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English Monasteries

Chapter 15: § 11.
By A. Hamilton Thompson
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About This Book

The text surveys medieval monasticism in England, outlining major religious orders and their rules, the evolution of communal life, and the rise and decline of different houses. It analyzes architectural plans of conventual churches, cloisters, and ancillary buildings—showing how liturgy, daily routines, and practical needs shaped church, chapter-house, dorter, frater, infirmary, and gatehouse arrangements. Special attention is given to Cistercian and Benedictine variations, the role of lay brothers, and adaptations for canons, friars, and nuns. The manual closes with discussion of discipline, the daily cycle of offices and work, estate management, and the surviving ruins and archaeological evidence, supported by plans and illustrations.

§ 11.

The Carthusian order was founded by St Bruno at the Grande-Chartreuse near Grenoble in 1086. Its members were vowed to fasting and the solitary life. Each had his separate cell, the monastery being composed of one or more courts, round which these dwellings were arranged. The brethren met in church for the night-office, mass, and vespers: the lesser hours were said, and meals, save on certain days, were taken by each monk separately. The order thus was a revolt against the common life, and a return to the anchoritic ideal. In England only two houses, Witham (c. 1179-81) and Hinton (c. 1227), both in Somerset, were founded before the middle of the fourteenth century. The remaining seven were all founded after 1340. The royal foundation of Shene priory in Surrey (1414) was the latest and wealthiest of all. In England the word Chartreuse (Certosa in Italian) took the form Charterhouse. Considerable remains of charterhouses exist at Beauvale in Nottinghamshire (founded 1343), in London (founded 1371) and at Hinton; but the most complete idea of a Carthusian priory may be gained from the ruins of Mount Grace in Yorkshire (founded 1396).