University of Virginia Library

II.1.7

TRANSEPT

The transept (fig. 99) is separated from nave and aisles by
screens that run across the entire width of the Church. It is
also divided internally into separate compartments by
means of longitudinal screens that separate the crossing
from the transept arms, and within the latter there is a
further separation of the areas reserved for the monks from

the passages that take the pilgrims through the transept into
the crypt. The monks and priests who seek access to the
crossing and to the presbytery must cross these passages.

The layout of the transept and the choir that adjoins it
in the east is complex and, sometime after the Plan was
drawn, someone—perhaps the author of the Plan himself—
considered it desirable that the boundaries of the constituent
spaces of this part of the Church be made more conspicuous.
He put them into visual prominence by redrawing
them in a dark brown ink, thus distinguishing the principal
architectural partitions from the furnishings shown in the
interior of these spaces. In consequence all the transept
walls, as well as the boundary lines between the crossing
and the transept arms, as well as the two lateral walls of the
presbytery, were rendered twice, first in red, and subsequently
in brown ink.

THE CROSSING SQUARE AND ITS FURNISHINGS

The crossing is the "choir for the psalmodists" (chorus
psallentium). It is furnished with four "benches" (formulae).
Schmidt's interpretation of formulae as lecterns (Pulte)
appears to me untenable. In the ninth century only the
directing monk held an antiphonary in his hands; and this
was too small to require even one lectern,[44] let alone four
of the size of the formulae on the Plan of St. Gall which are
10 feet long and at least 2½, probably 3¾, feet wide.
Moreover, the scribe's term for "lectern" is not formula but
analogium and in the three places where lecterns are shown
on the Plan, they are rendered either as simple squares (the
two lecterns by the rail that separates the crossing from the
nave of the Church; see end of preceding paragraph) or as
a square with a circle inscribed (the Reader's lectern in the
Refectory; see below, p. 268f). Formula, a diminutive of
forma[45] (used in the same sense) is the common medieval
designation for "bench" or "choirstall" as well as for those
wooden supports that are used for kneeling in prayer (prieDieu—kneeling
chair—Betstuhl) or to be leaned upon in the
act of inclination (hence also called inclinatoria) to preclude
excessive physical strain during the long hours of religious
devotion, a problem that had been of considerable concern
to the fathers of early monasticism.[46] In the choir stalls of
later monastic churches (and to an even higher degree the
large cathedral churches) both of these appurtenances are
combined into a single piece of furniture, consisting of a
wooden range of seats with panelled lean-to's in the back
and a solid range of supports for kneeling and prayer in
front.[47] The formulae in the crossing of the Church of the
Plan may have been an early variant of this type of seat. In
their simplest form, one might imagine them to have looked
like the church bench from Alpirsbach (fig. 100) with
supports for kneeling and bending either physically
attached to them or placed separately in front of them. The
reader may have observed that the formulae of the crossing
are a little wider than the corresponding benches in the two
transept arms (also called formulae). The latter have the
standard width of 2½ feet used by the designer for benches
wherever they appear on the Plan. The former look as
though they were meant to be 3¾ feet wide (1½ standard
modules). I think that this distinction is intentional, i.e.,
that the designer used this variation in size to emphasize the
greater liturgical importance of the formulae of the crossing
square.[48]

In two essays published in 1965 and 1967/68[49] Father
Corbinian Gindele expressed the view that the location of
the formulae in the crossing square (all at right angles to the
longitudinal axis of the Church) indicates that the entire
choir of monks when seated faced the altar in an easterly
direction (versus or contra altare) in compliance with a
custom which he claims was common in Early Christian
times, rather than facing each other transversely across the
altar from two opposite rows of seats ranged longitudinally
along the walls of the altar space, as became the rule in later
Cluniac monasteries. This is incorrect visual exegesis. The
four formulae in the crossing square when fully occupied
could seat no more than four monks each, altogether sixteen
(counting as normal requirement a sitting area 2½ feet
square per person). The full contingent of monks attending

[ILLUSTRATION]

88. ALTAR OF MITHRAS. WIESBADEN,
ALTERTUMSMUSEUM

FROM THE MITHRAS SANCTUARY, HEDDERNHEIM

[photo: Horn]

The six- or eight-lobed rosette (a misnomer, since it is by origin a
symbol of stellar, not chthonic forces) appears in Near Eastern
imagery as an attribute of gods and royalty from the 3rd millennium
onward. It became associated with Mithras after his cult was
established in the Euphrates Valley. It spread westward into Rome
as Rome increased its hold on Asia, finding a stronghold in the army
among tradesmen and slaves, mainly Asiatics. Christian antagonism
to Mithraism prevented the rosette from becoming one of Christ's
personal attributes along with the halo, globe, and canopy
(cf. figs. 102-103), all of which Christ inherited from pagan deities.
Despite official antagonism, the rosette was nevertheless widely
diffused in the Christian communities of Syria and North Africa and
with fervor adopted by the Germanic invaders of Rome.

