Witham Charterhouse | |
---|---|
Religion | |
Affiliation | Carthusian |
Year consecrated | 1178/1179 |
Status | abandoned |
Location | |
Location | Witham Friary, Somerset, England |
Geographic coordinates | 51°09′47″N2°21′58″W / 51.1631°N 2.3660°W |
Witham Charterhouse, also Witham Priory, at Witham Friary, Somerset, was established in 1178/79, the earliest of the ten medieval Carthusian houses (charterhouses) in England. It was suppressed in the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1539.
The charterhouse was founded by Henry II in his Royal Forest of Selwood, as part of his penance for the murder of Archbishop Thomas Becket of Canterbury and was established at Witham Friary, Somerset, in 1178/1179 by a founding party led by a monk called Narbert from the Grande Chartreuse. Hugh of Avalon (later Saint Hugh) was made prior of Witham Charterhouse in 1180. [1]
The house was suppressed as part of the dissolution of the monasteries on 15 March 1539. [1]
The lay brothers' church is now used as the parish church of Witham Friary.
In 1921 excavations revealed buttressed wall foundations and building rubble including glazed roof tiles and floor tiles. Later work in 1965 and 1968 revealed further buildings, two of which were interpreted as the chapter house and possibly a church. [2]
The site of the charterhouse is marked by extensive rectilinear earthworks, cut by a railway line, and some worked stone can still be seen in buildings in the village of Witham Friary. The remains of the original monastic fishponds still survive to the east of the site. [2]
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 dissolution of the monasteries, occasionally referred to as the suppression of the monasteries, was the set of administrative and legal processes between 1536 and 1541, by which Henry VIII disbanded Catholic monasteries, priories, convents, and friaries in England, Wales, and Ireland; seized their wealth; disposed of their assets, and provided for their former personnel and functions.
The London Charterhouse is a historic complex of buildings in Clerkenwell, London, dating 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.
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.
Witham Friary is a small English village and civil parish located between the towns of Frome and Bruton in the county of Somerset. It is in the Cranborne Chase and West Wiltshire Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and the ancient Forest of Selwood.
Charterhouse, also known as Charterhouse-on-Mendip, is a hamlet and former civil parish, now in the parish of Priddy, in the Mendip Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) in the Somerset district, in the ceremonial county of Somerset, England. The area between Charterhouse and Cheddar Gorge including Velvet Bottom and Ubley Warren is covered by the Cheddar Complex Site of Special Scientific Interest. In 1931 the parish had a population of 68.
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.
The Friary is a small hamlet outside the English village of Freshford, about 6 miles (10 km) south of Bath, Somerset. Although closer to Freshford it lies within the parish of Hinton Charterhouse.
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".
Hinton Priory was a Carthusian monastery in northeast Somerset, England, from 1232 until 1539.
The Church of St Mary in Witham Friary, Somerset, England, dates from around 1200 and it has been designated as a Grade I listed building.
Boston Friary refers to any one of four friaries that existed in Boston, Lincolnshire, England.
Greyfriars Nottingham was a Franciscan friary in Nottinghamshire, England. It was founded c. 1224–1230, and dissolved in 1539 as part of King Henry VIII's Dissolution of the Monasteries. The site of the friary is now occupied by the Broadmarsh Shopping Centre.
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.
Hugh of Lincoln, also known as Hugh of Avalon, was a Burgundian-born 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 Church of St John the Baptist is an Anglican parish church in Hinton Charterhouse, Somerset, England. It was built in the 12th century and designated a Grade II* listed building.
Kinalehin Friary, originally a medieval charterhouse or Carthusian monastery and later a Franciscan friary, is a National Monument located in County Galway, Ireland.