Chartreuse and the Carthusians

I was intrigued by The Wall Street Journal about the Carthusians of Chartreuse limiting their production of that famous liqueur, published on Good Friday: "The Monks Who Make Chartreuse Don't Care About Fancy Cocktails"! The Robb Report offers these two quotations from the article, which is of course behind a paywall:

“The monks are not in this to drive Mercedes and live a lavish life,” Tim Master, the senior director of spirits at Frederick Wildman and Sons, the only American importer of Chartreuse, told the WSJ. . . .

“Unlike nearly all other companies in the world, the monks don’t care about constant growth,” Father Michael Holleran, a former Carthusian monk who led Chartreuse production in the late 1980s, told the WSJ.

The Carthusians, according to their external partner in production have decided they needed to “protect their monastic life” and were “not looking to grow the liqueur beyond what they need to sustain their order.” So production has been capped at about 1.2 million bottles a year, about 10 percent less than in 2021."

The Robb Report article comments: 

Perhaps if the monks shared the recipe, they wouldn’t have to be the only ones in charge of meeting demand. But that seems even more unlikely than increasing output . . .

And The Wall Street Journal article ends with a quotation from Joseph McDonald from a Nashville retailer: "In two years you'll probably have eight companies trying to knock that recipe off" (p. A9 of the print edition for Friday, April , 2023.

As the Carthusian motto states: Stat crux dum volvitur orbis (The Cross Stands Still as the World Turns).

Reading the reaction to the production curtailment of the yellow and green shades of the liqueur as afficiandoes try to understand the monks' decision reminded me of Dom David Knowles' appreciation of the Carthusians of London Charterhouse, dying of dehydration and starvation during Henry VIII's reign:

Rarely indeed in the annals of the Church have any confessors of the faith endured trials longer, more varied or more bitter then these unknown monks. They had left the world, as they hoped, for good; but the children of the world, to gain their private ends, had violated their solitude to demand of them an approval and a submission which they could not give. They had long made of their austere and exacting Rule a means to the loving and joyful service of God; pain and desolation, therefore, when they came, held no terrors for them. When bishops and theologians paltered or denied they were not ashamed to confess the Son of Man. They died faithful witnesses to the Catholic teaching that Christ had built his Church upon a rock.

From Saints and Scholars: Twenty-Five Medieval Portraits, with St. John Houghton, holding his heart, on the cover (based on the painting by Zurbaran).

Now, I'm not saying that cocktail drinkers are as bad as Henry VIII and Thomas Cromwell, but there is a gap in understanding how the monks of Chartreuse, in their Great Silence, regard their eternal purpose versus the world's demand for a liqueur! 

But notice what the "world" says: you should meet our demands! Or you should give us the recipe! When you don't, we will steal (knock off) your recipe and make the liqueur ourselves!

Nor am I saying that these monks are making a decision as meritorious as that of the Carthusians under Henry VIII's demands, but still, they are trying to remain true to their purpose and their way of life without concern for how the world turns. 

As The Wall Street Journal article headline on the front page says: "The Monks . . . Don't Care"!

I have never tasted Chartreuse, by the way, and if I was going to spend that much for something, it would be for a book!

Saint Bruno of Cologne, pray for us!

Saint John Houghton and all the Carthusian martyrs of England, pray for us!

Dying as Hidden Servants of Christ

On June 15, 1537, the second group of those Carthusians held in Newgate Prison, without charge, or trial, or sentence, or any other mark of justice except for the will of Henry VIII, began to die. Brothers Thomas Scryven and Thomas Redyng died on June 15 and June 16--Dom Richard Bere did not die till August 9, and the priest Thomas Johnson not until September 20, so they must have received some nutrition, according to the King's great mercy.

One survived this starvation ordeal: Brother William Horne. He was finally attainted by Parliament in 1540 and executed at Tyburn on August 4, 1540.

In his book Saints and Scholars, David Knowles eulogizes the Newgate prison group:

The third and most numerous band was denied even the dignity of a formal trial and execution. They had asked to live as hidden servants of Christ; they died, silent witnesses to his words, hidden from the eyes of all. Chained without possibility of movement in a foul atmosphere, and systematically starved . . .

Rarely indeed in the annals of the Church have any confessors of the faith endured trials longer, more varied or more bitter then these unknown monks. They had left the world, as they hoped, for good; but the children of the world, to gain their private ends, had violated their solitude to demand of them an approval and a submission which they could not give. They had long made of their austere and exacting Rule a means to the loving and joyful service of God; pain and desolation, therefor, when they came, held no terrors for them. When bishops and theologians paltered or denied they were not ashamed to confess the Son of Man. They died faithful witnesses to the Catholic teaching that Christ had built his Church upon a rock.

