![]() Mount Grace Priory | |
Monastery information | |
---|---|
Order | Carthusian |
Established | 1398 |
Disestablished | 1539 |
Dedicated to | House of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin and of St Nicholas |
Diocese | York |
People | |
Founder(s) | Thomas de Holand, Earl of Kent and Duke of Surrey |
Site | |
Location | East Harlsey, North Yorkshire, England |
Coordinates | 54°22′48″N1°18′40″W / 54.380120°N 1.311077°W |
Grid reference | SE449985 |
Visible remains | church, cloister, inner court and earthworks |
Public access | yes (English Heritage) |
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. [1]
The Mount Grace Charterhouse was founded in 1398 by Thomas Holland, 1st Duke of Surrey, [1] the son of King Richard II's half-brother Thomas, Earl of Kent. It was the last monastery established in Yorkshire, and one of the few founded anywhere in Britain in the period between the Black Death (1349–50) and the Reformation. It was a fairly small establishment, with space for a prior and a total of twenty-three monks. [1] [2]
The monastery consisted of a church and two cloisters. The Great Cloister, to the north of the church, had seventeen cells for monks ("choir monks") whilst the southern Lesser Cloister had six cells for the lay brothers. [1] [2]
Following the abdication and eventual murder of King Richard II, Holland and others of the king's supporters attempted to assassinate his recently crowned successor, Henry IV, at New Year, 1400, but were captured and executed. Holland's body was eventually recovered and, in 1412, re-buried in the charterhouse that he had founded. Orphaned by these events of its founder and bereft of the income that had been granted to it by Holland and King Richard, Mount Grace was obliged to depend upon royal largesse for its income for more than a decade.
On its founding, Thomas Holland stipulated that the monks were to pray for the king, queen and several members of the royal family, and for himself and his heirs, and many others including John and Eleanor Ingelby. The prior of the Grande Chartreuse allowed him to nominate Robert Tredwye as the first rector (although the charter [3] refers to him as the first prior) and to dedicate the priory to "the Blessed Virgin and Saint Nicholas". The second part of the dedication lapsed and the priory became known as the House of the Assumption of the most Blessed Virgin in Mount Grace. [4] Nicholas Love, prior of Mount Grace, succeeded in creating a link between the priory and the Lancastrian administration, in part by submitting his "Mirror of the Blessed Life of Jesus Christ" to Thomas Arundel, archbishop of Canterbury, Henry IV's chancellor, in support of the archbishop's campaign against Wycliffism, and by granting Arundel confraternity in the spiritual benefits of Mount Grace in exchange for his provision of material benefits. In 1410 the house was formally incorporated into the order, and Love named as fourth rector and first prior. [5] (But note the disparity with the original charter. [3] )
The house received a number of grants and charters:
In 1439 the Priory asked parliament to confirm their title – the number of claimants to the estate meant that they dared not continue to build – and Henry VI did so in 1440. Following this, the gifts and income continued:
Mount Grace became an important locus for the production and preservation of contemplative and devotional texts: among writers professed as monks there were John Norton and Richard Methley (the latter known for his Latin translations of The Cloud of Unknowing and of the anonymous English translation of Marguerite Porete's Mirror of Simple Souls ). The only surviving manuscript of The Book of Margery Kempe also belonged to Mount Grace Charterhouse. [7]
The priory was closed in 1539 during the dissolution of the monasteries by Henry VIII. Some of the monks had (in 1534) attempted to avoid taking the oath of supremacy but, after they were imprisoned, the last prior, John Wilson, handed the keys over to Henry VIII's representatives. The site then passed into private ownership. [8]
Mount Grace was valued at £382 5s. 11½d. gross (£323 2s. 10½d. net) which included £104 6s. 8d. from spiritualities in Lincolnshire, £164 from lands outside Yorkshire and the rest from its home county of Yorkshire. In December 1539 the brothers were awarded pensions totalling £195 – £60 plus the house and chapel called the Mount for the prior, £7 for each of eight priests and small sums for eighteen. [4]
The dissolution of Mount Grace, and life in the priory in the preceding years, is vividly reimagined by Lucy Beckett in her 1986 novel The Time Before You Die.
