La Valsainte Charterhouse
Encyclopedia
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
: Vallis sanctorum omnium, later Vallis Sancta) situated in Cerniat
Cerniat
Cerniat is a municipality in the district of Gruyère in the canton of Fribourg in Switzerland.-Geography:Cerniat has an area, , of . Of this area, or 40.9% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 54.8% is forested...
in the district of Gruyère
Gruyère (district)
Gruyère District is a district of the canton of Fribourg in Switzerland. It has a population of . Its capital is Bulle.-Municipalities:-Mergers and name changes:...
, Canton of Fribourg
Canton of Fribourg
The Canton of Fribourg is a canton of Switzerland. It is located in the west of the country. The capital of the canton is Fribourg. The name Fribourg is French, whereas is the German name for both the canton and the town.-History:...
, is the only remaining extant Carthusian
Carthusian
The Carthusian Order, also called the Order of St. Bruno, is a Roman Catholic religious order of enclosed monastics. The order was founded by Saint Bruno of Cologne in 1084 and includes both monks and nuns...
monastery in Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
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History
The charterhouse, in the heart of the valleys of the Javroz and the Jogne, was founded in 1295 by Girard I, lord of Corbières. In the Middle AgesMiddle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...
it was the owner of a vast territory covering the greater part of the present communes of Cerniat and Charmey
Charmey
Charmey is a municipality in the district of Gruyère in the canton of Fribourg in Switzerland.-History:Charmey is first mentioned in 1211 as Chalmeis. Until 1760 it was known as Feiguières. The municipality is also informally known by its German name Galmis.-Geography:Charmey has an area, , of...
, over which by right of its lordship it exercised the high and the low justice.
It was destroyed by fire in 1381.
In 1454 it passed into the lordship of the County of Greyerz, with which it passed again in 1535 to the city of Fribourg
Fribourg
Fribourg is the capital of the Swiss canton of Fribourg and the district of Sarine. It is located on both sides of the river Saane/Sarine, on the Swiss plateau, and is an important economic, administrative and educational center on the cultural border between German and French Switzerland...
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The government of Fribourg were not kindly disposed toward the monastery, but their efforts to suppress it and absorb its revenues were for many years opposed by the French, who supported it. However, in 1778 the Pope agreed to its suppression, and the government of Fribourg used its revenues to cover the costs of the Diocese of Lausanne, for which they had become responsible. The monks moved to La Part-Dieu Charterhouse at Bulle
Bulle
Bulle is a municipality in the district of Gruyère in the canton of Fribourg in Switzerland. In January 2006 Bulle incorporated the formerly independent municipality of La Tour-de-Trême.-History:...
.
In 1791, during the French Revolution
French Revolution
The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...
, the empty charterhouse at La Valsainte gave shelter to refugee French Trappists
Trappists
The Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance , or Trappists, is a Roman Catholic religious order of cloistered contemplative monks who follow the Rule of St. Benedict...
under Dom Augustin de Lestrange
Augustin de Lestrange
Augustin de Lestrange was a French Trappist abbot, an exile from France after the French Revolution.-Life:...
, and in 1794 the premises were declared by Pope Pius VI
Pope Pius VI
Pope Pius VI , born Count Giovanni Angelo Braschi, was Pope from 1775 to 1799.-Early years:Braschi was born in Cesena...
a Cistercian abbey, which became the birthplace of the Cistercian Reform movement. The Trappists were expelled by Napoleon in 1798, but returned to it from 1802 to 1812 and again from 1814 to 1815. From 1818 to 1824 the monastery provided shelter for a group of Redemptorists. It was then sold, and demolished apart from the principal block, built in 1729.
In 1863, the local political climate had changed sufficiently to permit the return of the Carthusian community from La Part-Dieu Charterhouse, which had been suppressed in 1848, and the ruined site was in part restored but mostly rebuilt. The present buildings thus consist of the main block of 1729 surrounded by late 19th century additions and extensions (monks' cells, converts' building, chapel and various buildings outside the monastery itself).
Around the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries the anti-clerical laws passed in France resulted in the expulsion of Carthusian monks, and two additional ranges of cells were built at La Valsainte to accommodate some of them, in 1886 and 1901. In 1903 and 1904 the Chapter General of the Carthusian order met here. The impossibility of pursuing monastic vocations in France at this period meant an increase of vocations at La Valsainte.
Restoration of the church
In the 1970s the church was thoroughly restored. All 19th century interior work was swept away (except for the stalls), including the flooring. The partition between the choir of the Fathers and that of the lay monks was removed, and the sanctuary was gutted. Work on the roof revealed, in the extreme west, two bays of 14th century vaulting in Tuffière stone, which had somehow survived the destruction of the 19th century. These are the oldest surviving part of the monastery premises.Warmth and vitality is given to the bare walls by the non-figurative stained glass windows by the painter Chorderet. The tabernacle
Church tabernacle
A tabernacle is the fixed, locked box in which, in some Christian churches, the Eucharist is "reserved" . A less obvious container, set into the wall, is called an aumbry....
and the processional cross are both in enamel
Vitreous enamel
Vitreous enamel, also porcelain enamel in U.S. English, is a material made by fusing powdered glass to a substrate by firing, usually between 750 and 850 °C...
by the French artist Mirande. A Gothic
Gothic art
Gothic art was a Medieval art movement that developed in France out of Romanesque art in the mid-12th century, led by the concurrent development of Gothic architecture. It spread to all of Western Europe, but took over art more completely north of the Alps, never quite effacing more classical...
Madonna
Madonna (art)
Images of the Madonna and the Madonna and Child or Virgin and Child are pictorial or sculptured representations of Mary, Mother of Jesus, either alone, or more frequently, with the infant Jesus. These images are central icons of Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodox Christianity where Mary remains...
of the 14th century, a gift, stands to the left of the main altar.
Several other Carthusian monasteries have taken inspiration from the restoration of La Valsainte for work on their own churches, notably the Montalegre Charterhouse near Barcelona
Barcelona
Barcelona is the second largest city in Spain after Madrid, and the capital of Catalonia, with a population of 1,621,537 within its administrative limits on a land area of...
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Novices' cloister
The range of buildings latterly known as the novices' cloister, one of those constructed in haste around the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries for the accommodation of exiled French monks, was discovered in the 1990s to be in danger of collapse, undermined by groundwater, and was demolished.Community
The revived community at La Valsainte has included some distinguished members, and the inclusion of numbers of French religious has added to the vigour of Roman Catholic spiritual life in Switzerland.Priors
Two priors are of particular note for the charterhouse:- Dom Florent Miège, prior during the 1920s, was a French religious, spiritual father of Raïssa MaritainRaïssa MaritainRaïssa Oumansoff Maritain was a Russian-Ukrainian poet and philosopher. She emigrated to France and studied at the Sorbonne, where she met the young Jacques Maritain, also a philosopher, whom she married in 1904. She was raised Jewish but, following a period in which she considered herself an...
and adviser of her husband, the philosopher Jacques MaritainJacques MaritainJacques Maritain was a French Catholic philosopher. Raised as a Protestant, he converted to Catholicism in 1906. An author of more than 60 books, he helped to revive St. Thomas Aquinas for modern times and is a prominent drafter of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights...
. - Dom Nicolas Barras, member of the community from 1934 to 1981, for many of which years he was prior, was a Swiss Carthusian, responsible for the integration of the monastery into the local society and for the many practical issues thrown up by the maintenance of the buildings and the application of the order's statutes to contemporary life. For example, he authorised and oversaw the installation of electricity, and supervised the adaptation of the prescribed diet to the limited supplies available during World War IIWorld War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
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