Carthusian Order

This thesis examines the Carthusians in Great Britain and Ireland from an archaeological standpoint and highlights the role of the lay brother in the everyday life of the charterhouse.

Using the case studies of Witham Charterhouse and Hinton Priory, the
layouts of the lay brothers’ complexes are explored through geophysical survey and comparison with Carthusian material culture assemblages from other British charterhouses. This method of investigation provides a singular view of the lay brother in medieval society and for the first time proposes a layout of an English Carthusian lower house.

The thesis begins with an introduction to the topic and gives an overview
history of the Carthusians in Great Britain, before discussing in more detail areas of the charterhouse complex - the cell, church and cloister. Following this is a discussion of everyday life for the monks and lay brothers, exploring various facets including death and memory. The thesis then moves on to investigate the wider landscape of the monastery complex, and how the local area was exploited and utilised by the Carthusians. The monks’ and lay brothers’ interactions with secular society are considered through excavated assemblages from a number of charterhouses, which also demonstrates specific occupations for each of the inhabitants. The final chapter of the thesis presents the results of resistivity and magnetometer surveys at the two Somerset charterhouses and provides an interpretation of these results. It is concluded that it is not currently possible to identify the Carthusian lay brother as archaeologically distinct as there are not sufficient assemblages to provide an accurate understanding of the differences in monastic and lay objects. More research is therefore required before the lay brother can be properly understood.

Published in "Ons Geestelijk Erf" 86(3) (2015), 219-249.
doi: 10.2143/OGE.86.3.3154602

Depicting the Carthusian monk Jan Vos (successively prior of the Charterhouses of Bruges and Utrecht) kneeling in prayer in front of the Virgin and Child, Petrus Christus’ Exeter Madonna is a small painting probably destined to private devotional practices of its owner. This work is particularly interesting for it perfectly illustrates how the structuring of the pictorial space endows paintings that include devotional portraits with a dynamic dimension and how this dimension plays an essential role in the spiritual meaning and function of such images. The aim of this article is to show that by bring- ing together the worldly sphere below in the background and the sacred space in the foreground, where the Virgin welcomes the devotee, the Exeter Madonna can be under- stood as a visualization of the spiritual ascent of Jan Vos. To this end, the visual struc- ture of the painting is closely analysed, before being compared with devotional texts dealing with the theme of the spiritual ascent (such as De spiritualibus ascensionibus of Gerard Zerbolt of Zutphen), which Jan Vos knew well. Secondly, this devotional painting is re-placed within its context, namely the Charterhouses of Utrecht and Bruges and Carthusian spirituality in order to demonstrate that together with books, such images played a crucial role in the meditative practices of Carthusian monks.

The Freiburg DFG project 'Making Mysticism. Mystical Books in the Library of the Erfurt Charterhouse‘ (https://making-mysticism.org/) explores the question of how the (literary) historiographical category 'mysticism' relates to the historical order category theologia mystica. The library catalog of the Charterhouse St. Salvatorberg (Erfurt, diocesan archive, Hs. Hist. 6), which was created around 1475 and was mainly expanded into the 1520s, offers the opportunity to use historically documented library holdings and the order according to which they are recorded are to examine the beginning of the category formation 'mysticism'. The catalog is not a simple inventory. Rather, the books are programmatically assigned to individual signature groups, with the program of spiritual self-perfection being developed in the introductions to the signature groups. The groups D, DF, E, F and I, which contain books on theologia mystica and revelationes, are particularly relevant for the investigation of the (literary) historiographical category 'mysticism'. Because they are the focus of the project, they were selected for the present digital, genetic new edition. The beta version with the edition of the signature groups D and I.

