Carthusian Desire
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WRITING SAMPLE Excerpt from: Carthusian Desire Thesis 2014 BA Religion, Reed College _____ Citation McCarty, Joshua. Carthusian Desire (Portland, OR: Reed College, 2014), 1-18. Introduction “The goal of Carthusian life is union with God in Love.”1 - A Carthusian A singular dictum pronounced in concert by the Carthusians inaugurates and defines their life.2 It also provides the directional vector for this thesis: time and again, this desire, a singular goal of uniting with God in Love, emerges as constitutional of the Carthusian form- of-life.3 Indeed, the argument put forth here is that the Carthusian is defined by desire, a central axis around which their lives are constructed. But what this desire means and how it influences their life is yet to be established. In particular, this thesis will pursue two successive questions about the Carthusian subject, all fundamentally answered in regards to this desire: What is the Carthusian body and what is Carthusian time? This inquiry pursues an understanding of Carthusian desire, manifest in their literature and architecture, as it relates to practices, conceptualizations, and goals. Although these monastics almost completely forbid access to their spaces, they do permit a few entry points we can pursue. Using their Statutes, letters written by their Priors, maps, ethnographies, documentaries, historical accounts, and, the texts of primary focus here, a series of anonymously written “reflections,” one can draw a blueprint of the Carthusian body. In conjunction with philosophical writings, ascetical studies, and historical contexts, the image begins to sharpen. But we must first survey the lay of the land, coming to an 1 A Carthusian, First Initiation into Carthusian Life (Herefordshire: Gracewing, 2010). 2 Indeed, the terms monastic and monk derive their etymology from the Ancient Greek monos (µόνος) meaning single, solitary, or alone. For a Carthusian treatment of monk, and the corresponding importance of simplicity, see (ibid., 75). 3 A term I adopt from Giorgio Agamben, without his political agenda however, as his “attempt—by means of an investigation of the exemplary case of monasticism—to construct a form-of-life, that is to say, a life that is linked so closely to its form that it proves to be inseparable from it,” lies outside the scope of this project (The Highest Poverty: Monastic Rules and Form-of-Life, 2013, xi). Nonetheless, this observation of the consistency between a life lived and its form is useful when considering the Carthusians. For a more developed exploration of the Carthusian relationship between actual and ideal selves, see “Rhythm” in Ch. 2. 2 understanding of the term Carthusian and its relationship to broader scholarly concepts, such as monk, monastery, and asceticism. To do so, this introduction will firstly pursue historical lines, of both the Carthusians and Christian monasticism more broadly; and then, after a deepened understanding of this project’s goal, we will review the available methodologies within the field of religious studies to pursue the question before us; namely: What is the Carthusian body in its relationship to this goal of union with God? Coalescence, a history of the Carthusians Take the idea of coalescence – multiple substances coming together to form a whole, almost unintentionally, or at least without a directing agent with an explicit goal. It is in this sense that we can say the Carthusians coalesce since it was not (the man we now know as) Saint Bruno’s goal to start a new monastic Order. Indeed this idea of coalescence returns throughout their history as the structural architecture (of buildings, but also of individuals, rules, practices, and narratives) slowly begins to sediment, change, and stabilize. As their history reflects, the opaque catalyst for Carthusian coalescence is desire. In 1084 CE, after renouncing a life in the world he experienced as flawed, broken, and obstructive,4 St. Bruno began La Grande Chartreuse5 monastery in the Alps of present-day 4 Indeed, he left his prestigious position of chancellor of the Reims cathedral because of the new archbishop Manasses, who took power by way of simony, criticized, and abused his position. These offences were sacrilege in the eyes of Bruno as, for example, singing Mass is one of the few times Bruno would later, as a monastic, permit himself to speak while Manasses complained about its requisite as archbishop. Cf. Abbot of Nogent-sous-Coucy Guibert, A Monk’s Confession : The Memoirs of Guibert of Nogent (University Park, Pa: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1996). It should also be noted that, although there is incentive to see Bruno’s exodus (1069-1070) solely as political defeat, there is evidence against that limited view. As André Louf argues, Bruno’s contemporaries expected him to fill the archbishop’s seat, rather than Manasses “who stripped Bruno of his position