We define the Schur multipliers of a separable von Neumann algebra M with Cartan masa A, generalising the classical Schur multipliers of $B(ell^2)$. We characterise these as the normal A-bimodule maps on M. If M contains a direct summand isomorphic t
o the hyperfinite II_1 factor, then we show that the Schur multipliers arising from the extended Haagerup tensor product $A otimes_{eh} A$ are strictly contained in the algebra of all Schur multipliers.
