The Transmission by the English Carthusians of some Late Medieval Spiritual Writings

Abstract

From its foundation the Carthusian Order cultivated letters as the most fitting form of labour for those who dwell apart in the desert; for although they lived and worked in strict solitude, they still spoke to the Christian world through the books which they wrote, copied and transmitted. Adam of Dryburgh (†1212 at Witham), one of the first and best-known English Carthusian authors, wrote of this activity in his work On the Quadripartite Exercise of the Cell, recalling a passage of the Consuetudines of Guigo 1 which is often cited as evidence of the Carthusian attitude to letters:‘If the prior has so provided, there is one work to the performance of which you ought especially to attend; that is either that you learn to write (if, of course, you can learn), or if you can and know, that you do write. This work is, as it were, immortal work; work, if one may say so, not passing but lasting; work certainly, may we say, and yet not work; the work, finally, which, among all other works is most fitting to literate religious men …