Das Freiburger DFG-Projekt ‚Making Mysticism. Mystische Bücher in der Kartause Erfurt‘ (https://making-mysticism.org/) geht der Frage nach, wie sich die (literatur-)historiographische Kategorie ‚Mystik‘ zur historischen Ordnungskategorie theologia mystica verhält. Der Bibliothekskatalog der Erfurter Kartause St. Salvatorberg (Erfurt, Bistumsarchiv, Hs. Hist. 6), der um 1475 entstand und hauptsächlich bis in die 1520er Jahre erweitert wurde, bietet die Gelegenheit, anhand historisch bezeugter Bibliotheksbestände und der Ordnung, nach der sie verzeichnet sind, den Anfang der Kategorienbildung ‚Mystik‘ zu untersuchen. Der Katalog stellt nämlich kein einfaches Bestandsverzeichnis dar. Vielmehr sind die Bücher programmatisch einzelnen Signaturengruppen zugeordnet, wobei das Programm einer spirituellen Selbstvervollkommnung in den Einleitungen zu den Signaturengruppen entwickelt wird. Die für die Untersuchung der (literatur-)historiographischen Kategorie ‚Mystik‘ besonders relevanten Signaturengruppen sind die Gruppen D, DF, E, F und I, die Bücher zur theologia mystica und zu revelationes enthalten. Weil sie im Fokus des Projektes stehen, wurden sie für die hier vorliegende digitale, genetische Neuedition ausgewählt. Einen ersten Einblick in die Möglichkeiten, die die zukünftige Neuedition bietet, gewährt Ihnen die jetzt schon vorliegende Beta-Version mit der Edition der Signaturengruppen D und I.

Der Versuch, den überlieferten Buchbestand der 1803 aufgehobenen Erfurter Kartause zu erfassen und den Verbleib der im mittelalterlichen Standortkatalog verzeichneten Bände zu ermitteln, wurde von Paul Lehmann 1928 zum ersten Mal unternommen. 60 Jahre später präsentierte Sigrid Krämer eine aktualisierte Dokumentation des erhaltenen Buchbestands der Erfurter Kartause, die im ersten Teil des von Krämer erstellten Nachschlagewerks „Handschriftenerbe des deutschen Mittelalters“ 1989 erschienen ist. Der von diesen beiden Verzeichnissen erfasste Buchbestand bildet den Grundstock der vorliegenden Übersicht, die eine nach Möglichkeit korrigierte, nochmals aktualisierte und bibliographisch fundierte Dokumentation über den Verbleib von Büchern (in erster Linie von Handschriften, in geringerem Maße auch von Inkunabeln und Frühdrucken) aus der Kartause Erfurt bietet. Auch in der 3., korrigierten und erweiterten Version erhebt sie nicht den Anspruch auf Vollständigkeit und Fehlerlosigkeit. Vielmehr bildet sie den Zwischenstand eines work in progress ab, der in eine Datenbank münden soll. Ergänzungen und Korrekturen sind jederzeit möglich und höchst willkommen.

Se presentan de manera breve las principales conclusiones de la intervención arqueológica llevada a cabo con motivo de la reurbanización del campus universitario de Cartuja (Granada). La intervención ha tenido dos fases, una de excavación con sondeos en el año 2013 y otra de seguimiento, control de movimiento de tierras y excavación de nuevas áreas entre 2014-2015. Todo ello ha permitido obtener una visión conjunta de la evolución de este espacio al norte de la ciudad de Granada desde época romana hasta la época contemporánea, incluyendo reformas en época medieval y moderna.

EN: The aim of this paper is present briefly the main findings of the archaeological research carried out in connection with the redevelopment of the university campus of Cartuja (Granada). The intervention has had two phases, one of excavation surveys during the summer of 2013 and another, since May 2014 to June 2015, with archaeological monitoring, control earthmoving and excavation of new areas. All this works has led to an overview of the historical evolution in this area, northern of the city of Granada, from Roman times to the present day, including medieval and modern occupation.

