The Carthusians were the most boot-camp of the medieval monastic orders and the feast of their founder St Bruno on 6 October provides the perfect timing and opportunity to explore the origins and significance of this especially austere vision of monasticism.
Although never large in number, the Carthusians gained a reputation for holiness, purity and rigour, no more so than at Mount Grace Priory, North Yorkshire. The best-preserved Carthusian monastery, or Charterhouse, in England, the history and buildings of Mount Grace provide fascinating insights into the Carthusians’ solitary way of life and wider influence.
The history of the Carthusians goes back to 1084 and the monastery founded by Bruno and a small group of companions at Chartreuse, near Grenoble in the French Alps.
Austerity, poverty and seclusion were the watchwords of the Chartreuse monks, their inspiration the hermit saints of the early Church, the so-called Desert Fathers. The monks spent most of their day in solitude, praying, studying, working and eating alone in their small, individual cells. Their diminutive church was used only twice a day for services in the very early morning and mid-afternoon. Celebration of communal Mass was reserved for Sundays and high holy days. Use of the refectory was similarly restricted.
The monks’ life was so severe that they became known as “Christ’s poor men” and by the time of Bruno’s death in 1101, their fame for sanctity, severity and austerity extended far and wide. Only nine Carthusian monasteries, or Charterhouses – the medieval English for Chartreuse – were founded in England. Despite being small in number, they occupied an important place in the religious life of late medieval England and enjoyed support among the very poshest of the posh. Evidence for all this is provided by Mount Grace.
Situated just off the medieval highway between York and Durham, the cathedral cities of powerful prelates, Mount Grace was founded in 1398 by Thomas Holland, a nephew of King Richard II. The Mount Grace monks were soon singing for the soul of their founder, who was beheaded for treason in 1400. Luckily, the monastery also attracted the support of aristocrats on the winning side of this medieval game of thrones, including Thomas Beaufort, uncle of King Henry V, who added considerably to the monastery’s endowment, also funding its construction.
The beautiful ruins of Mount Grace conform to a plan recognisable at Carthusian monasteries across Europe. Arranged around its large, central cloister are a series of two-storey, cottages-like cells. Each cell was occupied by one monk and was, in essence, a monastery in miniature.
One of the cells at Mount Grace has been reconstructed to give an idea of its layout and appearance in the Middle Ages. The ground floor was used as a living room, bedroom, study and chapel and furnished accordingly, while the upper floor was a workroom – we know that one monk even had a weaving loom.
Christ’s poor men at Mount Grace lived in neither grinding poverty nor discomfort. An inventory of the possessions of one monk mentions two “good pylows and ii lytell pylows and a kosshyn to knele on”. The cells came equipped with all the fifteenth-century mod cons, including fireplaces, a piped supply of fresh water and a private privy.
Each cell also had its own garden, and excavations show that several were planted for the fragrant and visual pleasure of their monkish cultivators.
The coats of arms of elite donors adorn the outer doorways of several of the cells, a visual reminder of the individuals who put up the cash to support the monks. These benefactors expected prayers in return, and the church was enlarged and extended on several occasions to accommodate their burials.
Mount Grace was never short of monks; indeed there was a waiting list of pious men eager to occupy its 26 cells. The monastery also attracted men of such talent that they helped shape the devotional world of late medieval England.
Nicholas Love, prior of the monastery in the early fifteenth century, prepared an English translation of a popular Latin book on the life of Christ. His English rendering of the work was titled the Myrrour of the Blessed Lyf of Christ. In the preface, Love states that it was written “at the instance & prayer of some deuoute soules” for the good of “symple creatures”. It received the imprimatur of Archbishop Thomas Arundel of Canterbury “for the edification of the faithful and the confutation of heretics”. Some 56 medieval manuscript copies of the book are extant, a remarkable rate of survival and testimony to the work’s influence and popularity.
Other Mount Grace authors included Richard Methley and Richard Norton, both of whom composed widely disseminated devotional texts written in the vernacular. The monastery also had an extensive, up to date library. The only surviving medieval copy of the Book of Margery Kempe, a first-hand account of the life of this famous fifteenth-century Norfolk mystic, pilgrim and “boisterous weeper”, originates from Mount Grace. Some of the monks added marginal annotations to its pages, expressing their empathy for Margery’s devout experiences.
The excavation of nibs, pens, pigment-stained oyster shells and equipment used in book binding shows that the Mount Grace community was actively engaged in the production of manuscripts. Their output likely included the so-called “Carthusian miscellany”. Written in English at the late fifteenth century, it is decorated with heartrending images of Christ and His wounds, a manifestation of the Christ-focused piety that stirred the emotions and religious enthusiasm of English folk at the end of the Middle Ages.
Mount Grace remained vibrant and popular until its dissolution in December 1538 during the Reformation of Henry VIII. John Wilson, the last prior, and several of his brethren subsequently joined the Charterhouse founded at Sheen, Middlesex, during the Catholic restoration of Queen Mary. When the Protestant Elizabeth became queen, the community went into exile in Bruges where they maintained their Carthusian vows until death.
Today, English Heritage cares for Mount Grace Priory and the later Arts and Crafts mansion built on its site. I’m sure the social distancing measures currently in place for visitors would have met with the approval of the solitary Carthusians.
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