Descriptive Catalogue of all Carthusian Monasteries

The first published listing of all Carthusian monasteries is to be found in John Amorbach`s edition of the Carthusian Statutes, Statuta Ordinis Cartusiensis, published in Basle in 1510, where it appears as an appendix. The charterhouses are listed under the various Carthusian provinces, but only the names are given. In 1609 Albertus Miræus printed his Origines Cartvsianorvm Monasteriorvm per orbem vniuersum at Cologne, where again the charterhouses are listed under the Carthusian provinces, with indications of the founder and minimal supplementary details in some cases. In the eighteenth century Dom Georgius Schwengel of the charterhouse of Dantzig compiled numerous manuscripts, which form the basis for an eighteenth century Monasticon Cartusiense, but his work remained in manuscript until most of it was published from the originals in the British Library London and the Peplin Diocesan Library in Poland as Analecta Cartusiana 90 in 22 volumes (1981-84). No further comparable work appeared until 1913-1919, when the Carthusians Ludolph Jacquemart, Pacome de Falconnet, Bernard-Marie Dubosquet, and Gerard Hulsbosch published their four volume Maisons de l`Ordre des Chartreux, Vues et Notices, Montreuil-sur-Mer, Tournai, Parkminster in folio with a two page notice on most charterhouses, together with an engraving and brief bibliographical information. The texts, though informative, aimed at edification, whilst the illustrations were mainly reproduced from sketches made by a laybrother, who visited as many sites as he could, or from information received from the parishes in which the charterhouses were situated. No further Monasticon has been produced, though several important studies on Carthusian Architecture by Jean-Pierre Aniel, Giovanni Leoncini, Alain Girard, Marijan Zadnikar, Dom Augustin Devaux, Silvio Chiaberto, and James Hogg have appeared in recent years. Jan de Grauwe produced a preliminary Monasticon Cartusiense for the Low Countries in 1975 and Dom Hubertus Blüm, less successfully, one for the German-speaking territories in 1983.The projected Monasticon Cartusiense, produced by a group of highly qualified researchers, will thus fill a definite gap in the literature available on the Carthusian Order and will interest all concerned with the history of the Religious Orders.

In 1999 during the Carthusian Congress in Ittingen, it was decided to prepare a Monasticon for the Carthusian Order, which would meet the requirements of modern historical research, offering a history of the individual houses, with indications regarding the architecture, library, archives, economic significance and social status, in order to fill a gap in contemporary historiography, as most major religious orders possess such a compilation. Volume 2 of the MONASTICON CARTUSIENSE, which received favourable reviews in leading periodicals, containing the notices for the Carthusian Provinces Alemaniae Superioris, Alemaniae Inferioris, Rheni and Saxoniae, situated in Central Europe, was published in 2004, - a volume of 872 pages with 497 illustrations and maps, containing accounts of each charterhouse with extensive bibliographies and detailed indices. Volume 3, containing the notices for the charterhouses in Belgium, Holland and Great Britain will follow in June 2005. It is hoped to publish Volume 4, containing the notices for Spain, Portugal and Italy late in 2006. Good progress has been made for the Spanish and Portuguese charterhouses, for which most of the notices have already been received, but the depressive illness of one of the main contributors for the Italian charterhouses has delayed progress at the present time, but the professor in question will take a sabbatical from October 2005 until summer 2006 in order to try to meet his obligations. The situation regarding the 103 French-speaking charterhouses is more difficult. To date only 16 notices have been received and the authors are being urged to supply their texts by the end of 2006 for publication in 2007. For nineteen of the French charterhouses no author has been found to date. Further efforts are being made to attribute these notices at Carthusian conferences to be held in France and Austria in 2005. If all such efforts fail, these notices will be provided by James Hogg, Robert Bindel and Jean-Christophe Henel, working in conjunction with local librarians and archivists.