Unlike monks of other orders, who live in common, the Carthusians—to this day—live as hermits, each occupying his own cell (more like a small house), and coming together only for the nocturnal liturgical hours, and on Sundays and feast-days, in the church; the other hours are sung by each monk separately in his cell. Except for the singing of the liturgy and conversation "on grave subjects" during a weekly three-hour exercise walk, Carthusians are silent, and their diet is strictly vegetarian. [9]
The monks at Mount Grace were very conscious of hygiene and sanitation; included in the reconstructed cell is a reconstructed latrine and visitors are able to investigate the ditches used as sewage systems. [10]
After the dissolution, the ruins of the guest-house of the priory were incorporated into Mount Grace House: a seventeenth-century manor—a rare building of the Commonwealth period— built by Thomas Lascelles, [11] later converted into an important example of the Arts and Crafts movement. [11] The Manor House at the priory was decorated in Arts and Crafts style under the ownership of the ironmaster Sir Isaac Lowthian Bell. [1]
The property is owned by the National Trust and under the care of English Heritage. [12]
Visitors today can see the layout of the whole monastery, including one reconstructed monk's cell, together with the typically small Carthusian church and the later house. There is also a museum on the site detailing the history of the priory.
English Heritage lets the Prior's Lodge as a holiday cottage. [13]
The Houses of Carthusian monks: Priory of Mount Grace [4] lists a number of the priors of the house, together with the years they are known to have held office. It might not be correct, as the first two entries could be rectors not priors; nor is it complete as (for example) Carthusian records show Nicholas Love or Luff to be the first prior and fourth rector. [5] The list is:
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.
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.
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.
Beauvale Priory was a Carthusian monastery in Beauvale, Nottinghamshire. It is a scheduled ancient monument.
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.
Axholme Charterhouse or Axholme Priory, also Melwood Priory or Low Melwood Priory, North Lincolnshire, is one of the ten medieval Carthusian houses (charterhouses) in England. It was established in 1397/1398 by Thomas Mowbray, Earl of Nottingham and later Duke of Norfolk. The house was centred on a pre-existing chapel on the present Low Melwood Farm, between Owston Ferry and Epworth in the Isle of Axholme, which according to a papal bull of 1398 "was called anciently the Priory of the Wood".
Carisbrooke Priory was an alien priory, a dependency of Lyre Abbey in Normandy. The priory was situated on rising ground on the outskirts of Carisbrooke close to Newport on the Isle of Wight. This priory was dissolved in around 1415.
Loders Priory was a priory in Loders, Dorset, England.
Hinckley Priory was a small medieval monastic house in the town of Hinckley, Leicestershire, England.
Minting Priory was a priory in Minting, Lincolnshire, England.
Begar Priory was an alien priory near Richmond, believed to be in Moulton, North Yorkshire, England where old buildings known as "the Cell" were located. The Carthusian monks who lived at Begar in the time of Henry III of England belonged to the Priory of Begare in Brittany. After suppression the house was granted variously by different kings to first the chantry of St. Ann at Thirsk, then to Eton College, then to Mount Grace Priory, and then back to Eton College again.
Blyth Priory was a priory in Nottinghamshire, England, dedicated to St Mary the Virgin.
Great Bricett Priory was a medieval monastic house in Great Bricett in Suffolk, England, the chapel of which is now in use as the Church of England parish church of St Mary and St Lawrence.
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.
Monks Kirby Priory was a Benedictine priory established in 1077 in Monks Kirby, Warwickshire, England. The priory was suppressed in 1415 when its estates and revenues were given to the Carthusian priory of Axholme in Lincolnshire, in whose possession they continued until the Reformation. Remains of the priory form part of Monks Kirby village church today.
Warmington Priory was a Benedictine priory or more probably a cell in Warmington, Warwickshire, England. It was apparently founded by the monks of Préaux Abbey in Normandy after Henry de Newburgh, earl of Warwick, gave them his lands in Warmington in the reign of Henry I of England. Whatever its initial status, by the 14th century it was a cell of Toft Monks Priory in Norfolk, which similarly belonged to Préaux Abbey. After the dissolution of the alien priories by Henry V it was granted in 1428 to the Carthusians of Witham Charterhouse in Somerset.
Wootton Wawen Priory was an alien priory in Wootton Wawen, Warwickshire, England.
Sheen Priory in Sheen, now Richmond, London, was a Carthusian monastery founded in 1414 within the royal manor of Sheen, on the south bank of the Thames, upstream and approximately 9 miles southwest of the Palace of Westminster. It was built on a site approximately half a mile to the north of Sheen Palace, which itself also occupied a riverside site, that today lies between Richmond Green and the River Thames.
John Ingleby (1434–1499) was Bishop of Llandaff.
Media related to Mount Grace Priory at Wikimedia Commons