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CARTHUSIANS

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Originally appearing in Volume V05, Page 433 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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CARTHUSIANS , an See also:

order of monks founded by St See also:Bruno (q.v.). In 1084 Bruno and his six companions presented themselves before the See also:bishop of See also:Grenoble and explained to him their See also:desire to See also:lead an ascetical See also:life in a solitary See also:place. He pointed out to them a desolate spot named See also:Chartreuse, on the mountains near Grenoble, rocky and precipitous, and See also:snow-covered during a See also:great portion of the See also:year, and told them they might there carry out their See also:design. They built themselves three huts and an See also:oratory, and gave themselves up to a life of See also:prayer and silence and extreme austerity. After a few years Bruno was summoned to See also:Rome by See also:Urban II., as an adviser in the See also:government of the See also:Church, c. 1090; but after a year or, so he obtained permission to withdraw from Rome, and was able to found in the forests of See also:Calabria near Squillace a second, and later on a third and a See also:fourth monastery, on the same lines as the Chartreuse. On one of these See also:south See also:Italian See also:foundations Bruno died in rTor. On leaving the Chartreuse he had appointed a successor as See also:superior, and the See also:institute steadily took more settled shape and further development. See also:Peter the See also:Venerable, See also:abbot of See also:Cluny, See also:writing about See also:forty years later, speaks thus of the mode of life of the earliest Carthusians: " Warned by the See also:negligence arid lukewarmnessof malty of the older monks, they adopted for. themselves and for their followers greater precaution against the artifices of the Evil One. As remedy against See also:pride and vain-See also:glory they See also:chose a See also:dress more poor and contemptible than that of any other religious See also:body; so that it is horrible to look on these garments, so See also:short, scanty, coarse and dirty are they. In order to cut up avarice by the toots, they en-closed around their cells a certain quantity of See also:land, more or less, according to the fertility, of the See also:district; and they would not accept a See also:foot of land beyond that limit if you were to offer them the whole See also:world. For the same See also:motive they limit the quantity of their See also:cattle, oxen, asses, See also:sheep and goats.

And in order that they might have no motive for augmenting their possessions, either of land or animals, they ordained that in every one of their monasteries there should be no more than twelve monks, with their See also:

prior the thh'teenth, eighteen See also:lay See also:brothers and a few paid servants. To mortify the flesh they always See also:wear See also:hair shirts of the severest See also:kind, and their See also:fasting is wellnigh continuous. They always eat See also:bread of unbolted See also:meal, and take so much See also:water with their See also:wine that it has hardly any flavour of wine See also:left. They never eat See also:meat, whether in See also:health or See also:ill. They never buy See also:fish, but they accept it if it is given to them for charity. They may eat See also:cheese and eggs only on Sundays and Thursdays. On Tuesdays and Saturdays they eat cooked vegetables. On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays they take only bread and water. They eat once a See also:day only, See also:save during the octaves of See also:Christmas, See also:Easter, See also:Pentecost, See also:Epiphany and other solemnities. They live in See also:separate little houses like the See also:ancient monks of See also:Egypt, and they occupy themselves continually with See also:reading, prayer and the labour of their hands, especially the writing of books. They recite the prayers for See also:minor canonical See also:hours in their own dwellings, when warned by the See also:bell of the church; but they all -,assemble in church for See also:matins and See also:vespers. On feast days they eat twice, and sing all the offices in the church, and eat in the See also:refectory.

They do not say See also:

mass save on festivals and Sundays. They See also:boil the vegetables served out to them in their own dwellings, and never drink wine save with their See also:food." (See also:Migne, See also:Patrol. See also:Lat. clxxxix.;943•) In its broad outlines this description of See also:primitive Carthusian life has. remained true, even to the See also:present day: the regulations as to food are not quite so stringent, and the See also:habit is now an See also:ordinary religious habit of See also:white serge. It was not until 1170 that the Carthusians were formally, constituted a separate religious order by papal See also:act. Owing to its very nature, the institute never had any great expansion: at the See also:middle of the 13th See also:century there were some 5o Charterhouses; at the beginning of the 18th there were 17c, 75 being in.See also:France. There was no written See also:rule before 113o, when Guigo, the fifth prior of the Grande Chartreuse, reduced to writing the body of customs that had been the basis of Carthusian life (Migne, Patrol. Lat. cliii. 631); enlargements and modifications of this See also:code were made in 1259, 1367, 1509 and 1681: this last See also:form of the statutes is the present Carthusian rule. The life is very nearly eremitical: except on Sundays and feasts, the Carthusians meet only three times a day in the church—for the Midnight See also:Office, for Mass and for Vespers; once a See also:week, on Sundays (and feasts) they have their meal in the refectory, and once a week they have recreation together and a walk outside enclosure. All the See also:rest of their See also:time is passed in solitude in their hermitages, which are built quite separate from one another. , Each hermitage is a See also:house, containing living-See also:room, bedroom and oratory, workshop and See also:store-room, and has a small See also:garden attached. The monks are supplied with such tools as they wish to employ in workshop and garden, and with such books as they need from the library.

