Saint Bruno withdrew with six companions into the mountains above Grenoble in 1084 and founded the Grande Chartreuse. The customs written down for the order in the following generation fixed a liturgy drawn from the usages of Lyon and Grenoble, deliberately stripped of elaboration to suit a life of solitude. Retained after the Council of Trent as an immemorial use, it was revised after the Second Vatican Council and continues in the charterhouses today.

The Carthusian use is the plainest of the Western usages: no elaborate ceremonial, a spare chant sung slowly, the celebrant assisted by a single deacon, and the night office sung at length in choir while the rest of the day is spent in the cell. It expresses in liturgy the hidden, contemplative vocation of the order.

The austere Latin use of the Carthusian Order, born in the solitude of the Grande Chartreuse and still celebrated in its charterhouses.

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The charterhouses of the Carthusian Order

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Celebrated in the charterhouses of the order