Martin M. Miles' photos with the keyword: Carthusian

Mallorca is the largest island in the Mediterranean Balearic Islands, which are part of Spain. Mallorca is an extremely popular holiday destination. The Palma de Mallorca Airport, one of the busiest in Spain, is used by about 30 million tourists per year. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the island was invaded by the Vandals in 425. The time of the Vandals ended, when Byzantine troops general took the island in 534. The first Muslim arrivals were in 707. These ended the Byzantine domination and established their own hegemony. Until 903, the island was part of the Umayyad Caliphate. From Between 902 and 1229 the island was under Islamic control. James I of Aragon ( aka "Jaume el Conqueridor") conquered Mallorca in December 1229. Valldemossa is a small town (pop.~2000) in the mountains of the Serra de Tramuntana. Sancho I de Mallorca in 1309 had a palace build here. He hoped that the air of the mountains would cure his asthma- The construction of San Bartomeo started in 1235. The once Gothic church went through numerous transformations and renovations. In the 20th century, a series of renovations were carried out to mark the canonisation of Catalina Thomàs. Catalina Thomàs was born in 1533 at Valldemossa. She worked as a servant and learned to read and embroider, before joining the Canonesses of St Augustine at the convent of St Mary Magdalene in Palma. She had mystic visions during which went into pious ecstasy. She died in1574 at Palma. After her death, she was celebrated locally as a saint for decades until Pope Urban VII forbade the worship of unrecognised saints. Local people appealed to Rome and eventually, she was beatified in 1792 by Pope Pius VI and canonised on 22 June 1930 by Pope Pius XI.

Mallorca is the largest island in the Mediterranean Balearic Islands, which are part of Spain. Mallorca is an extremely popular holiday destination. The Palma de Mallorca Airport, one of the busiest in Spain, is used by about 30 million tourists per year. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the island was invaded by the Vandals in 425. The time of the Vandals ended, when Byzantine troops general took the island in 534. The first Muslim arrivals were in 707. These ended the Byzantine domination and established their own hegemony. Until 903, the island was part of the Umayyad Caliphate. From Between 902 and 1229 the island was under Islamic control. James I of Aragon ( aka "Jaume el Conqueridor") conquered Mallorca in December 1229. Valldemossa is a small town (pop.~2000), that is well known since the 1840s when George Sand published the autobiographical novel "Un hiver à Majorque" (A Winter in Majorca). George Sand wrote about her trip and stay with Frederic Chopin on the island, due to the illness of the pianist. Sand, Chopin, and Sand's two children stayed in the charterhouse of Valldemossa from November 1838 until February 1839, during which time they hoped that Chopin's tuberculosis would improve. However his health did not improve, and so they returned home. They had stayed in the "Cartoixa", a former Carthusian monastery, that originally was the palace of Sancho I de Mallorca ("Sancho el Pacifico"), dating back to 1309. www.cartoixadevalldemossa.com/en/

Cologne is the fourth-largest city in Germany - and one of the oldest. A Germanic tribe, the Ubii, had a settlement here, this was named by the Romans "Oppidum Ubiorum". In 50 AD, the Romans founded "Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium", the city then became the provincial capital of "Germania Inferior". The "Kölner Kartause", a Carthusian monastery was founded in 1334 by Walram of Jülich here. At that time more than 100 Carthusian monasteries existed in Europe, but this was the first in the town, where Saint Bruno, founder of the Order was born. The monastery developed into the largest Carthusian convent in Germany and existed until 1794, when the invading French troops forcely dissolved it. The church and the buildings were used as storage rooms by the French troops and as a militrary hospital, when the Prussians had annexed the "Rhine Province". It was used that way until 1923, when the church an parts of the former monastery buildings were given to the Protestant Church. After WWII, the mostly destroyed complex got rebuilt. The church, erected mid 14th century and the dedicated to St. Barbara, is locked most of the time. I could slip in one time, just after the service had finished and tried to take one (!) interior shot, but was immidiatly approached by an unfriendly lady, telling me, that I had to leave "right now!" - and when I asked for 10 seconds, to just take one.... - NO! This was the only such experience I had in Cologne - ever.