John Batmanson (died 1531), was prior of the Charterhouse in London.
Batmanson studied theology at Oxford, but there is no evidence of his having taken a degree in that faculty, 'though supplicate he did to oppose in divinity.' Whether the John Batemanson, LL.D., who was sent to Scotland in 1509 to receive James IV's oath to a treaty with England, and who acted on several commissions to examine cases of piracy in the north of England from that date until 1516, is the same man, is doubtful, but probable, as the name is by no means a common one.
In 1520 he was already a Carthusian, and was employed by Edward Lee (afterwards archbishop of York) in connection with his critical attack upon Erasmus. Erasmus (from whose letters we learn this fact) gives a spiteful sketch of his character—'unlearned, to judge from his writings, and boastful to madness.' In 1523, according to Tanner, on the authority of a manuscript belonging to Bishop Moore, he was prior of the Charterhouse of Hinton in Somerset; but his name has escaped the researches of Dugdale and his later editors, both in connection with Hinton and London. On the death of William Tynbigh, prior of the London Charterhouse, in 1529, Batmanson was elected to succeed him.
He died on 16 November 1531, and was buried in the convent chapel. This is the date given by Theodore Petre, the biographer of the Carthusians. If the statement of Maurice Chauncy, a contemporary of Batmanson's, that his successor Houghton, who was executed for refusing the oath of supremacy, died on 4 May 1535, 'in the fifth year of his priorate,’ be correct, Batmanson must have resigned the office some months before his death. The character given of him varies with the opinions of the writer. Pits and Petre speak of his great learning and angelic life, while Bale calls him supercilious and arrogant, and fond of quarrelling, though he allows that he was a clear writer. The only incident of his rule that has come down to us shows him in a favourable light. One of his monks was so affected by the solitary life that he was on the point of committing suicide when the prior discharged him from the order.
None of these appear to exist in print, or in any of the more important collections of manuscripts in England.
The Carthusians, also known as the Order of Carthusians, are a Latin enclosed religious order of the Catholic Church. The order was founded by Bruno of Cologne in 1084 and includes both monks and nuns. The order has its own rule, called the Statutes, and their life combines both eremitical and cenobitic monasticism. The motto of the Carthusians is Stat crux dum volvitur orbis, Latin for "The Cross is steady while the world turns". The Carthusians retain a unique form of liturgy known as the Carthusian Rite.
The London Charterhouse is a historic complex of buildings in Farringdon, London, dating back to the 14th century. It occupies land to the north of Charterhouse Square, and lies within the London Borough of Islington. It was originally built a Carthusian priory, founded in 1371 on the site of a Black Death burial ground. Following the priory's dissolution in 1537, it was rebuilt from 1545 onwards to become one of the great courtyard houses of Tudor London. In 1611, the property was bought by Thomas Sutton, a businessman and "the wealthiest commoner in England", who established a school for the young and an almshouse for the old. The almshouse remains in occupation today, while the school was re-located in 1872 to Godalming, Surrey.
Augustine Webster, O.Cart was an English Catholic martyr. He was the prior of Our Lady of Melwood, a Carthusian house at Epworth, on the Isle of Axholme, in north Lincolnshire, in 1531. His feast day is 4 May.
John Houghton, OCart was a Catholic priest of the Carthusian order and the first martyr to die as a result of the Act of Supremacy by King Henry VIII of England. He was also the first of the Carthusians to die as a martyr. As one of the Carthusian Martyrs of London he is among the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales.
Mount Grace Priory is a monastery in the parish of East Harlsey, North Yorkshire, England. Set in woodlands within the North York Moors National Park, it is represented today by the best preserved and most accessible ruins among the nine houses of the Carthusian Order, which existed in England in the Middle Ages and were known as charterhouses.
Maurice Chauncy was an English Catholic priest and Carthusian monk.
Humphrey Middlemore, OCart was an English Catholic priest and Carthusian hermit, who was executed for treason during the Tudor period. He is considered a martyr by the Catholic Church, and, along with other members of his religious order to meet that fate, was beatified by Pope Leo XIII on 9 December 1886.
Sebastian Newdigate, O.Cart was the seventh child of John Newdigate, Sergeant-at-law. He spent his early life at court, and later became a Carthusian monk. He was executed for treason on 19 June 1535 for his refusal to accept Henry VIII's assumption of supremacy over the Church in England. His death was considered a martyrdom, and he was beatified by the Catholic Church.
The Carthusian Martyrs of London were the monks of the London Charterhouse, the monastery of the Carthusian Order in the City of London who were put to death by the English state in a period lasting from the 4 May 1535 until the 20 September 1537. The method of execution was hanging, disembowelling while still alive and then quartering. Others were imprisoned and left to starve to death. The group also includes two monks who were brought to that house from the Charterhouses of Beauvale and Axholme and similarly dealt with. The total was 18 men, all of whom have been formally recognized by the Catholic Church as martyrs.
John Justus of Landsberg was a German Carthusian monk and ascetical writer.
Robert Lawrence, OCart was one of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales. He was hanged, drawn, and quartered at Tyburn for declining to sign the Oath of Supremacy. His feast day is 4 May.
Beauvale Priory was a Carthusian monastery in Beauvale, Nottinghamshire. It is a scheduled ancient monument.
Perth Charterhouse or Perth Priory, known in Latin as Domus Vallis Virtutis, was a monastic house of Carthusian monks based at Perth, Scotland. It was the only Carthusian house ever to be established in the Kingdom of Scotland, and one of the last non-mendicant houses to be founded in the kingdom. The traditional founding date of the house is 1429. Formal suppression of the house came in 1569, though this was not actualised until 1602.
Nicholas Love, also known as Nicholas Luff, was first a Benedictine and then a Carthusian monk in medieval England, and became the first prior of Mount Grace charterhouse in Yorkshire. He was the translator and reviser of a popular devotional treatise which was used by the Church authorities to counter the teaching of John Wycliffe. In his later years he convinced Henry V of England to attempt to reform Benedictine monasticism in England, but died before measures could be taken.
Žiče Charterhouse, also Seiz Charterhouse, was a Carthusian monastery or Charterhouse in the narrow valley of Žičnica Creek, also known as Saint John the Baptist Valley after the church dedicated to St. John the Baptist at the monastery near the village of Žiče and at settlement Špitalič pri Slovenskih Konjicah in the Municipality of Slovenske Konjice in northeastern Slovenia.
Edward Lee was Archbishop of York from 1531 until his death.
Sheen Friary later also known as Richmond Priory (1414-1539) was a friary in Surrey, England, restored as a national gathering of Carthusians by Maurice Chauncy at Sheen under Mary I of England during part of her reign from 1553 to 1558.
Hugh of Lincoln, O.Cart., also known as Hugh of Avalon, was a French-born Benedictine and Carthusian monk, bishop of Lincoln in the Kingdom of England, and Catholic saint. His feast is observed by Catholics on 16 November and by Anglicans on 17 November.
The Carthusian martyrs are those members of the Carthusian monastic order who have been persecuted and killed because of their Christian faith and their adherence to the Catholic religion. As an enclosed order the Carthusians do not, on principle, put forward causes for their members, though causes have been promoted by others on their behalf.
Speculum spiritualium is an anonymous religious compilation written in Latin, made between 1400 and 1430. The work was relatively popular, known in at least a dozen manuscripts, and printed by Wynkyn de Worde in 1510.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain : "Batmanson, John". Dictionary of National Biography . London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.