La GRANDE CHARTREUSE, The mother house of the Carthusian Order, situated in the Dauphiné Alps, some 15 miles North of Grenoble. A primitive monastery on the site was built by St Bruno in 1084. It was many times destroyed by fire and rebuilt before the present monastery was begun in 1676. In 1904 the monks were forcibly ejected under the ‘Associations Law’ of 1901, and the building secularized. The famous liqueur was thereafter made by the expelled monks at Tarragona in Spain. In 1940 Carthusians were permitted to return to La Grande Chartreuse.

B. Bligny, Recueil des plus anciens actes de la Grande-Chartreuse (1086–1196) (Grenoble, 1958). [C. M. Boutrais, OSB,] La Grande Chartreuse (Grenoble, 1881, and numerous subsequent edns.; abridged Eng. tr., 1893). J. Picard, La Grande Chartreuse, et les Chartreuses et Portes, Sélignac, et Pierre Chatel (Analecta Cartusiana, 61; Salzburg, 1986), pp. 5–86. M. Laporte, OSB, in DHGE 21 (1986), cols. 1088–107, s.v.

SAINT BRUNO

ST. BRUNO (c.1032–1101). The founder of the Carthusian Order. Educated at Cologne and Reims, he became a canon of St Cunibert’s in Cologne, whence he was recalled to be ‘scholasticus’ of the important cathedral school of Reims (c.1057). Here he had among his pupils the future Pope Urban II. He was made chancellor of the diocese in 1075 by Manasses, the new archbishop, a man of scandalous character, with whom he soon came into conflict. In the course of a long struggle Bruno was forced to leave his school (1076), but he returned in 1080 when Manasses was deposed from his see. Shortly after, Bruno turned to the religious life and for a time placed himself under the direction of St Robert, who later founded Cîteaux. Before long he left Robert, and with six companions went into the mountainous district near Grenoble, where, under the protection of the bishop, St Hugh, he laid the foundations of the Carthusian Order (1084). In 1090 he was summoned by Pope Urban II to live in Italy and assist him with his counsel. He obeyed, but refusing the archbishopric of Reggio, retired to the wilds of Calabria and founded the monastery of La Torre, where he died. He was never formally canonized, but in 1514 his order obtained Papal leave to keep his festival (6 Oct.). The observance of the feast was imposed on all Westerns in communion with Rome in 1623.

His Expositions on the Psalms and on the Epp. of St Paul have been repr. by the Carthusians of Montreuil-sur-Mer, 1891–2; also in J. P. Migne, PL 152 and 153; their authenticity is still a matter of dispute; see A. Stoelen, O. Carth., ‘Les Commentaires scripturaires attribués à Bruno le Chartreux’, RTAM 25 (1958), pp. 177–247; id., ‘Bruno le Chartreux, Jean Gratiadei et la “Lettre de S. Anselme” sur l’Eucharistie’, ibid. 34 (1967), pp. 18–83. 3 letters, with Fr. tr. and introd., in Lettres des Premieres Chartreux, ed. by Un Chartreux, 1 (SC 88; 1962, 2nd edn., 1988), pp. 9–93. Extracts from anon. 13th-cent. Life (Vita Antiquior), together with other primary material, in AASS, Oct. 3 (1700), pp. 491–777. [M. Laporte, OSB] Aux Sources de la Vie Cartusienne, 1: Éclaircissements concernant la Vie de Saint Bruno (St-Pierre-de-Chartreuse, 1960). A. P. F. Lefebvre, Saint Bruno et l’ordre des Chartreux (2 vols., 1883); H. Löbbel, Der Stifter des Carthäuser-Ordens, der heilige Bruno aus Köln (1899). Modern Lives by A. Ravier (Paris, 1967; 2nd edn., 1981; Eng. tr., San Francisco, 1995) and by Un Chartreux (Analecta Cartusiana, 115; Salzburg, 1990). Y. Gourdel, OSB, in Dict. Sp. 2 (1953), cols. 705–10, s.v. ‘Chartreux’; J. Dubois, OSB, in DIP 1 (1973), cols. 1606–15, s.v. See also works cited under carthusian order.

THE CARTHUSIAN ORDER

CARTHUSIAN ORDER. This strictly contemplative order was founded by St Bruno, in 1084, at the Grande Chartreuse (whence its name). At first it had no special Rule, though it demanded perfect mortification and renunciation of the world. The monks were vowed to silence and, by Bruno’s orders, each lived in his own cell within the monastery, working and devoting several hours daily to mental prayer, and meeting his brethren for the Office, for the conventual Mass, and for meals only on feast days. Between 1121 and 1128 Guigo I, the fifth Prior of the Grande Chartreuse, compiled as their Rule the ‘Consuetudines Cartusiae’, which in 1133 received the approbation of Innocent II. This with the resolutions made by the General Chapters since c.1140 constituted the ‘Antiquae Consuetudines’ promulgated by the General Chapter in 1271. Further additions were made a century later (the ‘Novae Constitutiones’), in 1509 (‘Tertia Compilatio’), and in 1581 (‘Nova Collectio Statutorum’). This whole body of material is known as the ‘Statuta’. The elaboration of the Carthusian Rule, however, has hardly modified (except in the number of fasts) the austerity and self-denial characteristic of the order from the beginning. The basis of Carthusian custom was and is a combination of Benedictine monachism and eremitical asceticism.