Blessed Carthusian martyrs, pray for us.

David Knowles on the Carthusians in Newgate

On June 15, 1537, the second group of those Carthusians held in Newgate Prison, without charge, or trial, or sentence, or any other mark of justice except for the will of Henry VIII, began to die. Brothers Thomas Scryven and Thomas Redyng died on June 15 and June 16--Dom Richard Bere did not die till August 9, and the priest Thomas Johnson not until September 20, so they must have received some nutrition, according to the King's great mercy.

One survived this starvation ordeal: Brother William Horne. He was finally attainted by Parliament in 1540 and executed at Tyburn on August 4, 1540.

In his book Saints and Scholars, David Knowles eulogizes the Newgate prison group:

The third and most numerous band was denied even the dignity of a formal trial and execution. They had asked to live as hidden servants of Christ; they died, silent witnesses to his words, hidden from the eyes of all . . .

Rarely indeed in the annals of the Church have any confessors of the faith endured trials longer, more varied or more bitter then these unknown monks. They had left the world, as they hoped, for good; but the children of the world, to gain their private ends, had violated their solitude . . . When bishops and theologians faltered or denied they were not ashamed to confess the Son of Man. They died faithful witnesses to the Catholic teaching that Christ had built his Church upon a rock.

The Last Abbot of Westminster Goes to the Tower

In 1560, John Feckenham, the last Abbot of Westminster, was sent to the Tower of London on May 20th by Matthew Parker, Archbishop of Canterbury. Since the reign of Elizabeth I had begun, he had been “railing against the changes that have been made.” Feckenham had been in the Tower before because of his defense of Catholicism. Cranmer sent him there during Edward VI’s reign, although he was freed briefly to debate John Jewel and John Hooper. During the reign of Henry VIII, he had been at Evesham, a Benedictine house suppressed in 1540; he served as chaplain to bishops Bell and Bonner of Worcester and London, respectively until his imprisonment. 

When Mary I succeeded her brother in 1553, he was released from the Tower. During her reign, Feckenham preached in London, served as Dean of St. Paul’s, assisted with the establishment of St. John’s and Trinity colleges in Oxford, and was the Queen’s confessor. He counseled Lady Jane Grey before her execution, hoping to convert her and he interceded for Elizabeth after the Wyatt Rebellion, preventing her execution and gaining her freedom. Feckenham engaged Cranmer, Ridley and Latimer in debate, but would not participate in their trial and execution. 

He received a D.D. at Oxford in 1556 and was appointed Abbot at Westminster, one of the few monasteries re-established during Mary’s reign, restoring the shrine of St. Edward the Confessor. 

When Elizabeth I came to the throne, she offered Feckenham security in his office if he took the Oath of Supremacy and conformed to the new Church of England (the Book of Common Prayer and Thirty-Nine Articles). Since he would not he was expelled from the abbey and for 14 years either held in the Tower or under house arrest as the “guest” of a Church of England bishop who would try to convert him without success. Feckenham prepared John Story (see the upcoming post on June 1) for his execution in 1571 in the Tower and was released on bail in July, 1574.

He was known to be gentle, courteous, and charitable, but proved himself, in the eyes of his bishop-jailers to be an absolutely obstinate papist (Catholic). In 1577, Feckenham was returned to the custody of the Bishop of Ely and was imprisoned in Wisbech Castle in 1580. He finally died there after 24 years of imprisonment on October 16, 1585. 

Feckenham’s life certainly demonstrates his loyalty to the Catholic Church, his endurance and his efforts to minister to the people of England. As the last mitered Abbot to sit in the House of Lords, he argued against the religious settlement Parliament crafted at the beginning of Elizabeth I’s reign, and yet he was always known for his kindly temperament. Although he and Lady Jane Grey could not agree on religious matters, she was thankful for his support even at her execution and Elizabeth probably thought she was being as generous and tolerant as possible when offering him a sinecure at the cost of his conscience.

David Knowles writes about him in his Saints and Scholars, "His mind moved in terms of practical concessions and adjustments; he had neither [Reginald] Pole's forward-looking zeal for reform, not the unworldly, single-minded missionary devotion of a Campion . . . Seen in the whole picture of his life, however, and as a man of his generation, he appears an admirable and sympathetic figure if not wholly an heroic one." More about the Last Abbot of Westminster here.

