Mount Grace Priory

[poliphilo]

Christian monasticism started with one man going off into the Egyptian desert to live in a cave.  As his reputation spread, so other men and women went out to join him. These early monks and nuns lived solitary, eremitical lives in rough ad hoc communities.

Bruno of Cologne,  founder of the Carthusian order, was attempting to return to these beginnings. His followers are dedicated to solitary prayer and study- and have minimal contact with their brothers and sisters. Bruno's first community was established in the Chartreuse mountains of Southern France- hence the Latin Cartusia and the English Charterhouse.

Mount Grace Priory in North Yorkshire is the best preserved, pre-Reformation Charterhouse in England. The church stands in the middle of two enclosures, the larger of which is a large quadrangle surrounded by the cells of the brothers. Each cell (the one still standing is a reconstruction) took the form of a tiny, two storey house, with its own water supply and walled garden.

The Charterhouse attracts men and women capable of leading autonymous spiritual lives and has never fallen into scandal.  Innocent XI wrote of the order, "The Charterhouse has never been reformed because it never needed to be."

The Carthusian motto is Stat crux dum volvitur orbis- "The world may turn but the cross stands still."

Comments

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

The cells had a little serving hatch through which the brothers received their meals. The only time they were together was in church and- according to an article I read online- during the long country walks they took once a week- walking two by two, but continually changing partners so as not to become too attached.

It sounds idyllic. I can't think of a nicer way to have spent the Middle Ages