The history of the order has been comparatively uneventful, the most notable incident being a division within the order caused by the Great Schism (1378–1409), which was healed by the resignation of the two Generals and the election of a third in their place. The order was one of the least affected by the decline of monasticism in the late Middle Ages. During the Reformation a number of English Carthusians were put to death by Henry VIII, but in Spain, France, and Italy the order was prosperous. The Carthusians suffered badly during the French Revolution, and though much of their property was restored in 1816, the anticlerical legislation of 1901 once again drove them from the Grande Chartreuse. Most of them found refuge in Spain. In 1940 they returned to the Grande Chartreuse. The headquarters of the English Carthusians is now the Charterhouse at Parkminster, W. Sussex (est. 1883). Their habit is white, with a white leather belt.

The Carthusians have numbered among their members many mystics and devotional writers. The most famous of English Carthusians is St Hugh, from c.1180 the third prior of the first English Charterhouse founded at Witham in Somerset c.1178/9, and later Bp. of Lincoln (1186–1200).

The order also includes a few houses of nuns who live under a similar Rule to the monks. The government of the order rests with the General, who is the Prior of the Grande Chartreuse, elected by the monks of his house, and a General Chapter, consisting of the visitors and priors, which meets every year.

Annales Ordinis Cartusiensis ab anno 1084 ad annum 1429, begun by C. Le Couteulx, Ord. Cart. (1687), ed. and cont. by Carthusians of Montreuil (8 vols., 1887–91). M. Tromby, Ord. Cart., Storia critico-cronologica diplomatica del patriarca S. Brunone e del suo Ordine Cartusiano (Naples, 1773–79). L. Vasseur, Ord. Cart., Ephemerides Ordinis Cartusiensis (ed. by Carthusians of Montreuil, 4 vols., 1890–92). V. M. Doreau, Les Éphémérides de l’ordre des Chartreux (4 vols., Montreuil, 1897–1900). C. Bohiχ̀, Ord. Cart., Chronica Ordinis Carthusiensis, ab anno 1084 ad annum 1510 (4 vols., Parkminster, 1911–54). J. Hogg (ed.), Analecta Cartusiana (Salzburg, 1970 ff.). A. Wilmart, OSB, ‘La Chronique des premiers Chartreux’, Revue Mabillon, 16 (1926), pp. 77–141. [M. Laporte], Aux Sources de la vie cartusienne (6 vols., St-Pierre-de-Chartreuse, 1960–67, incl. edn. of ‘Consuetudines Cartusiae’ in vol. 4). The ‘Consuetudines Cartusiae’ also ed., with Fr. tr., by Un Chartreux (SC 313; 1984). Lettres des premiers Chartreux, ed. by Un Chartreux (ibid. 88 and 274; 1962–80; 2nd edn. of vol. 1, 1988; rev. repr. of vol. 2, 1996). E. Baumann, Les Chartreux (‘Les Grands Ordres monastiques’, 1928); M. Zadnikar (ed.), Die Kartäuser: Die Orden der schweigenden Mönche (Cologne, 1983). Anon., Maisons de l’ordre des Chartreux: vues et notices (4 vols., 1913–19). E. M. Thompson, The Carthusian Order in England (CHS NS 3, 1930); [M.] D. Knowles, OSB, The Monastic Order in England (1940; 2nd edn., 1963), pp. 375–91; G. Coppack and M. Aston, Christ’s Poor Men: The Carthusians in England (Stroud, 2002). B. Bligny, L’Église et les ordres religieux dans le royaume de Bourgogne aux XI^e et XII^e siècles (1960), pp. 245–318, with bibl., pp. 490 f. J. Dubois, OSB, ‘Quelques problèmes de l’histoire de l’Ordre des Chartreux à propos de livres récents’, RHE 63 (1968), pp. 27–54. Various other essays by id., Histoire monastique en France au XII^e siècle (Variorum Reprints, London, 1982), nos. 7–10. A. Gruys, Cartusiana: Un instrument heuristique (3 parts, 1976–8). Y. Gourdel, OSB, in Dict. Sp. 2 (1953), cols. 705–76, s.v. ‘Chartreux’; Un Certosino and J. Dubois, OSB, in DIP 2 (1973), cols. 782–821, s.v. ‘Certosini’. See also bibl. to bruno, st, and grande chartreuse.

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