Bouton, Jean de la Croix, and Jean Baptise Van Damme, eds. Les plus anciens textes de Cîteaux.
Achel: Commentarii Cistercienses, 1974.
Auberger, Jean-Baptise. L’unanimité cistercienne primitive: mythe ou réalité? Achel: Commentarii
Cistercienses, 1986.
CARTHUSIAN ORDER
. The monastery of La Grande Chartreuse, the mother house of the Carthusian order, was
founded by St. Bruno in 1084, high in the Alps north of Grenoble. Bruno was assisted in
this foundation by Bishop Hugues I of Grenoble (d. 1132). The house always retained
many eremitical elements; the monks lived in individual cells, although they met together
for Matins and Vespers every day and for a walk once a week. In their search for
isolation, the monks avoided parish responsibilities and prayers for the dead other than
their own monastic brothers and indeed even tried to avoid visitors. Like the Cistercians,
the Carthusians relied for agricultural labor on conversi, men who had left the world
though not living a life of constant prayer. The purpose, again, was to be self-sustaining
so as to minimize contact with the outer world.
In the 12th century, all Carthusian houses were founded far from any settlements,
although in the 13th century new houses began to be founded just outside of cities. The
order always remained small. By the end of the Middle Ages, Carthusian houses (or
“Charter houses”) were found as far away as Hungary, England, and Portugal, but the
Carthusians never attained the popularity of their contemporaries the Cistercians. The
order was widely admired for its holiness of life and attracted new members primarily
from within the church, especially the more intellectual sector. Unlike every other
medieval monastic order, it never needed reform.
Constance B.Bouchard
[See also: BRUNO; GRENOBLE; MONASTICISM]
Bligny, Bernard, ed. Recueil des plus anciens actes de la Grande-Chartreuse (1086–1196).
Grenoble: Allier, 1958.
——. Saint Bruno: le premier chartreux. Rennes: Ouest-France, 1984.
——, and Gérald Chaix, eds. La naissance des Chartreuses: Actes du Vle Colloque International
d’Histoire et de Spiritualité Cartusiennes. Grenoble: n.p., 1984.
CARTULARY
. For a notary, the cartulary is the book of notes, first drafts, or summaries of charters
issued by him as a quasipublic or public authority. He could consult those notes when
necessary to authenticate a contract that he or one of his predecessors had written up.
Another type of cartulary is strictly private; these began to be drawn up in earlier times
(although the 12th and 13th centuries were the heyday of such compilations) by monastic
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