page_title: Carthusians
section_title: Choirmonks
hierarchical_section_title: Carthusians / Charterhouse / Choirmonks
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Projet de restauration - plan de la chartreuse dite de Clermont. Nous devons ce plan à l’obligeance de M. Mallay, architecte diocésain de Clermont-Ferrand, qui a bien voulu nous envoyer un calque de l’original. La grande chartreuse de Clermont est située à 50 kilom. de cette ville du côté de Bourg-Lastic&#160;; le plan que nous présentons est un projet de restauration qui n’a pas été entièrement exécuté, mais il a pour nous cet avantage de fournir un ensemble complet, dans lequel les services sont étudiés et disposés avec soin.
context_page_description: The Carthusians, also known as the Order of Carthusians or the Order of Saint Bruno, are an enclosed religious order of the Roman Catholic Church. The order was founded by Bruno of Cologne in 1084 and includes both monks and nuns. The order has its own rule, called the Statutes, and their life combines both eremitical and cenobitic monasticism. The motto of the Carthusians is Stat crux dum volvitur orbis, Latin for "The Cross is steady while the world is turning."
  The name Carthusian is derived from the Chartreuse Mountains in the French Alps: Saint Bruno built his first hermitage in a valley of these mountains. These names were adapted to the English charterhouse, meaning a Carthusian monastery. Today, there are 23 charterhouses, 18 for monks and 5 for nuns. The alcoholic cordial Chartreuse has been produced by the monks of Grande Chartreuse since 1737, which gave rise to the name of the colour.
context_section_description: Each hermit, a monk who is or who will be a priest, has his own living space, called a cell, usually consisting of a small dwelling. Traditionally there is a one-room lower floor for the storage of wood for a stove and a workshop as all monks engage in some manual labour. A second floor consists of a small entryway with an image of the Virgin Mary as a place of prayer and a larger room containing a bed, a table for eating meals, a desk for study, a choir stall, and a kneeler for prayer. Each cell has a high walled garden wherein the monk may meditate as well as grow flowers for himself and/or vegetables for the common good of the community, as a form of physical exercise.
  Next to the door is a small revolving compartment, called a "turn", so that meals and other items may be passed in and out of the cell without the hermit having to meet the bearer. Most meals are provided in this manner, which the hermit then eats in the solitude of his cell. There are two meals provided for much of the year: lunch and supper. During seasons or days of fasting, just one meal is provided. The hermit makes his needs known to the lay brother by means of a note, requesting items such as a fresh loaf of bread, which will be kept in the cell for eating with several meals. Carthusians observe a perpetual abstinence from meat.
  The hermit spends most of his day in the cell: he meditates, prays the minor hours of the Liturgy of the Hours on his own, eats, studies and writes, and works in his garden or at some manual trade. Unless required by other duties, the Carthusian hermit leaves his cell daily only for three prayer services in the monastery chapel, including the community Mass, and occasionally for conferences with his superior. Additionally, once a week, the community members take a long walk in the countryside during which they may speak. On Sundays and solemn feast days a community meal is taken in silence. Twice a year there is a day-long community recreation, and the monk may receive an annual visit from immediate family members.
caption: A typical Carthusian plan: Clermont, drawn by Eugène Viollet-le-Duc, 1856.
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