[ILLUSTRATION]

89. MORTUARY LANTERN

Pers, deux-sevres, france

[Archives photographiques d'art et d'histoire:
Monuments historiques, Sept. 1890]

"Lanterns of the Dead" are tall, hollow columns of stone, often of
considerable height, with entrances at the bottom and small pavilions
at the top, where the light of a lamp during the night signaled
existence of a cemetery or seigneurial tomb. The specimen here shown
is one of the finest of its kind.

the daily services ranged between 100 and 110 (see below,
p. 342). These could not under any circumstances have
been accommodated by the four free-standing benches of
the crossing square. The Plan shows with unequivocal
clarity where the main body of monks was seated: on the
long bench that runs along the walls of the presbytery and
through the round of the apse, as well as on supplementary
benches ranged along the walls of the two transept arms.
If in the course of the development that led from Early
Christian to medieval monasticism, the seats of the monks
were shifted from an eastward-facing position to one in
which the monks faced each other transversely from either
side of the altar, this shift must have been undertaken before
the Plan of St. Gall was drawn. The seating arrangement
for the monks shown on the Plan of St. Gall, however, in
fact follows a pattern that had already been firmly established
for the bishop and the secular clergy in the days of
Constantine the Great (fig. 104) and in the course of the
fifth and sixth centuries become standard for the great
episcopal churches, both in the eastern and western part of
the empire.[51]

The four free-standing benches in the crossing square
must have had a function distinct from that of the wall
benches in the presbytery, the apse and the transept arms.
I am inclined to assume (accepting a suggestion made by
my colleague, Richard L. Crocker) that they served as seats
for the specially trained singers who chanted the more
difficult sequences of the psalms in alternation with the
regular monks. A magnificent twelfth-century example of
the type of bench we might expect to have found in the
crossing of the Church of the Plan is shown in figure 100.[52]

On the eastern side of the crossing, two flights of stairs
of "seven steps" (septem gradus, similit) lead up into the
fore choir. Halfway up these steps, against the crossing
piers, there is, to the left, the "altar of St. Benedict" (altar̄
sc̄ī benedicti), to the right, the "altar of St. Columban"
(altar̄ scī colūbani).

The presence of the altars of St. Benedict and St.
Columban in such a prominent place is not surprising.
They are the representatives of the two great monastic
traditions, the Irish and the Benedictine, which shaped the
history of the monastery of St. Gall.[53]

SOUTHERN TRANSEPT ARM

In the southern transept arm, against the east wall on a
platform raised by two steps (gradus), is the "altar of St.
Andrew" (alt̄ scī andreae). It is a little larger than the altars
in the aisles of the Church, but smaller than the altars of
St. Paul and St. Peter in the apses. The three remaining
walls of this transept arm are lined with benches providing
sitting space for twenty monks. A freestanding bench
(formula) in the center of the floor can accommodate five
more monks. Like the corresponding benches in the crossing,
this bench must have been reserved for the trained
singers. The layout suggests that in such cases where
professional celebrations required that the full choir of
monks be split into smaller segments officiating simultaneously
in different parts of the Church, each transept
arm was so laid out as to be capable of serving as a liturgically
autonomous station.

The southern transept arm has entrances which make it
possible for the monks to enter it directly from the Dormitory
for night services (Matins) and at daybreak (Lauds),
and from the northeastern corner of the Cloister for the day
offices. A door in the east gives access to the Sacristy. From
the Dormitory the southern transept arm could only be
reached by a "night" stairway. The draftsman does not
tell us anything about the course or the landing of this
stairway, but stairways just like this exist in the corresponding
places in the abbey churches of Fontenay (Côted'Or)
and Noirlac (Cher), France, and in the Priory
Church of Hexham (Northumberland), England (fig. 101).[54]
The traces of others, not quite as well preserved, may be
found in the abbeys of Tintern (Monmouthshire),
Beaulieu (Hampshire), Hayles (Gloucestershire), and at
St. Augustine's in Bristol.[55]

NORTHERN TRANSEPT ARM

The layout of the northern transept arm is identical with
that of its southern counterpart. Its altar is dedicated
jointly to SS. Philip and James (alt̄ scī philippi et iacobi). A
door in the north wall communicates with the Abbot's
House, another one in the east wall leads into the Scriptorium.