Carthusians

Monastic order founded in 1086 by St Bruno and six companions. The constitutions were drawn up by the fifth prior, Guigo, in 1130, and received papal recognition in 1176. The order was established in England in 1180, and the London Charterhouse was founded in 1371.

A Carthusian community includes choir monks and lay brothers. Each of the former occupies a separate three roomed house (including workshop) with a small adjoining garden, opening on to a central cloister; but they meet together in church daily for the conventual high mass and certain hours of the divine office, and in the refectory on Sundays and major festivals; there is also a weekly community walk lasting several hours, and a short period of recreation in the cloister on Sunday afternoon, at both of which times conversation is allowed. Otherwise strict silence and seclusion are observed, the time being divided between prayer, spiritual reading or study, and manual labour. The habit is white with a black cloak; a hair-shirt is worn. A female branch of the order was instituted at Salette, on the Rhône, in 1229.

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