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
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]
