uilding of three monasteries of
which one was to be Carthusian, for the Carthusians at that time had no
house in England. This Order had been founded at Grenoble in 1086 by St
Bruno, who had been sent by St. Hugh, Bishop of Grenoble, to a desert
spot in the Alps 14,000 feet above the sea. There St Bruno founded his
monastery known as the Grande Chartreuse. His monks were hermit monks,
each had, as each has still, his own little dwelling. The Order, which
has never been reformed--Cartusia nunquam reformata Quia nunquam
deformata--and has uniformly followed the Rule approved by
Pope Innocent XI., recognises three classes of brethren, the
fathers, the conversi or lay brethren, and nuns. Each house is
governed by a Prior and each monk lives, as I have said, in a separate
dwelling of five little rooms and a tiny cloister, or rather
ambulatory, facing a little garden. His food is given him through a
hatch at the foot of the stairs leading to his rooms. He attends Mass
in Choir, Matins and Vespers too, but the other Hours are said in his
cell. As the Carthusians were when they first came into England so
they are to-day.

But it is not in honour of St Hugh, Bishop of Grenoble, that the
monastery at Parkminster is dedicated, but of quite another saint.

When Henry II. set out to found a Carthusian house in England in
obedience to the Pope, the place he chose for it was Witham in
Selwood, a solitude, for the Rule of the Order demanded it, and that
is also why we have this monastery in the Weald to-day. It bears
witness as nothing else could do to-day, perhaps, to the true
character of the Weald.

Witham, it is true, was not so desolate as the Grande Chartreuse, but
it was in the heart of the Forest, far from the abode of men. Even to-
day Witham is not easy to reach by road. This house, thus founded did
not flourish; whether the place was too hard for the monks, or whether
there was some other cause we know not, but the first two priors,
though both from the Grande Chartreuse, failed to establish it. Then
King Henry was advised to beg of the mother-house her great and
shining light, Hugh of Avalon, not of Avalon in England, but of Avalon
in Burgundy. He was successful in his request. The Bishop of Bath and
Wells, his ambassador, then in the Alps, was able to bring Hugh home
with him, though the loss of that "most sweet presence," as the Prior
declared, widowed his house; and Hugh came to England and to Witham
and was received