Cathedrals -- England; England -- Description and travel
It was one day as I came over the Adur by Moat Farm that I became
aware of this great establishment, for there suddenly, as I turned a
corner, by the Lord, the road was full of Carthusian monks all in
their white habits, a sight as marvellous as delightful once more upon
an English road. And so I found my way to the great house of St Hugh
at Parkminster.
One should learn to be astonished at nothing in England of my heart,
for it will beggar one's admiration. But Carthusians! Was it not this
Order which Henry II. had brought into England as part of his penance
for the murder of St Thomas? Was it not this Order which had first been
established in my own Somerset, and alone of all Orders in England by a
Saint, and which there at Witham and at Hinton, still so fair and
lovely, built its first two houses in England, of which all told there
were but twelve? Was it not this Order that had faced and outfaced
Henry Tudor to the last so that the monks of the London Charterhouse
were burnt at the stake at Tyburn?
Well is this monastery dedicated in honour of St Hugh. And if you do
not know why let me write it here. It is well known that after the
murder of St Thomas and Henry II.'s public repentance for his part in
all that evil, Pope Alexander III. gave him for penance a crusade of
three years in the Holy Land, but when that was found not to be
convenient he commuted it for the building of three monasteries of
which one was to be Carthusian, for the Carthusians at that time had no
house in England. This Order had been founded at Grenoble in 1086 by St
Bruno, who had been sent by St. Hugh, Bishop of Grenoble, to a desert
spot in the Alps 14,000 feet above the sea. There St Bruno founded his
monastery known as the Grande Chartreuse. His monks were hermit monks,
each had, as each has still, his own little dwelling. The Order, which
has never been reformed--Cartusia nunquam reformata Quia nunquam
deformata--and has uniformly followed the Rule approved by
Pope Innocent XI., recognises three classes of brethren, the
fathers, the conversi or lay brethren, and nuns. Each house is
governed by a Prior and each monk lives, as I have said, in a separate
dwelling of five little rooms and a tiny cloister, or rather
ambulatory, facing a little garden. His food is given him through a
hatch at the foot of the stairs leading to his rooms. He attends Mass
in Choir, Matins and Vespers too, but the other Hours are said in his
cell. As the Carthusians were when they first came into England so
they are to-day.
But it is not in honour of St Hugh, Bishop of Grenoble, that the
monastery at Parkminster is dedicated, but of quite another saint.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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