Carthusians

Carthusians , small order of monks of the Roman Catholic Church [Lat. abbr.,=O. Cart.]. It was established by St. Bruno at La Grande Chartreuse (see Chartreuse, Grande ) in France in 1084. The Carthusians are peculiar among orders of Western monasticism in cultivating a nearly eremitical life: each monk lives by himself with cell and garden and, except for communal worship, scarcely meets the others. No order is more austere. The Carthusian enclosure is called charterhouse in English, and its architecture differs necessarily from that of the Benedictine abbey . The Charterhouse of London was famous, and the Certosa di Pavia , Italy, is an architectural monument. The Carthusians are devoted mainly to contemplation. In 1973 they numbered 440 members throughout the world, of whom there were 10 in the United States, living at the Charterhouse of Arlington, Vt. They are unchanging in their rule, their independence, and their original way of life. There are a very few Carthusian nuns following a similar rule. Chartreuse is the well-known liqueur manufactured by Carthusians in France.

Carthusians. Roman Catholic monastic order, so-called from their mother-house, La Grande Chartreuse (Lat., Cartusia, ‘Charter-house’) near Grenoble, founded in 1084 by St Bruno of Cologne (1032–1101). Carthusian monasticism emphasizes eremitic over coenobitic elements. Their austere form of life has changed little since being first codified c.1127 in the Customs of Guigo I, fifth prior of La Grande Chartreuse. Thus the Order is traditionally characterized as ‘never reformed because never deformed’.

Carthusians Part of an 11th‐cent. revival of Egyptian solitary ‘desert life’, they were founded as a group of hermits near Grenoble, later La Grande Chartreuse (1084), by Bruno (d. 1101). As penance for Becket's murder, Henry II established the first English house at Witham, Somerset (1178): six more houses followed (1342–1414), including London (1371) and the largest, Henry V's foundation at Sheen. Never relaxing their austerity, nor ambitious to proliferate, they were noted for their holiness. The last prior of the London charterhouse, John Houghton, and his monks were martyred at the dissolution.