and banished him from the diocese.” But, as Louf also rightly points out, Bruno had made a resolution at an earlier time to become a monastic. (André Louf and Demetrio S. Yocum (translator), “Saint Bruno,” Cistercian Studies Quarterly 48, no. 2 [2013]). Cf. “St. Bruno’s Letter to Raoul le Verd” in A Carthusian, The Wound of Love: A Carthusian Miscellany. (England: Gracewing Ltd, 2006). Moreover, in 1080 during Manasses’s deposition, Bruno, a potential candidate for archbishop, instead decided to renounce everything. (Carthusian, The Call of Silent Love: Vocation and Discernment (Leominster, Herefordshire: Gracewing, 2006), 1.) For a Carthusian treatment of this history, see “Notes on a Carthusian Order” in (Carthusians, The Way of Silent Love: The Beatitudes [Herefordshire: Gracewing, 2006], 125–131). 3 Savoy, France. Bruno ordered his life in a particular way, such that others wanted to do the same; his goal and practice in pursuit of God produced an allure6 that drew others to him, and so the Carthusians begin to coalesce.7 Only twenty years later in 1104 CE, we receive the first account of the Carthusians, now an established community imitating the form-of-life put forth by Bruno (although he had already departed).8 From a Benedictine monastery nearby, Abbot Guibert of Nogent tells the origin story: … once [Bruno] had left the city he decided to renounce the world. Fleeing all contact with his friends he made his way to the region of Grenoble. There he chose to live on the promontory of a steep and truly terrifying mountain that one could reach only by way of a rugged and rarely used path. Beneath this path opened the abyss of a deep valley. It was there that Bruno established a way of life that I am about to describe. His followers pursue it to this day. The church is not far from the foot of the mountain, within a fold of its downward slope. Thirteen monks live there. They have a cloister that is well suited for the cenobitic life, but they do not live cloistered 5 This monastery is named after the mountain upon which it was founded. Chartreuse is French for the Latin Cart(h)usia. The alcoholic beverage “Chartreuse” is produced by the Carthusians from herbs growing on the mountain. These terms (Carthusian, Chartreuse, etc.) along with others such as Charterhouse derive from the Latin name for this mountain. 6 When discussing the importance of architecture for human orientation (and, hence, understanding/ constitution) in space, Lindsay Jones asserts, moreover, that the “initial presentation of unity, harmony, and order, which is characteristic of so much sacred architecture, most often functions as the strategy that allures ritual participants from their ‘spoilsport’ status into the religio-architectural game” (Lindsay Jones, Harvard University, and Center for the Study of World Religions, The Hermeneutics of Sacred Architecture: Experience, Interpretation, Comparison. Vol. 2, Hermeneutical Calisthenics : A Morphology of Ritual-Architectural Priorities (Cambridge, Mass.: Distributed by Harvard University Press for the Harvard University Center for the Study of World Religions, 2000). It is in this sense that allure is used here; St. Bruno’s architecture of life, a focused life structured by certain practices and ideas, not only orients a Carthusian in the world, but also incites them further into the practices. 7 His “excellent reputation among the churches in Gaul at this time” (Guibert, A Monk’s Confession.) surely did not hurt, and most likely contributed to, his growing following. He did have six companions upon the foundation on Chartreuse. Together they were four clerics, one priest, and two converse brothers (Carthusian, The Call of Silent Love, 2). 8 Urban II had called him away to Rome as a counselor. He would never to return to Chartreuse. For an overview of what the Carthusians consider the major events and epochs of his life, see The Call of Silent Love, 1–2. He left without leaving behind any guidelines, a Rule, not even a book or sermon: evidence that he did not intend to start a lasting Order. 4 as do other monks. Rather, each has his own cell around the perimeter of the cloister, in which he works, sleeps, and eats.9 As a Benedictine, another form of Catholic monasticism, Guibert cannot help but note some differences between the lives of these men and those of his own community. Not only does the remoteness of this community come across in Guibert’s portrayal, but also its size and unique structure. Guibert seems to have been particularly struck by the remoteness of location, the difficulty of reaching this “abyss” in which the Carthusians made their home. There was something ancient and otherworldly about the situation of these monks. According to literary relics describing the early monastic enterprises, Christian monasticism was born in the deserts of Egypt around 300 CE, and defined by its renunciation of the inhabited world, both in its geographic location and its ideals and practices.