The Grand Charterhouse

The first monastery was founded in the Dauphin’s land, a region on the western slopes of the Alps, to the south-west of Savoy, near the present-day city of Grenoble, at around the Feast of St John the Baptist in the summer of 1084. It was located in a mountainous forest zone, 1175 metres high, in the heartland of the massive which, in Bruno’s time, was called «Carthusia», from where the Italian name «Certosa» and the French name «Chartreuse» derive.

The construction works began soon after and went on very fast. The main building had actually to be ready before the beginning of winter. The hermit cells were constructed around a spring and they had to resemble shepherds’ and woodcutters’ huts. These were primitive and rustic constructions but rather sturdy ones. They had in fact to support the weight of snow from one year to the other. At first each habitation (or cell) lodged two monks, probably to save time and means; it was only subsequently that each hermit had his own cell.

The church was the only stone building: this was an indispensable condition for its consacration which took place on the 2^nd September, 1085 under the ministry of bishop Ugo and under the patronage of Holy Mary and John the Baptist. Today, at the place where it is supposed that the cells of the first Carthusians were located, there is a chapel which is so called the «Chapel of San Bruno» and another dedicated to Mary called «Madonna di Casalibus». We know what life those first hermits of the Grande Chartreuse led through the witness of the writer Guigo, in the Life of Saint Ugo, and of the traveller Guibertus di Nogent from which, adding a few notes to them here and there contained in Guigo’s «Consuetudines» and a few significant phrases from the letters of San Bruno, by Peter the Venerable and by Saint Bernard, there emerges a picture of zeal, austerity and authentic monastic spirit. Bishop Ugo made sure they were very safe while defending them in every contest with neighbours making it easy for Bruno and his family to possess fully the desert of Chartreuse. The new hermits could therefore live in that place totally separated from the world in a legally inviolable retreat which formed only the outer framework of an existence where what was really essential was to be found elsewhere. St Bruno showed fatherly care towards his brothers and a sense of equilibrium in what he had to say to his brethren, who might have been very zealous as it was usual with beginners: «If the arc is continually strung, it will slacken and become less adapt to do its job». Instead, to the bishop of Grenoble, his friend Ugo, who remained for a very long time with the monks because he liked solitude, he recalled to him the duties of his ministry: «Go and stay among your sheep». When he saw the beautiful rock walls covered with snow and resplending in the sun, he let his profound and contemplative heart utter his usual prayer of admiration and adoration to the Creator: «Oh Goodness of God!».

Yet six years later there befell him a diffricult trial: he was called by the Vicar of Christ, Urbanus II, who had been a scholar of his at the college at Reims, who needed him to be close to him in Rome at the service of the Holy See. He immediately got ready to leave, showing a great sentiment of obedience to the shepherds of the Church; even if with a certain amount of sacrifice, Bruno thus left his desert and brethren.

In the six years during which he lived at the Grande Chartreuse, Bruno had started a Carthusian solitary life directing that little community which was the first cradle of the Order. The initial zeal could well be imagined, together with the charismatic inspiration, as well as the opening of one and all to the Holy Spirit in listening to the Word of God and in the union of hearts. Later recalling this first experience of solitude of his in the Dauphin mountains together with his brethren, Bruno wrote to them: «brethren, know ye that my single wish, after God, is that to come to you and to see you». During the ten years which the saint would pass in Calabria, life would very much be similar to that which he had passed at the Grande Chartreuse.

It is to those two periods that the font of Carthusian spirituality should be attributed. The graces given by the Holy Spirit to our first Fathers helped them mould the Order to be what it is today. In fact, they have sculpted the Carthusian spirit which the present-day sons of Saint Bruno, generated to monastic life by those generations of witnesses, receive by their prayers and by their examples. Since that time they have led several men in the desert, who moulded the character of the Carthusian vocation and formed the body of the Order and its spirituality of contemplative prayer in silence and in solitude.