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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: / CHAPTER IV. Priorate Of Father John Luscote?Benefactors?Robert Palmer's Vocation?Death Of The First Prior. At the Annual General Chapter of the Order, held at the Grande Chartreuse in the spring of 1370, Father John Luscote, Prior of the Charterhouse of Hinton and Visitor of the English Province, earnestly requested to be relieved of his offices. His request was partly granted, though not in the manner he had hoped; for, instead of returning to his peaceful cell in the cloister, he was appointed Rector of the new foundation, near London, which, says the Chapter, -we now receive and incorporate into the Order. A Rector, we may observe in passing, is the Superior of a Charter- house in which for some reason the Rule cannot be observed in its integrity. The Rectorship of the unfinished Charterhouse of London was a more difficult post than that of Prior of Hinton, and Father Luscote also retained the office of Provincial Visitor. He had, moreover, extraordinary powers and responsibilities, which, on THE PRIOR. 4t account of the distance of England from the mother house, were granted to and imposed upon the Visitor.1 In any difficulty that might arise with regard to the government of the English Charterhouses, the Priors had recourse to him; nor were they disappointed, for John Luscote has earned for himself the reputation of having been an enlightened Superior. Less than a year after his nomination as Rector, the buildings were completed, and John Luscote was installed as first Prior of the monastery, which was now known as the Charterhouse of the Salutation of Our Lady, near London. The title of Abbot having been for humility's sake refused, the Prior of a Charterhouse is the first Superior, and has himself no resident Superior; but he is subject to...