This study provides a historical overview of Kinalehin priory, the sole foundation of the Carthusian order in Ireland, who followed an austere and predominantly eremitical form of religious life. Following an introduction to the origins, principles and characteristics of the Carthusians, the order’s relatively brief tenure in Kinalehin, Co. Galway, will be considered. The establishment of a Franciscan friary in Kinalehin following the suppression of the Carthusian priory will be addressed, in addition to a possible association between this site and the Knights Hospitaller.

Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland Vol. 142-143 (2012-13) 100–113

Entre los años 1998 y 2004, Hispanoamérica ha asistido al proceso de gestación y consolidación del primer monasterio cartujo de su historia. La equilibrada fusión entre elementos tradicionales de la arquitectura popular argentina, neocolonial y cartujana lo han elevado como un hito dentro de la escasa praxis de una arquitectura monacal contemporánea.
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From 1998 to 2005, Spanish Americahas witnessed a process of genesis and consolidation of the first Carthusian monastery in its history. It has been raised a milestone in the limited practice of the contemporary monastic architecture by the balanced fusion between different elements from the Argentinian, Spanish Colonial and Carthusian architectures.

pp. 186-229; B. BLIGNY, L'église et les ordres religieuses dans le royaume de Bourgogne aux XI et XII sièc!es, Paris 1960 (Collection des Cahiers d'histoire, 4), pp. 246-256; per le fondazioni certosine piemontesi in particolare, cfr. ID., Les fondations cartusiennes d'Italie, in Monasteri in Alta Italia dopo le invasioni saracene e magiare (sec. X-XII) (Relazioni e comunicazioni presentate al XXXII Congresso storico subalpino, Pinerolo 6-9 settembre 1964), Torino 1966, pp. 35-5l. 4 BLIGNY, L'église et les ordres religieuses cit., pp. 298-306; a più di un secolo dalla sua nascita, l'ordine certosino nel 1200 non conta in Piemonte che tre monasteri, ID., Les fondations carltlsiennes d'Italie cit., p. 35. 15 DUBY, L'economia rurale cit., pp. 99-135; R. COMBA, La dinamica dell'insediamento umano nel Cuneese (secoli X-XII!), in «Bollettino storico-bibliografico subalpino », LXXI (1973), pp. 541-542. 16 Questa ripartizione della valle è proposta da F. SAPPA e G. PIOVANO, La valle Pesio e la sua vegetazione (Alpi Marittime), in Lavori di botanica, Padova 1947, p. 204. Per alta valle si intenderà qui tutto il territorio della prima donazione, di poco più esteso. La valle Pesio è ora Parco Naturale. I rilievi topografici sono tratti da 1. G. M., foglio 91 della carta d'Italia, Tavole Certosa di Pesio e Peveragno. 17 GIORGIO BELTRUTTI ha misurato il cammino necessario per giungere ad alcuni di questi passaggi partendo dalla certosa. Fino alla punta Colletto, ad esempio, si impiegano 5 ore: Cuneo e le sue valli, Savigliano 1978, pp. 118-119.

https://www.peeters-leuven.be/detail.php?search_key=9789042949485&series_number_str=49&lang=en --- The articles in this volume share an interest in the subject of 'Carthusians and mysticism', which is treated by way of example and with a broad European horizon. They all share a decidedly historical approach to the chosen topic, which goes hand in hand with a focus on those Carthusian contexts that have proven to be the hubs of the production, reception and distribution of mystical texts. What they also have in common is the question of how mystical focal points of interest can be developed and described in individual charterhouses or in the case of individual cartusians, with the chronological focus – apart from a detour into the High Middle Ages and into the Early Modern Age – being on the Late Middle Ages. It is therefore traced how mysticism was 'on the move' in the Carthusian order. But not only that: Several contributions are themselves on the way to a definition of mysticism, at least they reflect the (research) historical background of the term and its heuristic use for the constitution of a special corpus of texts.