The Carthusian goes to See also:

bed every evening at 7 and is called about 1 r, when he says in his private oratory the Officium B. Mariae Virginis. Towards midnight all repair to the church for Matins and Lauds, which are celebrated with extraordinary solemnity and prolixity, so as to last from 2 to 3 hours, according to the office. They then return to bed until 5, when they again go to the church for the daily High Mass, still celebrated according to the phase of liturgical and See also:ritual development of the 11th century. The private Masses are then said, and the monks betake themselves to See also:work or study. At ro in summer, 11 in See also:winter, 12 on feast days, they have their See also:dinner, alone except on Sundays and feasts; the dinner is supplied from the See also:common See also:kitchen through a small window. On many days of the year there is but one meal; meat is never eaten, even in sickness—this has always been an See also:absolute rule among the Carthusians. In the afternoon they again assemble in the church for Vespers; the lesser portions of the canonical office, as well as the Office of the Blessed Virgin and the Office of the Dead, are said privately in the oratories. This manner of life has been kept up almost without variation for eight centuries: among the Carthusians there have never been any, of those revivals and reforms that are so striking a feature in the See also:history of other orders—" never reformed, because never deformed." The Carthusians have always lived thus wholly cut off from the See also:outer world, each one in almost entire See also:isolation. They introduced and have kept up in western See also:Europe a life resembling that of the See also:early See also:Egyptian monks, as under St See also:Anthony's guidance See also:monasticism passed from the utter See also:individualism of the ' first hermits to the See also:half eremitical, half cenobitical life of the Lauras (see MONASTICISM). Owing to certain resemblances in See also:external matters to the See also:Benedictine rule and practice, the Carthusians have sometimes been regarded as one of the 'offshoots from the See also:Benedictines; but this view is not tenable, the whole Carthusian conception, See also:idea and spirit being quite different from the Benedictine. The superiors of the Charterhouses are priors, not abbots, and the prior of the Grande Chartreuse is the superior See also:general of the order.: A general See also:chapter of the priors is held annually at the Grande Chartreuse.

The Carthusians have always flourished most in France, but they had houses all over western Europe; some of theItalian Certose, as those at See also:

Pavia, See also:Florence and See also:Naples, are renowned for their wonderful beauty. The first See also:English See also:Charterhouse was established in 1178 at See also:Witham by Selwood See also:Forest, and at the See also:Dissolution there were nine, the most celebrated being those at Sheen in See also:Surrey and at Smithfield in See also:London (for See also:list see See also:Catholic See also:Dictionary, See also:art. " See also:Car thusians "). The Carthusians were the only order that made any corporate resistance to the ecclesiastical policy of See also:Henry VIII. The community of the London Charterhouse stood See also:firm, and the prior and several of the monks were put to See also:death in 1535 under circumstances " of barbarous See also:cruelty. In See also:Mary's reign a community was reassembled at Sheen, and on her death it emigrated, fifteen in number, to See also:Flanders, and finally settled in See also:Nieuport; it maintained itself as an English community for a considerable time, but gradually dwindled, and the last of the old English Carthusian stock died in 1831. There is now one Charterhouse in See also:England established at Parkminster in See also:Sussex in 1883; the community See also:numbers 50 See also:choir-monks, but it is almost wholly made up of foreigners, including many of those recently expelled from France. At the See also:French Revolution the monks were driven from the Grande Chartreuse, but they returned in 1816; they were again driven out under the Association See also:Laws of 1901, and the community of the Grande Chartreuse is now settled in an old. Certosa near See also:Lucca. Of See also:late years the community at the Grande Chartreuse had consisted of some 40 choir,monks and 20 lay brothers. Before the See also:recent expulsions from France there were in all some 20 Charterhouses. There have been since the middle of the 13th century a very few convents of Carthusian nuns, not more than ten; in recent times there have been but two or three, one situated.a few See also:miles from the Grande Chartreuse.

The rule resembles that of the monks, but the isolation, solitude and silence are much less stringent. The habit of the Carthusians, both monks and nuns, is white. A word may be added as to the famous liqueur; known as Chartreuse, made by the monks. At the Revolution the See also:

property of the Carthusians was confiscated, and on their restoration they recovered only the barren See also:desert in which the monastery stood, and for it they had to pay See also:rent. Thus they. were for some years in want even of the needful means of subsistence. Then the liqueur was invented as a means of supplying the wants of the community; it became a great commercial success and produces a large yearly income. This income the monks have not spent on themselves, nor does it accumulate. The first See also:charge is the See also:maintenance of the Grande Chartreuse and the other See also:Charter-houses, and out of it have been built and established the new. monasteries of the order, as at See also:Dusseldorf, Parkminster and elsewhere; but by far the largest portion has been spent on religious and charitable purposes in France and all over the world, —churches, See also:schools, hospitals, almshouses, See also:foreign See also:missions. One thing is certain: the profits made no difference at all to the secluded and austere life of the monks of the Grande Chartreuse.

End of Article: CARTHUSIANS

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