TExTs AND IMAGES oT'CEnTHUSIAN FoUNDATIoN JurmN M. Luxl'oRD Introduction This essayconsiders the interest which Carthusians of the late Middle Ages had in the concept of foundation; the foundation of their order in general, and that of individual charterhouses. A distinctive aspect of a more general order- consciousnesswhich pervades Carthusian discourse of the period, this founda- tion-awareness is revealed in both texts and images. I will discuss examples of both, although I do not aim to review all of the available evidence.l \X4rile I will look at m^teflal from both English and Continental charterhouses, my main interest lies in setting English survivals, which are comparatively few and have never been considered synoptically, in broadeÍ geogÍaphical and conceptual frameworks. Intrinsically import^nt and more voluminous though it is, the Continental evidence reviewed below is intended here primarily to supply con- text for what existed in pre-Reformation England. The discussion is in rwo parts. To begin with I examine two examples of text-image amalgamation relevant to the order as a whole and famisar to many 'Bruno who specialise in Carthusian history. The frst is the so-called cycle', a narrative sequence of images, usually annotated and based on a purely Carthu- sian tradition, which chronicles the foundation of the Grande Chartreuse by St Bruno and his companions in 1084. There are minor iconographic variations between surviving cycles, but the intention to communicate the circumstances and importance of the order's founders and foundation in an easily comprehen- sible way is constant. The second example to be considered is what I will cail Acknowledgement: I thank Marlene Vtlr-nlosos-HeNNgssv and Sara furcHsv for advice relating to this paper. The text-image combinations to be discussed were complemented sporadicall,v by verse and prose works such as Heinrich Egher of Kalkar's,Ortas et decarsusordiils caftusiensis(1398), and the Venetian monk Zacharias Benedictus's,De oigine sacri ordinis cartusiensis(1509): see for ex- ample H. RurHtNG, Der KartàaserHeinich Egher uon Kalkar I J28-/408 (Góttingen, 1967), pp. 92-1,02;4. GRut's, Cartasiana:un instrumentheuristiqae,3 vols (Paris, 1,976-8),voi. 1, p. 85. 276 Julian ivl. Luxford the Tree of St Bruno.2 This shows in a more abstract but no less graspable esl manner the growth of the order from the devout heart of its founder, following ot the pattern established by the Tree of Jesse, a common medieval image repre- fe:- senting Christ's genealogy springing from the heart (or, following Isaiah i1:1, an loins) of the father of l(ing David. The importance of both Bruno cycle and 'd, Tree of St Bruno in the eyes of Carthusian officialdom is amply demonstrated c^ by their inciusion in the Tertia conpilatio statatoramordinis carthusiensis,compiled rn Lft 1509 at the behest of the general chapter, published in 1510 in Basel byJohan- CC nes Amorbach, and quickly and widely distributed (figs 1, 2).t Through the Ir 'official' statutes, these combinations of text and image must have become, as (- was intended, familiat to -^y, if not most Carthusians, and also to those out- B side the order who used the volume. In the second, briefer, part of the discussion I turn to evidence which exists o for attirudes to the foundation of individual English charterhouses (though I do t1 not consider diplomatic material). Such evidence, which includes domestrc P chronicles, founders' tombs, inscriptions, and heraldry, was of mosdy local sig- n nificance, ffid a broader European context does not need to be established for tt it. \X4rile this may be regarded as an essentially separate subject, I wish to sug- gest that both general and particular manifestations of interest in foundation can usefully be understood as aspects of a single phenomenon. This phenome- non, which for the sake of convenience I will refer to as the commemoration of foundation, was widely experienced in the high- and late-medieval Church, and is a distinctive aspect of monastic culrure in particular. In the context of any religious order, the foundation of an individual house v/as an event to be ab- sorbed, meditated on, and commemorated by its later inhabitants as a manifest link not only with local history but also with the circumstances, personaliues and values which had given rise to that order in the first place, and whuch re- marned constant in such things as the colour and cut of vestments, the profile of customaries and calendars, and the type, structu.re and degree of d^tty activ- iry. The association can be understood in terms of the relationship bet'ween universals and particulars, each new foundation shaped and identifiable by its participation in both the physical and the abstract characteristics of a highly As opposed to the Tree of the Carthusianorder, representedby the eady sixteenth-cenrury 'Kartausenstammbaum'now in Nuremberg(to be discussedbelow). The existence of manuscript copies, including the panial facsimile now Vienna, OsterreichischeNationalbibliothek, Codex