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

The western apse (exedra) of the Church is dedicated to St.
Peter. Its floor is raised above the level of the nave by two
steps (gradus) and it is furnished with a wall bench which
follows the apse in its entire circumference. A square in the
center of the apse is designated as the altar of St. Peter by a
hexameter:

Hic Petrus eclae pastor sortitur honorē

Here Peter, the shepherd of the Church, allots
honor

This location of the altar of St. Peter at the western end
of the Church, in counterposition to that of St. Paul at the
eastern end, is doubtlessly patterned after the churches of
these two primary apostles in Rome, where the altar of St.

132

[ILLUSTRATION]

84. PLAN OF ST. GALL, ATRIUM, TOWERS, AND WESTERN PART OF CHURCH

This layout, of consummate beauty and unique in its own period, has only one parallel in Early Christian architecture (fig. 161). The Church of
the Plan is preceded by a semicircular atrium surrounding an open pratellum, which is in turn flanked by two imposing circular towers built for symbolic
rather than functional purposes. There is no façade as in the great Early Christian prototype churches designed to receive huge metropolitan crowds.
The Church of the Plan of St. Gall is constructed for monks and—inward-turned—faces the outside world with a counter apse housing the altar
of St. Peter.

133

Peter's faced west, while the altar of St. Paul's faced east.[22]
The importance of the cult of St. Peter and St. Paul and the
close association with Rome that it suggests finds expression
in the fact that their altars are installed in the apses,
where they are second only to the high altar. They are
smaller than the high altar but larger than any of the other
altars, including the altar of the Holy Cross in the center of
the nave of the Church.

A further sign of distinction is that their function is
expressed in the form of a verse rather than the simple
word altare by which the altars in the transept and the nave
are designated. Poeschel's suggestion that the squares in the
two apses of the Church should be interpreted as "pulpits"
or "lecterns" rather than as altars appears to me untenable,
both in the light of their inscriptions[23] and in view of their
location. The apse is the place par excellence for altars.[24]
Moreover, the raised floor level, the semicircular wall
bench for the worshiping monks, and the carefully segregated
choir (chorus) in the two contiguous bays of the nave
have distinct eucharistic implications and would be meaningless
were they not connected liturgically with the rituals
performed at an altar (see fig. 84).

[22]

As correctly and strongly stressed by Poeschel, 1956, 135-36. See
also Iso Müller, in Studien, 1962, 139; and Arens, 1938, 61, note 89.

[23]

Poeschel, loc. cit. On the eucharistic implications of the word
honores, used in the inscriptions of both altars, see Father Iso Müller, op.
cit., 137-38. Poeschel is disturbed by the fact that the squares in the
apses of St. Peter and St. Paul are not inscribed with the word altare, as
most of the other altars are. If they were meant to serve as lecterns or
pulpits for special devotional functions, as Poeschel suggests, it should be
equally disturbing that they are not inscribed with the word analogium
or ambo, as are all the other pulpits or lecterns of the Plan of St. Gall
(two easternmost bays of the nave and Refectory); see below, p. 136.
There was no need to identify the altars of the two primary apostles with
the word altare, as their purpose was already expressed in the more
explicit form of verse. The fact that the two altars are not decorated with
a cross does not militate against this interpretation. Five other altars in
the Church (including the all-important high altar) lack this sign, as
Poeschel himself has pointed out. Nor should it come as a surprise that
the altars in the two apses are not enclosed by any chancel barriers. They
stand in areas that are not easily accessible to the secular visitors of the
Church. The eastern apse is entirely outside the reach of any layman, and
the western apse was undoubtedly protected by a rail, like the choir in
front of it.

[24]

Of scores of examples that could be cited, I refer only to the Abbey
Church of St.-Riquier (altar of St. Richarius in the eastern apse), the
Abbey Church of Fulda (altar of the Saviour), not to speak of the great
Constantinian prototype church, Old St. Peter's (altar of St. Peter in the
west apse); see Effman, 1912, fig. 8; Beumann and Grossmann, 1949, 45,
figs. 3 and 4; and Toynbee and Ward-Perkins, 1953, 202, fig. 20, and
215, fig. 22.