CRYPT
Crank-shaped corridor crypts consisting of two straight
longitudinal arms connected in the east by a straight transverse
arm, existed in St.-Germain of Auxerre (841-859;
fig. 157)[148]
and in St.-Pierre at Flavigny (864-878; fig.
158).[149]
In both these churches the space between the surrounding
arms of the corridor crypt was taken up by a
hall crypt. The earlier students of the Plan of St. Gall
overlooked the title which refers to an inner confessio
(accessus ad confessionem) and, misled by this oversight,
reconstructed the crypt incorrectly as a small rectangular
chamber beneath the high altar, accessible only from the
east by a short axial passage (Seesselberg, Dehio, Effmann,
and even Gall).
[150]
As a correction of this error, Ostendorf[151]
and Hecht[152]
offered two solutions: the former suggested a straight
passage extending from the middle of the transverse shaft
of the corridor crypt to the crossing (fig. 118); the latter, a
small hall crypt around the tomb of the Saint, accessible
both from east and west (fig. 119).
Hecht was on the right track, in my opinion, in suggesting
a hall crypt, but a hall crypt about 13 feet square is not
commensurate with the generous proportions of the other
parts of the Church. Had the designer intended a crypt
either of the type suggested by Ostendorf, or of that suggested
by Hecht, he could have expressed his intention
easily by the addition of only a few more lines. The fact
that he did not do this suggests that he had in mind a crypt
that extended over the entire width of the fore choir and as
far outward as the safety of its foundation walls permitted.
That groin-vaulted hall crypts of these dimensions were
fully within the technical competence of a Carolingian
architect may be inferred from the vaulted ground stories
of Carolingian westworks, a remarkable example of which
survives in the Abbey of Corvey (fig. 120).[153]
The excavations
of Joseph Vonderau at Fulda brought to light an
aisled hall crypt of approximately 30 × 30 feet, which was
built by Abbot Eigil between 820 and 822 under the east
choir of Ratger's church (802-817).[154]
It had nine groin
vaults resting on six freestanding piers or columns and nine
corresponding wall supports (fig. 122). The earliest
surviving hall-crypt of this type, as far as I know, is the
crypt of the Church of St. George in Oberzell on the island
of Reichenau (fig. 121), built by Abbot Haito III between
890 and 896 in an oratory that had been founded by
Bishop Haito (d. 823).[155]
By analogy with these parallels we have reconstructed
the confessio of the Church of the Plan of St. Gall as a hall
crypt having a surface area of 20 × 32½ feet, covered by 6
groin vaults, each 10½ feet square (fig. 123).[156]
The corridor
crypt may have been covered either by a simple barrel
vault, as in St.-Germain of Auxerre (fig. 157). or by a continuous
series of groin vaults, as in Flavigny (fig. 158).
Richard Krautheimer, in an exchange of letters devoted
to this subject, questioned the tenability of my interpretation
of the confessio of the Church of the Plan as an inner
hall crypt and, as we failed to arrive at any agreement on
this point, allowed me to discuss our variances of opinion
in print. Krautheimer feels convinced that the tomb of St.
Gall should be assumed to have had its place, not behind the
altar (as shown on the Plan) but beneath it. This was its
traditional place in Early Christian times from the fourth
century onward, as is exemplified by such churches as St.
Peter's, Santa Prassede, San Giorgio in Velabro, Santa
Cecilia, and many others.[157]
By analogy with these churches
Krautheimer suggests the entrance designated accessus ad
confessionem should not be interpreted as a gate giving
access to a hall crypt, but as a window fenestella opening into
a small rectangular chamber located in front or around
the tomb of the Saint.
Coming from a man whose knowledge about Early
Christian and Early Medieval Architecture is matched by
none, these views must be given the most careful consideration.
They are bound to be shared by others and have, in
fact, already been suggested by Hans Reinhardt in 1937
and 1952[158]
, by René Louis in 1952, and by Louis Hertig in
1958.[159]
In reviewing the evidence, I find that I cannot
concur with these interpretations for a number of reasons:
1. Nowhere in any of the forty-odd buildings of the
Plan or any of its other installations does the drafter of the
scheme show anything as lying behind another object when
he means it to lie beneath it. Wherever something was
meant to be below or above something else this is indicated
through an explanatory title beginning with the preposition
infra or supra.[160]
2. In the churches of the monastery of St. Gall, from
the seventh century onward, i.e., in the early Irish oratory
as well as the churches which superseded it under Abbot
Otmar (719-759) and Abbot Gozbert (830-836), the sarcophagus
which enshrined the body of the Saint was de facto
not below but behind the altar (inter aram et parietem). I
have already had occasion to refer to this fact.[161]
The same
condition prevailed at St. Riquier (Centula) as is attested
by a well-known passage in the Chronicle of Hariulf which
reads: "The tomb [of St. Richarius] itself, however, is so
placed that at the feet of this Saint his altar stands in an
elevated place, and at his head stands the altar of the
apostle St. Peter." (Sepultura vero ipsa ita posita est, ut a
parte pedum ipsius sancti altare sit in loco editiori, a parte
capitis sancti Petri Apostoli ara persistat.)[162]
3. To interpret accessus ("access") as fenestella ("window")
is doing injustice to the Latinity of the churchman
who framed the explanatory titles of the Plan. Accessus is
"bodily admittance" (accedere means "to approach," "to
step toward"). The concept fenestella implies the opposite,
because a window, although granting visual access, is part
of a wall or barrier that precludes a bodily approach. The
clarity of the other explanatory titles of the Plan suggests
that if the framer of these titles had wanted to designate the
presence of a window in the wall between the two flights of
stairs which lead from the crossing to the high altar he
would have done so by choosing the proper and traditional
term for this device.[163]
In Walahfrid Strabo's account of the
Miracles of St. Gall, there is mention of a fenestella opening
into the confessio of Abbot Gozbert's church at St. Gall,
but this window was in the pavement of the presbytery in
front of the high altar and it allowed the light of a lamp
suspended in front of that altar to "fall upon the altar of
the crypt beneath it.[164]
4. Finally, I must re-emphasize a point already amply
stressed in my descriptive analysis of the Plan: The layout
of the barriers in the two transept arms of the Church
leaves no doubt that the crank-shaped circumambient crypt
of the Church is reserved for the secular visitors of the
tomb, the southern arm serving as access for the Pilgrims
and Paupers, the northern arm for Distinguished Guests
(fig. 82).[165]
The monks, too, needed access to the sarcophagus
containing the relics of the Saint. I am drawing
attention once more in this context to chapter 7 of a
capitulary issued by Charlemagne in 789, which directs
in the clearest and most unequivocal terms that such
private oratories be constructed "near the place where the
sacred body rests so that the brothers can pray in secrecy."[166]
Monastic integrity and seclusion required that such an
oratory be separate from those spaces through which the
secular visitors gain access to the tomb. A simple fenestella,
located at a distance of 17½ feet from the westernmost end
of the tomb of St. Gall could not have performed this function
and, in fact would have been meaningless. There was
a need for devotional space in front of the tomb, sufficiently
large to accommodate an altar and large enough to admit
at least a modicum of worshipping monks. One might
quarrel about the relative size of that space, but one should
not question its existence.
In discussions of this as well as of many other important
features of the Plan of St. Gall, the innovative character of
this ingenious monastery scheme has been consistently
underrated. The spatial functional needs of a Carolingian
monastery church differed vastly from those of their
metropolitan Early Christian prototype churches and called
for new solutions. We shall have more to say about this in
the next chapter.
