Carthusian

/kahr thooh"zheuhn/, Rom. Cath. Ch.

n.

1. a member of a monastic order founded by St. Bruno in 1086 near Grenoble, France.

adj.

2. pertaining to the Carthusians.

[1520-30; < ML Cartusianus, by metathesis from Catursianus, after Catursiani (montes) district in Dauphiné where the order was founded]

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Member of a Roman Catholic monastic order founded by St. Bruno of Cologne (с 1030–1101) in 1084 in the Chartreuse valley of southeastern France.

Members of the Order of Carthusians pray, study, eat, and sleep alone but gather in church for morning mass, vespers, and the night office. They dine together on Sundays and major holidays and walk together once a week. They wear hair shirts, abstain from eating meat, and consume only bread and water on Fridays and fast days. At the motherhouse, or Grande Chartreuse (today in Voiron, Isère), the monks distill the liqueur that bears the house's name. Carthusian nuns are also strictly cloistered and contemplative.

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▪ religious order

member of  Order of Carthusians (O.Cart.) 

 an order of monks founded by St. Bruno of Cologne in 1084 in the valley of Chartreuse, north of Grenoble, Fr. The Carthusians, who played an important role in the monastic-reform movement of the 11th and 12th centuries, combine the solitary life of hermits with a common life within the walls of a monastery. The monks live in individual cells, where they pray, study, eat, and sleep, gathering in the church only for the night office, morning mass, and afternoon vespers. They eat together on Sundays and at great feasts, when they also have a period of conversation; and once a week they take a long walk together. The monks wear hair shirts and practice total abstinence from meat, and, on Fridays and other fast days, they take only bread and water. The lay brothers' life is also strictly ordered but is lived in community. At the Grande Chartreuse, as the motherhouse is known, the lay brothers distill the liqueur that bears the name of the motherhouse and of which the profits are distributed to neighbouring religious causes and charities. Carthusian nuns, with a few monasteries in France and Italy, are also strictly cloistered and contemplative. The Carthusians spread slowly, but, by 1521, the order numbered 195 houses in every country of Catholic Europe. Vocations to Carthusian solitude are rare; it is the one form of communal religious life that has never required and never experienced reform.

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