Carthusians

Carthusians, monastic order founded by Saint Bruno, who in 1084 retired with six companions to the solitude of the valley of Chartreuse, near Grenoble. There they lived as hermits, wearing rude clothing and eating vegetables and coarse bread. After 1170, when the order received papal approbation, it expanded rapidly. It dates from 1180 in England, where the name Chartreuse Houses was corrupted into Charter Houses. The order is now conducted under the rules approved in 1682 by Pope Innocent XI.

The Carthusians were divided into two classes, fathers (patres) and lay brothers (conversi). Each father occupied a separate cell, with a bed of straw, a pillow, a woolen coverlet, and the tools for manual labor or for writing. Monks left their cells only on festivals and on days of the funeral of a brother of the order. Three times a week they fasted on bread, water, and salt, and several long fasts were observed during the year. Meat was forbidden at all times, and so was wine, unless it was mixed with water. Unbroken silence was enforced except on rare occasions.

These austerities were continued, with little modification, by the modern Carthusians. The order at one time counted 16 provinces and boasted the most magnificent convents in the world, including La Grande Chartreuse, in France, now a museum consisting chiefly of 17th-century buildings, and the Certosa di Palva near Milan, in Italy. The church of the Certosa di Palva was begun in 1396 and expanded during the 15th and 16th centuries; it is a national monument.

The order of Carthusian nuns was founded at Salette, on the Rhône, in France, about 1229. They followed the rules of the Carthusian monks. When the monasteries in England were suppressed under King Henry VIII in the 16th century, nine Carthusian monasteries were active in the country. Today only one remains, at Steyning, near Brighton. One Carthusian monastery is located in the United States, in Arlington, Vermont.