The Perth Charterhouse in the Sixteenth Century

Abstract

The only Carthusian Monastery in pre-Reformation Scotland was founded by King James I who proposed its erection to the prior of La Grande Chartreuse near Grenoble. The prior, with the consent of the Sacred Chapter, granted a licence authorising the erection of a house for thirteen monks (a prior and twelve monks) in 1426. King James chose a site for the monastery just outside the town of Perth and confirmed the licence by charter on 31 March 1429. The Charterhouse at Perth was first attached to the province of Picardy but about 1456 it was added to the English province and in 1460 it was united to the province of Geneva. Tofts and tenements throughout the town of Perth provided financial support to the new foundation while the suppression of the nearby nunnery of St. Leonard and the hospital of St. Mary Magdalen by 1434 aded further lands and revenues to the support of the house.1 The sixteenth-century bishop and historian John Leslie described the Charterhouse as the fairest abbey and best built of any within Scotland.2 John Knox described it as a 'building of wonderous cost and greatness'.3 However grand it may have appeared it was certainly an unique building for not only was it the only Carthusian foundation in Scotland but the Carthusian rule specified that the choir monks live in seclusion, each with his own cell, oratory and garden plot. Charterhouses were built for multiples of twelve choirmonks, in units of twelve self-contained small cells, all opening off the interior of a cloister. This meant that most Carthusian monasteries lacked the traditional dormitory wing but the individual cells built around the cloister required additional ground space and