The Carthusians were founded by St Bruno of Cologne, Master and Chancellor of the cathedral school of Reims. In c1083 Bruno and two companions went to live as hermits at Sèche-Fontaine. His companions then opted for the cenobitic rather than the eremitic life. So Bruno, with six other hermits, sought a remote mountain site near Grenoble: the Grande Chartreuse, where in 1084, assisted by St Hugh, Bishop of Grenoble, he established his colony. The cells were built round a cloister giving access to the Oratory, an arrangement perhaps symbolic of the future order, which combines the life of a hermit with that of a cenobite. The monks sing the night Office, Mass and Vespers together, but otherwise pray, work, eat and sleep in the solitude of their cells. Bruno left no Rule, but Guigo, fifth prior of the Chartreuse, compiled a set of Consuetudines cartusiae (1121–7). Their wisdom was such that the order has never had to be reformed. Guigo drew upon many sources: the Epistles of St Jerome, the Rule of St Benedict, and other writings ‘of unquestionable authority’, including, perhaps, Cassian and the Codex regularum of St Benedict of Aniane. In 1133 and 1137 the Consuetudines were approved by Innocent II. Together with subsequent rulings of General Chapters they came to form the Statuta antiqua (1271), the Statuta nova (1368), the Tertio compilatio (1509) and the Nova collectio (1581); since 1971 the order has been ruled by the Renovata statuta.
The first English Charterhouse was founded at Witham in 1175–6 by St Hugh of Lincoln. Thomas More was for many years associated with the London Charterhouse. At the Reformation English Carthusians were the first religious to be put to death by Henry VIII. In France the monks were disbanded at the French Revolution, reinstated in 1816 and expelled again in 1901. They finally returned to the Grande Chartreuse in 1940. The Carthusians were re-established in England in 1883.
The Carthusian liturgy contains both monastic and canonical elements. The gradual bears an affinity to Grenoble and Lyons; the antiphoner to Cluny, Vienne and Lyons, possibly via Grenoble and St-Ruf. Guigo doubtless adapted existing service books to eremitico-monastic use. He reduced the repertory, eliminating non-scriptural texts (though retaining the Gaudeamus introits and the great O Antiphons). The melodies were usually preserved intact, although lengthy melismas were removed from certain Matins responsories. Few hymns were preserved: one pre-1140 manuscript, GB-PM dd.10 olim A 33, contains six ferial hymns; four others were specified by the Second General Chapter. The tiny, beautifully chosen kyriale is a model of simplicity.
Carthusian service books have a multiplicity of vertical bars through the staves; these have been variously interpreted and today many are disregarded. As for melody, the medieval rule ‘una nota supra la …’ seems to have been freely applied from earliest times.
The monks had to learn their repertory by heart – a major reason for simplification. There was a weekly choir practice. The style of performance was sober; it was a monk’s duty ‘to lament rather than to sing’. The Statuta antiqua forbade ‘breaking, gushing with the voice and prolonged cadences’. Later prohibitions condemned all musical instruments, even organs and the monochord.
MGG1 (‘Kartäuser’; H. Hüschen) [incl. list of Carthusian music theorists]
C. Le Coulteulx: Annales Ordinis Cartusiensis ab anno 1084 ad annum 1429 (Monstrolii, 1887–91)
Traits fondamentaux de la Chartreuse (Grande Chartreuse, 1960)
M. Laporte, ed.: Consuetudines cartusiae, i: Edition critique (Grande Chartreuse, 1962)
M. Laporte, ed.: Lettres des premiers chartreux, i: S. Bruno, Guigues, S. Anthelme (Paris, 1962); ii (Paris, 1980)
Méthode de chant cartusien (Grande Chartreuse, 1964)
B.-M. Lambres: ‘Le chant des Chartreux’, RBM, xxiv (1970), 17–41
H.J. Becker: Die Responsorien des Kartäuserbreviers (Munich, 1971)
M. Huglo: Les tonaires: inventaire, analyse, comparaison (Paris, 1971)
M. Laporte, ed.: Consuetudines cartusiae, v: Sources … Tables (Grande Chartreuse, 1971)
G. Göller: ‘Die Gesänge der Ordensliturgien’, Geschichte der katholischen Kirchenmusik, ed. K.G. Fellerer, i (Kassel, 1972), 265–71
B.-M. Lambres: ‘L’antiphonaire des Chartreux’, EG, xiv (1973), 213–18
J. Harper: The Forms and Orders of Western Liturgy from the Tenth to the Eighteenth Century (Oxford, 1991)
MARY BERRY