ADMINISTRATIVE ORGANIZATION
The Scriptorium and the Library were the intellectual
nerve centers of the monastery. Without the cultural
activities carried on in these spatially relatively modest
facilities, western civilization would not be what it is today.
A substantial portion of what is known to us of classical
learning was transmitted in manuscripts copied in monastic
scriptoria and rescued for posterity in the carefully protected
bookcases (armaria) of monastic libraries (fig. 105).
By the time the Plan of St. Gall was drawn these two
institutions had already developed internally into a fairly
complex organization. Their management was in the hands
of an official who received his orders from the abbot. In
pre-Carolingian times this was, in general, the choirmaster
(cantor) whose leading role in the performance of the daily
choral services made him a natural candidate for this position.[85]
Under the impetus of the Carolingian renaissance,
scriptorium and library were placed in the care of a special
official, the bibliothecarius or armarius (from armarium, the
"press" or "wardrobe" in which the books were kept).[86]
This official became responsible for the maintenance and
administration of an entire system of different collections
of books: the main collection (kept in the central library),
the liturgical collection, i.e., the books used in the divine
services (often chained to their places of use in the church;
otherwise, kept in the Sacristy), and several branch
libraries: viz., a reference library of school books needed
for the training of the novices (by necessity kept in the
Novitiate), another one needed for the teaching in the
Outer School (by necessity kept in that location), and a
third collection used for the daily readings of the monks,
the
lectio divina established as a primary monastic occupation
by St. Benedict, for which each monk was allowed in
the aggregate some four hours per day.
[87]