Book Review: Saints and Scholars by Dom David Knowles

I like to trust an author, to explore his or her work, and read his or her oeuvre, as much as possible. This tendency has led me to read all the novels of authors Rumer Godden, Elena-Maria Vidal, Sigrid Undset, and investigate the detective novels (especially the ones with Harriet Vane), translations, plays, and Christian apologetics of Dorothy L. Sayers. When a new Eamon Duffy work is announced, I sign up for it too, along with his The Stripping of the Altars, The Voices of Morebath, Marking the Hours, and Fires of Faith. Ditto: Aidan Nichols. The same thing goes for musical performers: for years I collected every LP release by Frederica von Stade and then followed up with the CD re-releases and releases: Mozart, Monteverdi, Massenet, Mahler, Ravel, Rossini, Strauss--the composer didn't matter, the artist did. Stile Antico is a new favorite and I watch for their work. I think it's the distinctive voices I hear and respond to, written and vocal.

Among authors, Dom David Knowles, born Michael Clive Knowles, may be joining that fortunate pantheon. Of course, his books are probably all out of print, so finding copies might be just part of the adventure. Having read Bare Ruined Choirs, his abridged version of the third volume of his series on Monasticism in England and this book, I have his Evolution of Medieval Thought in queue and hope to pick up a copy of another collection of essays from Argosy Bookstore in NYC later this week.

This book, Saints and Scholars: Twenty-Five Medieval Portraits is a collection of biographies of monks, friars, and saints in England from the Anglo-Saxon era to the Tudor era--from Bede the Venerable to John Feckenham, the Last Abbot of Westminster. There are 25 portraits in 23 chapters. The word portrait is apt as Knowles surveys the person he is describing and then suddenly focuses on some particular feature. The narration and description flows along and then Knowles stops and shows us what made that person who he was, or otherwise provides some essential understanding of the situation.

Of St. John Houghton of the Carthusians of the Charterhouse in London he writes, "In . . . John Houghton, the strict monastic life brought to blossom for the last time on English soil a character of the rarest strength and beauty--a last flowering, a winter rose, of English medieval monachism. . . . the picture that emerges is of a man capable not only of inspiring devoted attachment, but of forming in others a calm judgment and a heroic constancy equal to his own." Then Knowles goes on to demonstrate how those members of the Charterhouse who followed St. John to death, either at the gallows or in prison, suffered all with detachment and holiness so inspiring that Henry and Cromwell had to make sure the last of them died in secret agony.

In the chapter on William More, the Prior of Worcester, he describes a visit of Princess Mary, the Countess of Salisbury, Margaret Pole, and the Countess' sons, including Lord Montague:

The imagination rests for a moment on the guest-hall at Worcester that year. England in 1526 must still have been a settled country with the future predictable, when Anne Boleyn and Thomas Cromwell were still in private places, and the sword that was to divide kinsmen so sharply lay still sheathed. Yet the four visitors who sat there with the prior were all to know sorrow, and were all in their fashion to suffer, or to cause suffering, for their faith. The Countess and her elder son were to perish at the hands of the executioner, while the younger son was to die in exile haunted by the disaster that he had helped to cause. They must often have spoken of the absent brother, Reginald, also in part to be the cause of their fate, who was himself to die, a prince of the Church, on the same day as the little girl, his cousin, each of them alone in the new, harsh world which they had hoped to sweeten, but had only the more embittered.

Such inimitable style--elegaic and yet realistic; Knowles practices such balance in every chapter, as in this description of Bede the Venerable:

The quiet monk of Jarrow is also a human being. He is an Englishman, and the first Englishman to declare himself a lover of England not by patriotic phrases, but in his desire to tell how England became Christian and of the cloud of witnesses that had so quickly made this island an island of saints. He was, beyond this, a born presenter of character, a true brother of the poet of Beowulf and of the writers of the great sagas of the North. Half-a-dozen of the best stories in English history come from Bede--the martyrdom of St. Alban, the arrival of St. Augustine, the story of Cuthbert the shepherd boy or the hermit of Farne warmed by the seals, the story of Hilda and the poet Caedmon. And for character also: all that we know of the kings of Mercia and Northumbria, of Wilfred of York, of the abbots Benedict and Coelfrid, and of many others, comes from Bede. If you pick Bede's book up, it is hard to put down.

I say the same of this author and this book. Highly recommended--note: the author assumes the reader knows about English and monastic history.