To add to Prof. Elder's suggestion, the non esu carnium theme (subject of
a correpondence between Gerson and various Carthusians in the early
15thc) and the attacks on the order and the order's own internal debate
about relaxing the rule (including rolling back some papally-ordered
relaxations), has quite a voluminous literature. One should consult the
Dictionnaire de spiritualite article "Chartreux" for starters. James
Hogg has dealt with the question of relaxation in a variety of
publications in his Analecta Cartusiana series. At present I can't cite
specific articles but I can come up with something in a future post. A
series of treatises defending the Carthusians against these charges were
written in the late Middle Ages. One is described in my book
_Fifteenth-Century Carthusian Reform_ at p. 293; with footnote references
to a similar work by Denys the Carthusian (for details on the latter,
consult Kent Emery's 2-volume prolegomena to a forthcoming edition of
Denys's _Opera Selecta_ in the Corpus Christianorum Series. I give some
further references on moderate asceticism under the general theme of
"discretio" in chapter four of my book, including an important article by
Louis Leloir, "La sagesse des anciens moines" in _Studia Missionalia_, 28
(1979), 61-95, esp. p. 80-81, citing Benedict's rule's allusion to Gen.
33:13: "If you overdrive the ewes for a single day, the entire flock will
die."
Heinrich Egher van Kalkar, another 14thc Carthusian writer has some
valuable comments on this subject; see Heinrich Ruething, _Der Kartaeuser
H. E. v. K., 1328-1408_ (Goettingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1967),
e.g., p. 243 (orientation in my _Fifteenth-Century_ book, p. 121-122, 204).
The classic reference in the desert tradition is John Cassian's treatment
of discretio as the moderatrix of all virtues, eg., _Conferences_, second
conference of Abba Moses.
See also Peter Brown, _Body and Society_, pp. 129-131, 227-28, 236-39.
Dennis Martin
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