This publication emerged from the colloquium series of the DFG project "Making Mysticism. Mystical books in the library of the Erfurt Charterhouse" , see https://making-mysticism.org/

REVIEWS: literaturkritik.de (26.09.2023), URL: https://literaturkritik.de/public/rezension.php?rez_id=29983 (Jörg Füllgrabe)

In the flourishing literature which St. Catherine of Siena enjoys in recent scholarship, a surprisingly meagre amount of space is dedicated to her disciple whom she herself used to call “most beloved.” Apart from the penetrating article by Giovanni Leoncini, researchers have left his personality—and the entangled set of relevant primary sources—virtually neglected. Yet it was Maconi, the restless Sienese youth and later Carthusian Prior General, whose indefatigable pursuit finally led to Catherine’s canonisation; his role in this respect is no smaller than that of the most renowned patrons of the procedure such as Raymond of Capua and Thomas d’Antonio Caffarini. This short article makes no attempt to delve into the depths of Maconi’s immense activity after her departure, de qua plura loqui brevitas angusta libelli / me prohibet, quamvis dicere mira queam. It tries to explore the roots, the foundation stones of the relationship which came to influence royal courts as well as thatched cottages of the late medieval West and which after several meanders and hindrances finally gave birth to the cult of today’s patron saint of Europe.

Examen des datations jusqu'ici proposées pour les plus anciens actes de la Grande Chartreuse (1086-1133) avec propositions de nouvelles datations (1086-1097 à v. 1147), sur la base d'une analyse de la tradition de ces actes, de la forme des originaux encore existants, de leur teneur. Esquisse des enseignements que l'on peut tirer à propos des premiers temps de la Chartreuse et des autres ermitages ayant adopté les coutumes de la Chartreuse.

To contemplate goodness in God, and strain toward it in yearning love, is the method of the Christian vita contemplativa. In this way the recluse cultivates humility, patience, purity, and love, and perfects his soul for heaven. And herein, in that it is more undistracted and more undisturbed, lies the superiority of the solitary life over the cenobitic.
Yet this conceived superiority is but the reason and the conscious motive for the solitary life. The call to it is felt as well as intellectually accepted. It is temperament that makes the recluse; his reasons are but his justification. In solitude he lives the reaches of his life; from solitude he draws his utmost bliss. To leave it involves the torture of separation, and then all the petty pains of unhappy labour and distasteful intercourse with men.  “Whoever would reach the summit of perfection should keep within the cloister of his seclusion, cherish spiritual leisure, and shudder at traversing the world, as if he were about to plunge into a sea of blood. For the world is so filthy with vices, that any holy mind is befouled even by thinking about it.”

La alimentación ha requerido del uso de una cultura material específica para satisfacer el hambre, pero esta cultura material podía variar en función de razones económicas, sociales y culturales. La historia de la alimentación, disciplina consolidada y de reciente trayectoria en España, todavía no ha centrado su estudio en la cultura material, que ha sido analizada, directa o indirectamente, desde otros campos de estudio. El presente artículo propone un primer acercamiento a la reconstrucción de los materiales culinarios existentes en la Cataluña de la Edad Moderna, mediante el análisis de dos recetarios catalanes, que ocupan los siglos XVI y XVII.

(Die Spuren der Augustus-Theologie in der Weihnachtspredigt des sog. Anonymen Kartäusers) --- Budapest, Eötvös Loránd Universität, Institut für Ältere Ungarische Sprache und Literatur, 26. April 2003 — Arbeitstreffen der Forschergruppe „Sermones compilati“ (Veranstalter: Dr. Ildikó Bárczi †)

Translation of a paper of H. Temperman, Les derniers jours de la chartreuse d'Hérinnes. Contribution à l'histoire de ce couvent,  in: Annales du Cercle archéologique d'Engien, 14 (1965), 101-124, 3 ill.
Publised on the occassion ot the commemoration of the closure of the monastery in 1783

Afbeelding op het omslag: Jacob Cornelisz. van Oostsanen, De geboorte van Christus met de aanbidding der herders (details) 1512. Museo e Real Bosco di Capodimonte te Napoli, met toestemming van het Italiaanse Ministerie van Cultuur. Tevens verschenen als proefschrift aan de Universiteit van Amsterdam.

