Also (in sense 3) 7 chartrous. [An alteration, by popular etymology, of AF. chartrouse = F. chartreuse, i.e., maison chartreuse Carthusian house. (But, in sense 3 really corresp. to the masc. F. chartreux, AF. chartrous, which is preserved in quot. 1641.) OF. chartreus, -euse (AF. -ous, -ouse) was itself a corruption of an earlier form charteus, -euse (AF. chartous, charthous, -ouse, cf. It. certosa) repr. L. cartusius, carthusius: see CARTHUSIAN. This earlier form was also used in Eng. as chartous, CHARTHOUS, q.v.
The popular understanding of chartrouse as chart(e)r(h)ouse, was of course helped by the fact that the meaning was Carthusian ‘house,’ maison chartreuse. The earlier corruption of charteus, -ous to chartreus, -rous, was app. one of French popular etymology, and probably due to association with chartre prison, suggested by the rigid confinement and severe discipline of the order.]
1. A Carthusian monastery. arch.
[a. 1500. Siege of Rouen, 7, in Collect. Lond. Cit. (Camd. Soc., 1877). With [inne] a howse of Chartere There loggyd hym oure kynge.]
1534. More, On the Passion, Wks. 1323/1. As one myghte saye that looked for too dye, or that were entring into the charter house, I wyll neuer eate fleshe more in thys worlde.
1556. Chron. Gr. Friars (1852), 38. Draune from the tower unto Tyborne the iij. priors of the Charterhowses [London, Beauvale, and Hexham], and there hongyd, heddyd, and qwarterd.
1577–87. Holinshed, Chron., III. 1236/1. Buried in the charterhouse at Hull.
a. 1631. Donne, Serm., Wks. IV. 249. Think not heaven a Charter-house, where Men … must not speak to one another.
a. 1649. Drumm. of Hawth., Hist. Jas. II., Wks. (1711), 105. Margaret the old queen … was buried in the charterhouse of St. Johnston.
1762. trans. Busching’s Syst. Geog., IV. 251. Buxheim, a considerable charterhouse, situate one hour’s distance from Memmingen.
1839. Mar. Hack, Eng. Stories Olden T., 183. He took lodgings near the Charter-house, among the Carthusians.
2. Hence: Name of a charitable institution or ‘hospital’ founded in London, in 1611, upon the site of the Carthusian monastery, which has since become one of the great English public schools.
(Now removed to the neighbourhood of Godalming.)
1655. Fuller, Ch. Hist., X. iv. § 15 (an. 1611). Richard Sutton, the Phœnix of our age, and sole founder of Charter House Hospital…. Children not yet come to, and old men already past, helping of themselves, have in this hospital their souls and bodies provided for.
1846. M’Culloch, Acc. Brit. Empire (1854), II. 325. The course of classical study in the Charterhouse is similar to that at other public schools.
3. attrib. or adj. [cf. CHARTHOUS.] Carthusian.
1577. Vautroullier, Luther on Gal., 198. The Turke thinketh the selfe same thing that the Charterhouse monke doth.
1579. Fulke, Heskins’ Parl., 201. Dionyse the Charterhouse Monke … denieth also that the body of Christ is receiued corporally in the sacrament.
1587. Fleming, Contn. Holinshed, III. 1274–5. Being of the charterhouse order.
1641. R. Harris, Abners Funerall, 12. Call your selves Sinners: els we (with that Chartrous Monk in story) Saint all who will see and supple us.
