The Plan of St. Gall a study of the architecture & economy of & life in a paradigmatic Carolingian monastery |
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VI. |
The Plan of St. Gall | ||
V.14.2
THE BREWERS' GRANARY
The Monks' Brewery has its own granary with bins for the
storage of grain and other ingredients used in brewing.
This facility is attached to the south end of the House of
the Coopers and Wheelwrights and lies directly between
the Monks' Bake and Brew House and the buildings that
contain the machinery indispensable in the process of
brewing, the Drying Kiln and the Mortar. The Brewers'
Granary is a square, 32½ feet by 35 feet, internally divided
into a cross-shaped floor, which leaves four storage bins in
the corners (fig. 436).
The purpose of the building is explained by the following
title:
granarium ubi mandatu frumentum seru & ur & qđ
ad ceruisā praeparatur[469]
The granary where the cleansed grain is kept and
[where] what goes to make beer is prepared
The title implies that the grain used for brewing was subjected
to special cleaning and husking practices, which is
also suggested by the above-quoted passage from the
Statutes of Adalhard of Corbie, where it is stipulated that
the grain should be delivered to the monastery "well
winnowed and husked." The other ingredients referred
437. LUTTRELL PSALTER (1340). LONDON, BRITISH MUSEUM, ADD. MS. 42130, fol. 74v
[By courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum]
Two men with flails thresh sheaved grain. Throughout the Middle Ages and into modern times the work of harvesting grain was done by hand
in the separate and successive steps of cutting, bundling, stacking, carting, storing, and threshing. Today these operations are performed
simultaneously by powered combine harvesters, allowing one man to reap and thresh many acres in a day; likewise, pressure balers reduce the
space required for storing straw to only a fraction of that needed in pre-industrial times. The efficient operation of this versatile machinery
spelled death to the medieval barn, the maintenance of which has become an economic liability (cf. Charles and Horn, 1973, 5ff).
reception and distribution of which, in the monastery of
Corbie, Adalhard devoted an entire paragraph.[470]
The storage bins in the four corners of the Brewers'
Granary are designated as "repositories of these same
things—likewise" (repositoria eorundem rerum—similiter).
There is no unequivocal reference to threshing in the
inscriptions of this building, unless the word seru&tur be
interpreted to imply this activity, but the cruciform shape
of the floor space left between the bins, by analogy with the
threshing floor in the large Granary, suggests that the grain
used in brewing might have been threshed in its own
granary.
PLAN OF ST. GALL. DRYING KILN, MORTAR, AND MILL
438.
6. MONKS' REFECTORY
7. MONKS' CELLAR
8. MONKS' KITCHEN
9. MONKS' BAKE & BREWHOUSE
25. GREAT COLLECTIVE WORKSHOP
26. ANNEX OF GREAT COLLECTIVE WORKSHOP
27. MILL
28. MORTAR
29. DRYING KILN
30. HOUSE OF COOPERS & WHEEL WRIGHTS AND BREWERS' GRANARY
33. HOUSE FOR HORSES AND OXEN AND THEIR KEEPERS
31. HOSPICE FOR PILGRIMS AND PAUPERS
32. KITCHEN, BAKE AND BREWHOUSE FOR PILGRIMS AND PAUPERS
A. FENCE OR WALL SEPARATING "OUTSIDERS" FROM "INNER" ACTIVITIES
B. FENCE OR WALL EXTENDING TO EXTERNAL BOUNDARY
438.X SITE PLAN
The alignment of installations for grinding, crushing, and parching grain (27, 28, 29) at the southern edge of the monastry complex appears to
have been purposeful. If the topography of the site were ideal, with stream and land gradient permitting the development of water power, these
facilities on the Plan could all have been water driven. (A reconstruction of the presumptive waterways of the Plan is suggested, I, 74, fig.
53; and Horn, 1975, 228, fig. 4.
The Drying Kiln, Mortar, and Mill are sited next to the Monks' Bake and Brewhouse (9) and the Monks' Kitchen (8), and near the Bake
and Brewhouse of the Pilgrims and Paupers (32). Traffic patterns and usage demonstrated that the location of mills and mortars was carefully
planned. The Monks' Bakery and Kitchen required flour from the Mill; the Mortar produced crushed grain for brewing and for many other
dishes basic to the monks' diet. The Drying Kiln was used not only for parching grain but for drying fruit.
The noise of the mortars and mill would also have made it desirable to locate them at a distance from the center of monastic activities.
The Plan of St. Gall | ||