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V. 13

THE CEMETERY AND ORCHARD

To the side of the Novitiate, the home of the incoming
monks, and in convenient proximity to the Infirmary and
the House of the Physicians, is the monastery's burial
ground. It is a large field 80 feet wide and 125 feet long,
enclosed by walls or hedges, with only a single entrance to
the west facing the monks' cloister (fig. 430).

The grounds of the Cemetery served, in addition, as an
orchard, and this dual role of giving rest to the dead under
the shadow of the Cross as well as furnishing the living
with delectable fruit is poetically expressed in a distich,
inscribed into a large square enclosure in the center of the
cemetery, which designates the location of a monumental
cross:

V.13.1

THE CEMETERY

There are fourteen burial plots, each 6¼ feet wide and 17½
feet long.[452] They are identified by the distich:

The death and burial of a monk was a matter of intense
concern to the entire community, as may be inferred from
the moving descriptions of the last hours of the monks
Wolo, Ratpert and Gerald in Ekkehart's IV Casus sancti
Galli or the latter's poetic account of the death of his teacher
Notker Labeo in his Liber Benedictionum.[453] An English
consuetudinary of the end of the tenth century, the Regularis
concordia of St. Dunstan, describes the share which
the community had in the death of one of its brothers as
follows:

V.13.2

THE ORCHARD

The spaces between the burial plots are planted with fruit
trees. Their location is indicated by thirteen tree-symbols
which, save for the thickness of their stems, resemble tendrils
rather than trees. The fact that one of them is associated
with the names of two different species (sorbarius and
mispolarius) suggests that in each case there was meant to
be a group of plants rather than an individual specimen.
This is also suggested by the largeness of the space for
planting left between the burial plots, which in some cases
amounts to as much as 12½ feet by 40 feet. The names of
the trees have been tampered with by the same hand that
tried to revive the erased titles of the large anonymous
building in the northwest corner of the monastery.[455] As
there, the chemical substance used in this attempt has left
thick blue streaks in the parchment. This action damaged,
but did not destroy, the names of the trees. Listed in the
sequence in which they were written by the scribe, from
top to bottom, and in columns, moving from left to right,
they are:

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Of the fourteen listed species the apple, the pear, the
plum, the quince, and the peach are fruit trees in the proper
sense of the term; the others—the medlar, the chestnut,
the hazelnut, the mulberry, the walnut, the almond, and
the service tree—in the broader sense. Two of the trees
listed, the fig and the laurel, are not suited to a northern
climate. All of these fourteen trees are also listed in the
repertory of plants which the Capitulare de villis prescribes
as mandatory for the gardens in the king's estates. The
inclusion in this manual for the management of crown estates
of a considerable number of plants and trees that require
a Mediterranean climate had formerly led to the belief that
it was issued for the kingdom of Aquitaine.[457] Recently this
attribution has been questioned,[458] and the entire problem of
the presence on the Plan of St. Gall, as well as in the
Capitulare de villis and other Carolingian sources, of plants
not suited for a northern climate is now being interpreted
as an expression of literary classicism.[459]

The yield of the fruit trees in the Cemetery could not
have met all the needs of a community of an estimated
250 to 270 mouths. The monastery has a special house for
the drying of fruit (locus ad torrendas annonas), where
staples were produced which enabled the Kitchener to
bridge the dietary shortages in the critical winter months
when the fields and gardens were barren. The bulk of the
fruit, however, that was needed for that purpose must have
come from outlying orchards, managed either by the abbey
itself or by tenants.

The business accounts of the monastery of St. Gall tell
us of the deliveries of nuts from Rorschach, of apples from
a place called Bachwille, and from an orchard maintained
at a place called Muolen.

The contribution made to European horticulture by
skills practiced by monks in the growth and propagation of
fruit trees cannot be overestimated. The number of indigenous
fruit trees north of the Alps was limited, and the
native fruit too small and too bitter to be eaten raw. They
could be used for the preparation of fermented beverages
(in Old and Middle High German sources we read of
epfildrac [cider] and slehendrac [an alcoholic beverage made
of sloe]),[460] but for fruit to be served at the table the indigenous
trees had to be improved through selective breeding
and grafting. The knowledge of this art was acquired
by the inhabitants of transalpine Europe from the Romans;
it spread from Gaul along the Moselle into the Rhine
valley.[461] The monasteries adopted this legacy and applied it
on a large scale. The orchards of the abbey became the
model for the orchards and gardens of their secular tenants;
and from them the knowledge spread to the tenants of the
secular lords.

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