Augustine canon order, Karthaus hermits

Monastery
Pápóc - chapel
St Augustine
Lechnic - monastery
Siklós - church
the Augustine canon order

St Augustine (354-430) organised the life of the priests who helped the Bishop of Hippo, North Africa, similarly to the life of monastic communities. The ideas he noted down were reorganised by the Bishop of Metz, Chrodegang (†766) as a regulation for thr priests of his cathedral. Later this regulation was adopted by other priest communities as the set of their basic rules. These communities formed an order in the 11th century. The Augustine canons considered pastoring as their main duty. Their monasteries were quite simple and small in Hungary. They were not identical with the Augustine hermits, a 12th-century order of hermits who lived according to the Augustine regulation, too.

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the Karthaus hermits

St Bruno of Cologne founded the Chartreuse hermit community near Grenoble in 1084. The fifth prior of the monastery, Guido (1121-1127) was the first person to note down the habits of the community. As several communities adopted these habits - following Cistercian models - they held a general chapter in 1142. These habits were modified in 1259, 1368 and 1509. The order was prospering in the 14th century. After the experiment to found a monastery in Ercs, Hungary in 1238, four other monasteries were founded: Menedékkő (1307), Lehnic (1319), Felsőtárkány (around 1330) and Lövöld (1360-69). The Karthausians were considered a very strict order. Their churches were special long, one-nave buildings, with two side chapels near the chancel. The cloisters were located around two ambulatories. The communal rooms opened from the smaller ambulatory; these were the sacristy, chapter room and the refectorium. The larger walk-around corridor surrounded the cemetery, the independent, small houses and gardens of the monks opened from here. Lay brothers, converts belonged to each monastery, following Cistercian models.

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