Vindobonensis Palatinus4737, suggeststhat the Tertia conpi/aa'a'sdistribution was wider than the number of surviving volumes which can be provenancedmight lead one to think. Texts and images of Carthusian foundation 277 no less graspable esteemedoriginal. \Mherethe Carthusianswere concerned,Bruno's foundation ounder, following of the first charterhouse,a wildernesspeopled by devout monks and lay breth- tevalimage repÍe- ren seeking greaterspiÍirual and physicalproximity to God through self-denial rwingIsaiah 1,1,:1,, and seclusion,furnished a paradigm for the foundation of so many subsequent 'deserts', Bruno cycle and whetherin town or country. flndeed,the existenceof this metaphysi- ply demonstrated cal proximity to the motherhouse seemsto ha'n'ehelped monks and their pa- 'iensis,compiled in trons to justift locating charterhousesin urban areas.)These daughterhouses n Baselby Johan- conformed to an architecturaland rirual blueprint establishedand maintained 2).3 Through the by the Grande Chartreuse,which became the spirituai 'Heimatkloster' of all have become,as Carthusians,indelibly marked with the strength, devotion and simplicity of alsoto those our- Bruno and his heroic companions.a \Yhile this universal-particularrelationship can be identified in the culrure of lencewhich exists other medievalmonastic orders and might be thought endemic to that of cen- 'uses(though I do tralised ones, it is indicated with unusual clarrtyin the Carthusian record. In ncludes domestic particular,no otheÍ context provides a parailel for the uniformity and dissemi- f mostly local sig- nation of the Bruno cycle.sUrs Grafls woodcuts for the Tertiacompilatio, and the be establishedfor text De origineordinis cartusiensis breuis annotatio printed on the verso of the vol- )ct, I wrsh to sug- ume's Bruno cycle (seefig. 3), show that Carthusianswere expectedto familiar- 'est in foundation ise themselveswith the origins of their order and the history and characterof n. This phenome- its founder, just as they were obliged to know about the circumstancesunder )mmemorationof which their own monasterieshad been established.Indeed, these texts and im- ieval Church, and ages are as much ^ p^ft of the Carthusian rule which they introduce as the :]e context of any painted Bruno cycles examined below were of the eremitic architecturethey n event to be ab- embellshed.They informed the receptivemind of the historical basisof its vo- ants as a manifest cation as cleady as did the commemoration offered for founders and benefac- :Ices,personalities tors at the altarsof individual monasteries. .ce,and which re- ments, the profile gee of d^ily actrv- tuonship bet'ween identifiable by its risdcs of a highly From an architecturalpoint of view, provincial chanerhousesof the Middle Ages did not need to resemble the Grande Chartreuse exacdy to be construed as copies of it. 'Introduction Cf. R. KRRurHettrltR, to an Iconography of Medieval Architecture', ín: Journal :arly sixteenth-cenrury of the ll/arbargand CourtaaldInstitutes 5 (1,942),pp. 1-33. A generalparallel is found,in the Carmeliteorder, whose colporate identiq' was at times ur-- simile now Vienna, gendy bound up with its (putative)foundation history, was advertisedthrough image as well 'Eliiah 737,suggesrs that the as text. Seee.g. R. Kocg, the Prophet, Founder of the Carme[te Order', tn: Specalum ,olumes 'Pietro which can be 24 (1959), pp. 5a7-60; J. CaNNoN, Lorenzetti and the History of the Carmelite Or- der', in: Joumalof the ï/arbarg and CouriauldInstitates 50 (1987), pp. 18-28. 278 Julian M. Luxford The Bruno cycle val though sidered. Louis RÉAU,the great French iconographerof Christian artt wrote that the de- This is piction of St Bruno "est un exemplefrappant de l'influencedéterminante de la found in date de canonisation sur l'iconographie des saints." Though never formally 1408/0e. canonised,Bruno was finally enrolled in the calendarof saints :u:r1,623,his cult the founc having been authorisedfor Carthusianobservance in 1514by Leo X. It is cer- brated pa tainly the case that the majority of known images of St Bruno are post- emgmanc medieval,but moÍe examplesthan RÉ,qUrecognized survive from the 150 years LimbourS after 1400 fte listed only r'wo medievalcycles). Moreover, in light of the wide- immediat spreaddestruction and updating of medieval an in charterhousesbetween the tures, eac Reformation and the eady nineteenth century, it is reasonableto supposethat the open numerousexamples have been lost. RÉRU'soverstatement is indicativeof a lack of Notre of scholarlyengagement with Carthusian art in generalwhich has persistedto fures frol this day.6With the exceptionof the attention given to the most famisat medie- his death val example,that in the BellesHeures ofJean, duc de Berry, only scholarswriting his coffi, in German - principally,Margrit FnUu, Ulrike MADER,Werner BEurrER, and scenesh Rudolf fuccENgACH - have contributed substantiallyto the medievaihistory do/orove of the Bruno cycle.T BRaNrrp,Y,in her recentbook on London, British Jessica the wild Library,MS.