CARTHUSIANS, a monastic order which owes its origin to St. Bruno, who retired in 1086 with six companions to the solitude of La Chartreuse (whence the name), near Grenoble, where they built hermitages, wore rude garments, and lived upon vegetables and coarse bread. In 1134, the fifth prior, Guigo, composed a body of rules, called the Statutes Guigonis or Consuetudines Cartuszie, but they have been often changed. After 1170, when the order received papal approbation, it extended rapidly. It dates from 1180 in England, where the name of Chartreuse-houses was corrupted into charter houses. The C. were divided into two classes, fathers (patres) and brothers (converses). Each occupied a separate cell, with a bed of straw, a pillow, a woolen coverlet, and the means of manual labor or of writing. They left their cell, even for meals, only on festi vals and on days of the funeral of a brother of the order. Thrice a week, they fasted on bread, water, and salt, and there were several lengthened fasts in the year. Flesh
was forbidden at all times, and wine, unless mixed with water. Unbroken silence, except on rare occasions, was enforced, as well as frequent prayer and night-watching. These austerities were continued, with little modification, by the modern Carthusians. The order at. one time counted 16 provinces, and can still boast some of the most magnificent con vents in the world—as La Grande Chartreuse, near Grenoble, and Certosa, near Pavia. They were given to hospitality and works of charity, and were on the whole better edu cated than the mendicant orders. Their principal seats were in Italy, France, and Switzer land; but they have shared the fate of the other monastic establishments, and their con vents are now for the most part solitudes indeed. The Carthusian nuns arose at Salette, on the Rhone, in France, about 1229. They followed the rules of the Carthusian monks, but with some mitigations, of which the most notable is that they have a com mon refectory.