Grande Chartreuse
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Grande Chartreuse is the head monastery of the Carthusian order. It is located in the Chartreuse Mountains, north of the city of Grenoble, in the commune of Saint-Pierre-de-Chartreuse (Isère), France. Originally, the château belonged to the See of Grenoble. In 1084, Saint Hugh gave it to hermit Saint Bruno and his followers who founded the Carthusian Order.
Today, visitors are not permitted at Grand Chartreuse, and motor vehicles are prohibited on the surrounding roads. However, a museum of the Carthusian order and the lives of its monks and nuns stands about two kilometers away. The order is supported by the sales of Chartreuse liqueur.
English poet Matthew Arnold wrote one of his finest poems, Stanzas from the Grande Chartreuse while briefly staying at the monastery around 1850. The quiet, serenity, and monastic calm became, for him, the susurrations of a dying world which contrasted with what he saw as the violent emerging age of machinery. Grand Chartreuse was also described in the 1850 revision of William Wordsworth's The Prelude, Book VI, lines 416-88 (Wordsworth visited the monastery in 1790), and John Ruskin's Praeterita.
The monastery was closed in 1903 by the French state[1]. The monks found refuge in Italy until 1929[2], but returned in 1940 when it was reopened.[3]
A documentary film about the monastery entitled Into Great Silence, directed by Philip Gröning, received acclaim on the film festival circuit following its release in 2005.
References
- ^ "The monastery, with a small portion of the surrounding pastures, was rented from the State till, in accordance with the Association Laws of 1901, the last monks were expelled by two squadrons of dragoons on the 19th of April, 1903." "La Grande Chartreuse". Catholic Encyclopedia.
- ^ "The monks of La Grand Chartreuse, driven into exile with the prior general, found refuge at Farneta, in Italy, until 1929, when Montrieux, the first of the French charterhouses to be restored, was reopened.""La Grande Chartreuse". Immaculate Heart of Mary's Hermitage.
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- ^ "Meanwhile the Holy See's endorsement of the Petain regime in France brought it minor benefits, such as the Carthusians' return to their Alpine eyrie, the Grande Chartreuse.""Church & Democracy". Time Magazine. Monday, Aug. 19, 1940.
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See also
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