had no other connexion with each other; each company of monks stood by itself, having no tie outside its own walls. There was not as yet, in the West, anything like the society which St. Pachomius had long before established in Egypt,[76] where all the monasteries were supposed to be as so many sisters, and all owned the mother-monastery as their head. It was not until the tenth century that anything of this kind was set on foot in the Western Church. [76] See Part I., p. 62. (1.) In the year 912, an abbot named Berno founded a new society at Cluny, in Burgundy. He began with only twelve monks; but by degrees the fame of Cluny spread, and the pattern which had been set there was copied far and wide, until at length more than two thousand monasteries were reckoned as belonging to the "Congregation" (as it was called), or Order of Cluny; and all these looked up to the great abbot of the mother-monastery as their chief. The early abbots of Cluny were very remarkable men, and took a great part in the affairs both of the Church and of kingdoms: some of them even refused the popedom; and bishops placed themselves under them, as simple monks of Cluny, for the sake of their advice and teaching. The founders of the Cluniac order added many precepts to the rule of St. Benedict. Thus the monks were required to swallow all the crumbs of their bread at the end of every meal; and when some of them showed a wish to escape this duty, they were frightened into obedience by an awful tale that a monk, when dying, saw at the end of his bed a great sack of the crumbs which he had left on the table rising up as a witness against him. The monks were bound to keep silence at times; and we are told that, rather than break this rule, one of them allowed his horse to be stolen, and another let himself be carried off as a prisoner by the Northmen. During these times of silence they made use of a set of signs, by which they were able to let each other know what they wanted. This congregation of Cluny, then, was the first great monkish order in the West, and others soon followed it. They were mostly very strict at first--some of them so strict that they not only forbade all luxury in the monks, but would not allow any fine buildings, or any handsome furniture in their churches. But in general the monks soon got over this by saying that, as their buildings and their services were not for themselves, but for God, their duty was to honour Him by giving Him of the best that they could. These orders were known from each other by the difference of their dress: thus the Benedictines were called Black Monks, the Cistercians were called White Monks, and at a later time we find mention of Black Friars, White Friars, Grey Friars, and so forth.