Northern European and Spanish Paintings before 1600 in the Art Institute of Chicago. A Catalogue of the Collection, by Martha Wolff, Susan Frances Jones, Richard G. Mann and Judith Berg Sobré, with contributions by Ilse Hecht, Peter Klein, Cynthia Kuniej Berry, and Larry Silver, Yale University Press, 2008, pp. 30-42

Chapters from the Research History of the Carthusian Order


The Carthusian order didn‘t have a big fellowship in Hungary,  it had only four monasteries during the middle ages. Elemér Mályusz called our attention that despite the small number of the monasteries, the order had international relations.
The first attempt at settlement was in 1238, when the former Benedectine monastery on the island of Ercsi was donated to the Carthusians. Probably due to the Tatarian invasion the order left Hungary, because in 1253 Pope Innocent IV charged the abbey of the Cistercian monastery in Toplica with filling Ercsi with people.
Michal Slivka, who excavated the monastery of Lapis Refugii, studied it the most. He mentioned the monastery in his studies in connection with Christian conversion in the Szepesség and the possessions of the monasteries in the Eastern counties or other ecclesiastical institutions.
In the heart of the Hungarian Kingdom Carthusian monasteries were also founded between 1330 and 1332, when Segedelemvölgy – near to Eger - became centre for the order. Kabos Kandra published his study about the Carthusians in Tárkány. Kandra supposed that the bishop had invited the order to Hungary to copy books for his library. Péter Németh also dealt with the monastery of Tárkány. 
In the fourteenth century Lajos I  had a great role in the foundation of a Carthusian establishment in Lövöld.  This monastery is a very good example for showing that the Carthusians didn’t work under total western influence.
During the fifteenth century the Carthusian order would have got the monastery building left by the Premonstratensian order in Váradhegyfok, but it was not successful. After the Hussite and the Turkish devastation the resettlement of the Carthusian order was not successful. However, their former estates appeared in later legal proceedings.

A significant number of Icelandic sermons survive in manuscript fragments from the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, but relatively few of these have been the objects of serious study. The present article is an edition and analysis of one such sermon, now found in two fragments — AM 687 c 1 4to (two bifolia) and AM 667 XVII 4to (one bifolium) — which originally belonged to the same early sixteenth-century manuscript. The text, probably intended for the feast of the Annunciation (25 March), is divided into three sections by its author: (1) a retelling of the Annunciation episode and Christ’s conception, (2) a discussion of the motif of the Seven Last Words of Christ, and (3) an exemplum. Part of the first section and all of the second survive, while most of the third has been lost to a lacuna. The major source of the surviving part of the sermon is the Vita Christi by the fourteenth-century Carthusian Ludolf of Saxony, although the author makes frequent and sometimes significant digressions. The content of some of these digressions and the language of the text, which is notable for its high proportion of loanwords from Middle Low German, suggest that the sermon could not have been composed much earlier its surviving copy (that is to say, earlier than 1500). A probable terminus ad quem for the text is ca. 1540, after which time the diocese of Skálholt (where the text was likely copied) became Lutheran.

