The medieval origins of the Carthusian landscape in Piedmont : (twelfth–fourteenth centuries)

From analysis of the cartari of the monasteries of Casotto and Montebenedetto – the first Carthusian monasteries of twelfth-century Piedmont – this article examines the close link between the Monastery of the Grande-Chartreuse and the two Italian Carthusian monasteries. These ties become especially apparent in the ways in which territorial matters are dealt with in the Consuetudines Cartusiae. Reading monastic sources against historical cartography yields the analytic means to reconstruct, graphically, the shifting possession of land areas between the two Italian monasteries. This, in turn, leads to improved understanding of the Carthusian landscape heritage from the twelfth century to the fourteenth, as well as the pre-existing structures still present in the territory.