turies. Many Christian epitaphs and inscriptions have been made known, the Christian architecture of the period has been illustrated by the ground-plans of ancient basilicas, some of them quite famous in Christian antiquity (e. g. the Basilica Major of Carthage), while Christian burial customs and domestic life have had fresh light thrown on them; in a word, the impor- tance of these excavations for our knowledge of Chris- tian antiquity is second only to that of De Rossi's epoch-making discoveries at Rome.
Leclercq, L'Afrique chrétienne (Paris, 1904); Afrique in Diet d'Archeol. el de Liturgie (Paris, 19031; Duchesne. Histoire ancienne de Viglise (Paris. 1906), I; Neher in Kirehenlex., s.v.; Gsell, Monuments antiques d, f Algerie (Paris, 1901); Healy, The Valerian Persecution (Boston. 1905); Benson, Cyprian, his Life, his Times, his Work (New York, 1897).
For the modern period: Lavigerie, De Tulilite d'une mission archéologique permanente a Carthage ( Algiers , 1881 >; DelattRE, L'Epigrapltie chrétienne a Carthage (Paris, 1SS1); Lampes chr.li.nnes in Revue de Vart chr'lien (1S90I; V Archiologie ehretienne ii Carthage (Paris, 1886); La basilique de Damous-el- Karita (Paris, 1S92); and numerous contributions to Cosmos and Revue de Vart chretien, also the local Bulletins of the archaeological societies of Constantine, Hippo, and Oran, the Bulletin archeloqique du Comite lies traraux historiques, and the Nuovo Bullettino di areheologia eristiana; Babelon, Carthage (Paris, 1S96>; Wielavd, Ein Ausftug ins allrhnstliehe Afrika (Stuttgart, 1900>; and Annual Report of the Smithsonian Insti- tution (Washington, 1899), 601-14 (translation of the article of Ph. Berger in Revue des deux monies, CI.III, 1899).
Maurice M. Hassett. Carthage, Councils of. See African Synods.
Carthusian Order, The.—The name is derived from the French chartreuse through the Latin car- tusia, of which the English '•charterhouse" is a cor- ruption. For the foundation of the order see art. Bruno, Saint. The following points will be consid- ered here: (I) The Rule; (II) Life of the Monks; (III) Organization; (IV) Development; (V) Present State of the Order; (VI) Distinguished Carthusians; (VII) English Province; (VIII) Carthusian Nuns.
I. The Rule. — We have two accounts of the man- ner of life of the first Carthusians, the earliest, written by Guibert, Abbot of Nogent, the second by Peter the Venerable, Abbot of Cluny. The former runs as fol- lows: "The church stands upon a ridge . . . thir- teen monks dwell there, who have a sufficiently con- venient cloister, in accordance with the cenobitic custom, but. do not live together claustraliter like other monks. Each has his own cell round the clois- ter, and in these they work, sleep, and eat. On Sun- days they receive the necessary bread and vegetables (for the week), which is their only kind of food and is cooked by each one in his cell; water for drinking and for other purposes is supplied by a conduit. . . . There are no gold or silver ornaments in their church, except a silver chalice. They do not go to the church for the usual canonical hours, as we do [Guibert was a Benedictine], but only for certain of them. They hear Mass, unless I am mistaken, on Sundays and solem- nities. They hardly ever speak, and, if they want anything, ask for it by a sign. If they ever drink wine, it is so watered as to be scarcely better than plain water. They wear a hair shirt next the skin, and their other garments are thin and scanty. They live under a prior, and the Bishop of Grenoble acts as their abbot and ■promisor. . . . Lower down the mountain there is a building containing over twenty most faithful lay brothers [laicos], who work for them. . . . Although they observe the utmost pov- erty, they arc getting together a very rich library. . . ." (P. L..CLVI, 853 sqq.).
Peter the Venerable adds certain details, lays stress on the poorness of their garments, and mentions that
they restricted their possessions both in land and
cattle, and fixed their own number at thirteen monks, eighteen lay brothers, and a few servants, or their diet he says, "They always abstain from the eating of meat, whether in health 'or ill. They never buy fish. but accept them if given in charity. Cheese and eggs are allowed on Sundays and Thursdays. On Tues-
days and Saturdays, they eat cooked vegetables, but
on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, they take only
bread and water. They eat once a day only, save at
Christmas, Easter, Pentecost, Epiphany, and on cer-
tain other festivals. . . . On feast days they go to
the refectory, eat twice, and sing the whole office in
the church." (P. L., CLXXXlX, 944 D.)
Guibert wrote in 1104, Peter some twenty years later, so there was time for development, which may account for certain discrepancies between the two accounts. The "Customs" of the Chartreuse were not committed to writing till 1127. Bruno had left the world in order to serve God in solitude, and with- out any intention of founding an order. In the earli- est days the hermits had no rule, but all strove to live after Bruno's example and in accordance with the Evangelical counsels. When regular monastic build- ings were erected and vocations began to increase, some sort of rule became a necessity. St. Bruno wrote none, but the customs which he introduced, together with additions born of experience, were em- bodied in the "Consuetudines" written by Guigo, the fifth prior, in 1127. This was not a rule written with authority, but a record of the usages of the mother- house of the order (Ann., I, 305), compiled at the re- quest of the priors of the other charterhouses, and finally accepted by them as their code. In the intro- duction the writer saj-s that almost all the customs are contained "either in the epistles of the Blessed Jerome, or in the Rule of St. Benedict, or in other authorized writings". A later writer, Boso, the nine- teenth prior of the Grande Chartreuse (d. 1313), says, "It is clear that the contents of the Statutes come either from St. Benedict's Rule, St. Jerome's Epistles, the 'Vita? Patrum' or the 'Collationes' and other writings of Cassian and the Fathers " (quoted in Ann., 1,37). The Rule of St. Benedict (the only monastic rule of those days') gave the norm of those duties which were performed in common, and supplied the arrange- ment of the Divine Office, the treatment of guests, the form of the vows. Many new departures were intro- duced to meet the needs of the solitude which is an essential of the Carthusian life; from the Fathers of the Desert came the laura-like arrangement of the building and the solitary life of the cells, while the statutes are probably also indebted to the Rule of Camaldoli (see Camaldolese) (founded by St. Romuald in 1012), which was reduced to writing by the Blessed Rudolf in 1080. The fundamental prin- ciple of Camaldoli and the Chartreuse is the same, namely, the combination of Western monastieism as embodied in St. Benedict's Rule with the eremi- tical life of the Egyptian solitaries. In both orders the superiors were to be priors, not abbots, and in all the earliest Carthusian houses there was, as at Camaldoli, a "lower house" for lay brothers who served the external needs of the contemplative monks at the "upper house". The first hermits tended strongly to be purely eremitical, but the cenobitic development was hastened both by the necessities of life and by the influence of neighbouring Benedictine houses, especially perhaps of Cluny. The union of the two systems was only gradually evolved under the pressure of circumstance.
Guigo's "Consuetudines" were first approved by Innocent II in 1133 (Ann.. I, 305) and are still the basis of the modern statutes. In 1258 the general. Dom Riffier, issued a new edition, adding various ordinances passed by the general chapters since 1 127; these are known as the " Statu ta Antiqua". The "Statuta Nova" with similar additions appeared in 1368. In L509 the general chapter approved the "Tertia Compilatio", consisting of a collection of the ordinances of (lie chapters ami a synopsis of the stat- utes. The Carthusian Rule was printed for the first time by Johann Amorbach at Basle in 1510. This volume' contains Guigo's "Consuetudines", the
