Short Articles on the Carthusian Order

[Stone]

The Antiquary, July 1884
(The Rules of the Carthusian Order)

Taken from here.

No monastic Order has stamped its individuality on its buildings so completely as the Carthusian. In the case of the foundations of other Orders, it may be difficult, not unfrequently impossible, to determine from the existing remains to which of the various monastic bodies the building belongs. In spite of marked differences of plan and arrangement, on which there will be an opportunity of speaking hereafter, it is not always possible to distinguish a Benedictine foundation from a Cistercian, or Cistercian from a Cluniac, or any of these from a house of the Austin Canons. But a Carthusian house is unmistakable. It never can be taken for anything but what it is.

All the other chief monastic Orders were by principle cœnobitic - the common life was the rule; privacy was not in any way contemplated. … The exact opposite of this form of religious life was that of the hermit, or solitary, occupying his single cell, apart from other human habitations, cultivating his own small patch of ground alone and unassisted, often with his separate small chapel or oratory for his daily devotions.

The Carthusian system was a union of these two; the cœnobitic or common life, and the solitary life: the life of the hermit and that of the member of a religious community. St. Bruno's ideal was a combination of the virtues of each mode of life, with an avoidance of the evils which experience had proved each was liable to. He desired, by his rule, to unite the strict austerity of the solitary with the mutual charities of the member of a brotherhood. The severity of his rule (in the words of Archbishop Trench) exceeded that of all which had gone before, while it hardly left room for any that should come after to exceed it.

This object [of the founder] was, first, the eternal salvation of their [monks’] souls, and then the benefit of the world by the books, to the copying of which, by the rule of their founder, they were commanded to devote the chief part of their time, each new copy of a holy book being, in the words of their Consuetudinarium, a new herald of the truth, so that the scribes became preachers with their hands.

The Carthusian Order never became popular in England. The severe discipline its rule enjoined of absolute silence and isolation with meagre diet and insufficient clothing of the coarsest texture, even though modified as it was with us, was as alien from the English character as it was unsuited to the English climate. Founded by St. Bruno, in 1084, the Carthusian rule was first introduced into England by Henry II, in 1181, at Witham, in Somersetshire, of which house the justly famous St. Hugh, afterwards Bishop of Lincoln, was the third prior, and the virtual founder. But not even his powerful influence could succeed in popularizing the Order. It was planted as an exotic in a few isolated spots, but it never naturalized itself on English soil.

Of the nine English Carthusian houses, Mount Grace is the only one which exhibits the arrangements characteristic of the Order. Nearly all the others have entirely perished, not even their ruins remaining. Witham preserves its "Ecclesia Minor," but all the other buildings are gone.

If a brother happened not to be a scribe, which was a very unusual case, he was to be allowed to have with him the implements of his art or trade whatever it might be. They might borrow two books at the same time from the book cupboard, and were to take the utmost care that they were not discoloured with smoke or dust or any other filth.

The object of giving so many different articles to each individual, which, the Consuetudinarium remarks, might provoke a smile, was to take away all excuse for a brother leaving his cell, which he was never permitted to do except to go to the church, or to the cloister for confession.