A History of the Carthusian Order

Most of the major religious Orders of the Roman Catholic Church have received adequate historical treatment in the twentieth century. Thus, for example, Philibert Schmitz offered a magisterial survey of Benedictine history in his Histoire de l`Ordre de Saint Benot, 2nd edition, Abbaye de Maredsous 1948 ff., Louis J. Lekai outlined Cistercian history in his The Cistercians: Ideals and Reality, Kent State University Press 1977, and the Anglican Bishop John Moorman outlined the early centuries of the Franciscans in his A History of the Franciscan Order from its Origins to the Year 1517 , Oxford 1968, whilst even such an extinct Order as Grandmont was investigated in depth by the Benedictine savant Jean Becquet in numerous publications. The Carthusians, with over 270 foundations, virtually alone lack an adequate general history, though some of the ground-work was accomplished on a popular level as early as 1881 by the Carthusian Dom Cyprian Boutrais in his La Grande Chartreuse par un Chartreux, which has been continually revised and corrected over the decades, the seventeenth edition being published as recently as 1998. The work itself is wider in scope than its title suggests, but it makes no pretension of offering a scientific history of the Order. Isolated publications, such as E. Margaret Thompson`s The Carthusian Order in England, London 1930, and Marijan Zadnikar`s Die Kartäuser: Orden der schweigenden Mönche, Cologne 1983, despite more detailed research, remained limited in scope, so that the sixteenth and seventeenth century Carthusian chroniclers Dom Clement Bohic, Dom Nicolas Molin, Dom Charles Le Couteulx, and Dom Leo Le Vasseur remain the principles sources for the earlier centuries of Carthusian history, despite the limitations imposed on them by their solitary vocation, which prevented them from leaving their monasteries to work in external libraries. From 1960-1971 Dom Maurice Laporte, a Carthusian residing at the Grande Chartreuse, produced a study of the origins of the Carthusian Order in eight substantial volumes, which unfortunately have remained unpublished. In spite of the fact that he was not by training an historian, he cast new light on early Carthusian history, - a process which was continued by James Hogg, who, not having been received to the solemn profession in 1968, founded the Analecta Cartusiana in 1970, which has published significant source material in virtually three hundred volumes up to the year 2004. Working on the basis of the assembled material, James Hogg feels that the time is ripe for the composition of a collaborative general scientific history of the Order in three volumes, dealing with the medieval period, the period from the Reformation to the French Revolution, and from the French Revolution to the Present Day, which will meet the standards of modern historiography.

The effort to produce a three volume scientific general history of the Carthusian Order proved more difficult than was originally envisaged. No such history had been compiled to date and much of the published material available dated from the late seventeenth century or even earlier. Research had to be carried out in state, university and monastic libraries in many parts of Europe and also in the USA, where rare books, manuscripts and archival documentation was consulted and classified. The study of Carthusian history was revolutionized by the 8 volume study of Dom Maurice Laporte, a Carthusian resident at the Grande Chartreuse, entitled Aux Sources de la vie cartusienne, compiled in the 1960s, which has unfortunately remained unpublished and to which access is difficult. Although not a trained historian, Dom Laporte succeeded in liberating the accounts of the origin of the Order from numerous legendary elements, but his work only covered the first 50 years of the Order`s existence and was virtually limited to the life of St. Bruno and the evolution of the Carthusian rule, the Consuetudines Cartusiae. Building on the material made available in the Analecta Cartusiana, founded in Berlin in 1970, and continued from 1971 onwards at the University of Salzburg, now consisting of well over 300 published volumes on all aspects of Carthusian history and spirituality, an effort was made to produce a detailed study of the Order in three volumes: Volume 1 from the Foundation of the Order in 1084 until the Eve of the Reformation (1519), Volume 2 running from the Reformation to the French Revolution, and Volume 3 from the French Revolution until the Present Day. Much of Volume 1 has been compiled, though the sections on Art and Architecture remain to be written, as well as the general history from 1368 until 1519, which is not yet complete. For Volume 2 the research has concentrated on the individual houses and the legislation of the Order in this period, as also for Volume 3, where the newly appointed lay archivist of the mother house of the Order, the Grande Chartreuse, has proved particularly cooperative in provided detailed information not otherwise accessible. In general the research has confirmed the high reputation of the Order for strict observance, austerity, and asceticism, though in the period between the Reformation and the Second Vatican Council a certain diminution of the solitude and severity became obvious, sustained by the increasing number of urban foundations. Since the Second Vatican Council there has been a marked return to the sources, with stress on the solitary elements of the Carthusian life, even if certain concessions have been made to the conditions of contemporary life.