Das Mittelalter kennt noch keine Verwendung des Begriffs 'Mystik' als historiographischer oder literarhistorischer Kategorie. Eine Geschichte der Mystik steht daher vor der Frage, wie die Anfänge einer solchen Kategorienbildung aussehen. Ein herausragendes Paradigma für eine solche Untersuchung stellt die Bibliothek der Erfurter Kartause am Übergang vom Mittelalter zur Frühen Neuzeit dar. Sie besaß zwei Signaturengruppen mit den Buchstaben D und J, die nach modernem Sprachgebrauch ‚mystische Literatur‘ sowohl auf Latein als auch in der Volkssprache umfassten. Zwar ist in der diskursiven Ordnung der Bibliothek nicht von ‚Mystik‘ die Rede. Die Signaturengruppe D versammelt aber explizit Texte zur "theologia mystica", während die Signaturengruppe J "revelationes" umfasst, womit auch, aber nicht nur ‚Frauenmystik‘ gemeint ist. Im Fokus des Vortrags, der eine gemeinsame Projektidee von Burkhard Hasebrink (Freiburg) und mir vorstellt, steht der spätmittelalterliche Bibliothekskatalog mit seinen beiden genannten Signaturengruppen und die Frage, wie die Kategorie ‚mystisch‘ historisch als Kategorie einer Wissensordnung verwendet wurde bzw. wie sie auf den unterschiedlichen Ebenen des Text-Raums Bibliothek als historische Ordnungskategorie erschlossen und analysiert werden kann.

Deutsches Historisches Institut Paris, 17. Juni 2016, Workshop "Essor et renouveau de la bibliothèque (XVe‒XVIIe siècle)" (Veranstalter: CNRS‒IRHT, Biblissima, Paris (Gilbert Fournier), Universität Namur; PraME (Xavier Hermand) und Deutsches Historisches Institut Paris (Rolf Grosse))

An assessment of the strategies and actions taken by the Carthusian General Chapter to insure that liturgical texts and records of the chapter maintained in each house of the order conformed to the standard of copies held in the Grande Chartreuse, including the deliberate choice of print as a source of textual uniformity.

William Hayley''s "The Hermit's Dog" has a political background in two historical events--the 1792 expulsion of Carthusians from the Grande Chartreuse valley, and the diaspora of a knightly religious order throughout Europe, following the 1798 loss of Malta by the Knights of St. John (Hospitaller) to Napoleon. The poem was written after war broke out between England and France in 1803, after England's refusal to return Malta to the Knights gave Napoleon an occasion to declare the Treaty of Amiens breached. Yet Blake dehistoricizes the poem in his illustration, making the dead noble a knight from the time of the Crusades, and making Hayley's secular hermit into a monk.

annexes : https://acta.musicology.org/supplements

Le fonds musical de la Chartreuse d’Évora comprend des manuscrits et imprimés bien identifiés par les chercheurs, à l’exception d’un antiphonaire conservé au Palácio Duques do Cadaval dont l’origine n’avait pas été déterminée jusqu’à présent. Édifiée à la fin du XVIe siècle, la Chartreuse Scala coeli est la première chartreuse portugaise et doit son existence à l’intérêt pour l’Ordre de l’archevêque d’Évora, Teotónio de Bragança. Bien qu’écrits ou imprimés à la fin du XVIe siècle, voire au début du suivant, les livres en usage à la Chartreuse d’Évora témoignent d’une tradition liturgique remontant au Moyen Âge. Dans l’ensemble peu mouvante, la liturgie cartusienne connut cependant quelques nouveautés qui furent entérinées à la fin du XVIe siècle. Les livres de la Chartreuse d’Évora sont donc des témoins privilégiés de l’intégration de ces changements dans la liturgie cartusienne.

The musical collection of the Chaterhouse of Évora owns manuscripts and printed books well known by researchers, except one antiphonary kept in the Palácio Duques do Cadaval that I identify as being a Carthusian book. Built at the end of the sixteenth century, the Charterhouse of Évora (Scala Coeli) is the first Portuguese Charterhouse. Although written or printed at the end of the sixteenth century, or at the beginning of the seventeenth, the books used in the Charterhouse of Évora bear witness to a liturgical tradition as ancient as the Middle Ages. In general stable, the Cartusian liturgy suffered however some changes ratified at the end of the sixteenth century. The books of the Charterhouse of Évora are thus testimonies of the integration of these changes into the Carthusian liturgy. They also bear witness of the constitution of a liturgical collection for the daily recitation of the divine office.