The Plan of St. Gall :: :: University of Virginia Library

It cannot be stressed with sufficient strength that the
explanatory titles associated with these towers fail to make
any reference to campana, signa, or tintinnabula; and for
that reason they cannot be interpreted as bell towers. On
purely historical grounds this would be a perfectly feasible
assumption. Bells set in motion with ropes, to mark the
various phases of the divine services or other festive events,
are mentioned at various places in the History of the
Franks of Gregory of Tours (d. 593/94). In the course of
the seventh and eighth centuries the evidence in contemporary
sources attesting their existence increases so
markedly that it can safely be assumed that they existed elsewhere.[12]

130

[ILLUSTRATION]

82. PLAN OF ST. GALL. PLAN OF CHURCH

Shaded areas distinguish parts of the Church accessible to monks,
and to laymen. Approaching by the access road (A) cutting through
the large service yard west of the Church, visiting pilgrims are
received by the Porter in a square porch (B) lying before the
semicircular atrium, and from there are directed through two more
porches (C, D), the poor to the Hospice for Pilgrims and Paupers,
the rich to the House for Distinguished Guests. Two passageways no
more than 7½ feet wide channel entering laymen through the aisles of
the Church, across the transept, to a U-shaped corridor crypt at
the end of which they may kneel before the tomb of St. Gall (E).
Two reserved areas in the nave allow them to hear sermons delivered
from the ambo (F), attend services celebrated at the altar of the
Savior at the Holy Cross (G), and participate in baptismal rites
conducted at the altar of SS John the Evangelist and John the
Baptist (H).

The pale red tint defines the area of the church proper. This, in
its totality was the province of the monk. Part of it he willingly shared with laymen
so that they also might be touched by mystery and deepened in faith. Those areas of the
church where layman and pilgrim were welcome and to which their movements were
restricted for enjoyment, contemplation, and prayer are indicated in a meandering
vignetted black stipple:

The pattern of circulation began at the Entry Porch, flowed along the aisles of
the church, passed by shrines and nave columns all with carved capitals supporting
arcades and walls above the arcades aglow with the color of painting. Then reaching
the crossing square, the circulation descended by stairs beneath apse and high altar
(dedicated to St. Mary and St. Gall) to the crypt passage where at point of climax,
illuminated by candle light, immersed in vibrant shadow, could be seen the tomb of St.
Gall.

This was moving theater and impressive, even to the sophisticated viewer. In such
a setting the Order of St. Benedict would gather momentum for centuries.

SCALE OF PLAN: 3/10 ORIGINAL SIZE (1:192 × 0.3 = 1:640)

[ILLUSTRATION]

83. PLAN OF ST. GALL

ACCESS ROAD TO CHURCH & MONASTERY GROUNDS

131

Yet the fact remains that the explanatory titles of
the towers of the Plan of St. Gall do not contain any suggestion
that they were meant to house bells; and there is
some doubt in my mind that any bells suspended in these
towers could have successfully fulfilled their function. The
use of these instruments implies an element of timing
which requires that the brother charged with the task of
ringing them be within sight or hearing of the officiating
priest.[13] Bell ringers stationed in the isolated towers of the
Church of the Plan of St. Gall could have neither seen nor
heard the priest.[14]

[12]

For Tours see Otte, 1884, 9 and Mon. Germ. Hist., Script. Rer.
Merov., I:1, 1885, 258; for the seventh and eighth century sources see
Otte, op. cit., 12ff and von Sommerfeld, 1906, 198ff.

[13]

The monastic consuetudines of the period abound with references
to bells and tell us exactly at what point in the divine service they were
struck. Bells of "small," "middling," and "large" size (signum pussillum,
signum modicum, signum majus) are mentioned in the Consuetudines
Cluniacenses antiquores, which reflected a considerably earlier tradition
with which Benedict of Aniane was familiar. See Cons. mon., ed. Bruno
Albers, II, 1905, 2 and 3. For other references to bells, see under the
words campana, signum, tintinnabulum, cymbalum in the indices of Corp.
cons. mon., 1963; Schlosser, 1896; and Cons. mon., I-V, 1900-12; as well
as in Du Cange's Glossarium.

A rectangular bell of Irish design and probably Irish provenience is on
exhibit in the Stiftsbibliothek of St. Gall. It was used, according to tradition,
by St. Columban and St. Gall in a cell which these two missionaries
occupied from 610 to 612 in the vicinity of Bregenz (Gallenstein). The bell
is of sheet iron. It is 33 cm. high, has a diameter at the bottom of 15 cm. ×
23 cm. and at the top of 11 cm. × 17 cm. It was never suspended in a
bell tower, but apparently held in the hand and struck on one of its outer
surfaces with the aid of a club or rod. Before the introduction of cast
bronze bells, hammered iron bells of this type were used not only in
Ireland, but also on the Continent. Walahfrid Strabo tells us that they
were called "signals" (signa) and used to announce the hours of the
divine service (quibusdam pulsibus significantur horae). The "St. Gall-Bell
of Bregenz" is dealt with by Duft, 1966, 425-36, where, incidentally,
attention is drawn to the fact that the squarish design of modern Alpine
cow bells is derived from that of the service bells used in the early Irish
monasteries of the Alpine forelands. The spread of the form has an
interesting etymological parallel in the propagation of the word with
which this object is designated: the German word Glocke comes from
Irish clogg through the intermediary stages of Medieval Latin clocca and
Old High German glokka (Duft, op. cit., 431).

[14]

From a strictly practical point of view, a small towerlike superstructure
over the transept would have provided a more suitable solution
for placing bells to announce the various phases of the liturgical cycle
than two isolated towers standing at a distance of over 300 feet from the
high altar. In large metropolitan churches, as well as in smaller parish
churches which were designed primarily for the worship of laymen,
conditions may have been different.