Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 5.djvu/176

164 monastic costumes. It consists of a cassock or frock and cloak of ample and comfortable length. But the practice of each monk living in liis own separate dwelling has always characterized the Carthusians. They have never been Coenobites. The Carthusians had no written rule till one was com posed for them, about forty-five years after the foundation of the first house of the order at Chartreuse, by Guigo, their fifth prior. Some of the most special and character istic points of it are as follows:—

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The earliest formal approbation of the Carthusian Order is attributed to Urban II. (ob. 1099). That pontiff, who had been a disciple of Bruno, when the latter was lectur ing on theology at Rheims, had sent for Bruno to Rome a few years after his retirement to Chartreuse. The saint obeyed, taking all his monks with him. The latter shortly returned to Chartreuse, under Landuino, appointed by Bruno to be their second prior ; but Bruno himself refused to be made archbishop of Reggio, and finding the life of Home insupportable to him, soon obtained the Pope s per mission to accept a district of forest, in the diocese of Squillace in Calabria, given to him by Count Roger, where he founded the second house of his order. The rule and constitution of the order were frequently modified on subsequent occasions. The present rule is that which was fixed in 1578 and was corrected by a congregation of cardinals, published in 1581, and reconfirmed by Innocent XL in 1682. According to those new statutes, observes Moroni (or rather the learned writer of the article in his Dictionary), some of the practices as at present enjoined are more austere than in the ancient rule, since the choral service and the office used by Carthusians are peculiar to them, and are of excessive length, following in many respects the ceremonies and rites of the ancient church. By these statutes the use of linen is wholly prohibited to them. They wear next the skin a shirt of horse-hair, bound by a cord girdle, and outside this a cossack and mantle of serge ; and they sleep on a paillasse, with woollen sheets. The portrait of a Carthusian monk may be seen in Bonanni s Cataloyo, at chapter 108, and a similar figure forms the 10th plate of Capparroni s Eaccolta degli Ordini reliffiosi, published at Rome in 1826. It is a very common error to suppose that the Carthusians are a branch or off-shoot from the great Benedictine order. It is true that the formula of their &quot; office &quot; or choral service is nearly the same as that used by the different orders which belong to the great Benedictine family ; but there is no relationship, of parentage or other, between the Carthuisans and Benedictines. The superiors of Carthusian convents are called priors, and not abbots as is the case with the Benedictine orders. Their general is the prior of the &quot; Grande Chartreuse &quot; near Grenoble, and resides always there, and not, as in the case of most other orders, at Rome. The order has a proctor-general (Pro- curatore General?) who resides at Rome. Above all there is the radical difference in their mode of life, the Bene dictines being Coenobites, the Carthusians eremitical, living each in his own separate dwelling, erected within the wall, which forms the cloister (clausura], but not even contigu ous the one to the other. St Bruno and his early successors made no pretension to- any exemption from the jurisdiction of the ordinary, nor sought for any privilege of the kind. On the contrary they in a spocial manner recognized the bishop of Grenoble, in whose diocese their first and parent establishment was situated, as the chief and abbot of their order. But the constant and unfailing tendency, which led all the regular bodies to aim at such exemptions, and to encroach in every manner ever more and more on the authority and proper domain of the bishops and secular clergy, induced the Carthusians within little more than an hundred years after their foundation to beg and to obtain from Pope Boniface IX. a bull, dated 6th of March 1391, granting them the exemption in question. It is remarkable, as indicating the strength of this tendency, that although the bull of Boniface is the first recognition whatever of any such exemption, the Pope says in the document in ques tion, &quot; A supplication has been presented in your name, setting forth, that although your order has been fur a long time reputed exempt from the jurisdiction of the ordinary, and dependent immediately on the Holy See,&quot; &amp;lt;tc. It had evidently come to be considered as a matter of course that monks, merely as such, were not subject to the autho rity of the bishop. The motive assigned for granting the exemption is that &quot; certain persons seek by citing you to their tribunals to disturb you in the quietude and con templation which are the object of your institute.&quot; The order of the Carthusians has always been one of the most respectable of the monastic bodies. It has maintained to a greater degree than most of them the spirit and qualities which presided at its foundation. Nor has it ever needed, as so many of its fellow communities, to be reformed. And although the services which it has rendered to litera ture cannot vie with those of the Benedictines, it has by no means been valueless to the world in this respect. The order at one time possessed 172 monasteries, of which 75 were in France. It had also numerous establish ments in England (where, as is well known, the &quot; Charter House &quot; near Smithfield, in London, was its principal house), Italy, Germany, and Spain. Hugh, bishop of Lin coln, canonized in 1220, was a Carthusian. The order, however, has had fewer saints than almost any of the others ; so much so that ths Carthusian Ferrari wrote a treatise of inquiry into the causes of this fact. To which query an answer may be found in the 97th of the Ecclesi astical Letters of Father Sarnelli, who was vicar-general under Benedict XIII. (published in ten volumes at Venice in 1716), to the following effect:—

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Father Petrejo published, in 1609, a J&amp;gt;iblioteca degli Scrittori dell Ordine, which has been subsequently ecu- 