The Charterhouse, behind high walls on the edge of the City of London, has seen centuries of history and feels far removed from the hustle and bustle of the metropolis.
Today the Charterhouse is the site of an almshouse charity, but it was previously home to a much more exclusive community – one of Carthusian monks. Their monastery was known as the London Charterhouse. It was one of nine Carthusian monasteries in England that existed before Henry VIII’s break with Rome to marry Anne Boleyn, and the dissolution of religious houses that followed.
For our Curatorial Research Internship with the Oxford Heritage Network and the Charterhouse, we set out to uncover the stories of the network of Charterhouses in England. Why and where they were built, and their place in medieval English society.
The Carthusian order arrived in England in 1178, from the Grande Chartreuse in France, where the order was founded. In the aftermath of the murder of Thomas Becket, Henry II conducted acts of penance, which included the foundation of Witham Charterhouse in Somerset. Fairly remote, Witham embodied ideals of solitude, enabling the monks to emulate the secluded lifestyle of the original monks of Chartreuse.
A second Charterhouse soon followed, also in Somerset, founded by Henry’s illegitimate son William Longespée (‘Long Sword’). At the request of the monks, who wanted greater seclusion, it was moved by the Countess of Salisbury to Hinton in 1227. The nearby village of Hinton Charterhouse still bears the name of the monastery.
For over a century the Somerset Charterhouses stood alone, until a renewed interest in Carthusian practices emerged in the fourteenth century. One of Edward III’s captains, Sir Nicholas de Cantilupe, established Beauvale Priory in Nottinghamshire in 1343. The true revival in interest however began with the establishment of the London Charterhouse by Sir Walter Manny in 1371. On the edge of the medieval City, this marked a shift in the establishment of Charterhouses in England. While there had been some engagement with local communities at Hinton in the form of a charter fair, the Carthusians had remained as secluded as possible. It was hoped that the establishment of a Charterhouse in London, so close to a major centre of population, would both embody the austerity and piety of the Carthusians, and serve as a sort of publicity campaign.
In post-plague England, Charterhouses were appealing as a way of funding religion because they encouraged the sponsorship of an individual monk. In London, wealthy citizens paid the Charterhouse for prayer, and their coats of arms were displayed on the doorways of the monks’ cells. Eventually lay people began to endow chapels at the Charterhouse and were even buried there.
As a result, further Charterhouses were established in Kingston-upon-Hull, Coventry, and Axholme in Lincolnshire. Mount Grace Priory in North Yorkshire was an important example and included guesthouses for those on the pilgrim route between York and Durham. Sheen Priory, in what is now Richmond, was the last of the English Charterhouses to be founded before the Reformation, built within the grounds of Henry V’s royal manor of Sheen. It was more public still and was intended to demonstrate the King’s piety.
Although we were initially interested in the difference between the urban and rural monasteries, it quickly became clear that such a division did not exist. Instead, it seems that the reign of Edward III saw a brief increase in patronage of the Carthusians, and that the London Charterhouse stood out as being different to the other houses of the order. A great example of “crowdfunding” Charterhouse, London was almost entirely funded by local people and groups, with donors paying for the installation of chapels and even a running water system. Its presence on the edge of the City and next to a mass burial site for plague victims gave it a prominent place in London’s medieval society – a major point of difference to the original remote monasteries.
Researched and written by Eloise Bishop, Jasmine Shackman and Zain Rehman
The Charterhouse hosts week-long student placements in partnership with the Oxford University Careers Service Micro-internship programme and the Crankstart Scholarship programme, helping students gain experience of curatorial research in heritage.
Each term, we set a group of students a series of research questions relating to the Charterhouse and support them in identifying historical sources and interpreting their findings. In return, we get a set of research reports from the students, uncovering fascinating stories from history.
Cell B, in the Norfolk Closter at the Charterhouse Photo Tim Breuning