The Plan of St. Gall a study of the architecture & economy of & life in a paradigmatic Carolingian monastery |
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THE MONASTERY A PRIMARY AGENT
IN THE HARNESSING OF WATER POWER AND IN
DIFFUSING ITS USE |
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| VI. |
 | The Plan of St. Gall |  |
THE MONASTERY A PRIMARY AGENT
IN THE HARNESSING OF WATER POWER AND IN
DIFFUSING ITS USE
The medieval monastery, a leader in all other aspects of 444.B CONJECTURAL RECONSTRUCTION [after Forbes 1956, 599, fig. 547] 444.A PLAN [after Forbes 1956, 598, fig. 546; redrawn by C. B. Lund] ROMAN INDUSTRIAL WATER MILL, 308-316 A.D. The mill was serviced by an aqueduct. It worked with two sets of eight overshot
rural economy, became one of the primary agents in the
dissemination of water power for the grinding of grain as
well as for many other uses. The earliest transalpine water
mill put to monastic use is recorded by Gregory of Tours
at the time of the Visigoth ruler Alaric (484-507).[483]
This
account is of particular interest, since it tells us how, during
and for a short time after the construction of the monastery
of Loches (Indres-et-Loire) by Abbot Ursus, "the brothers
ground the wheat required for their sustenance by turning
the millstones by hand" (molam manu vertentes). Ursus
decided to supplant their labor by constructing a mill at
the banks of the river Endria: "Setting stakes across the
river and heaping a great pile of large stones, he built
sluices, gathered the water in a channel, and by its impetus
thus drove the wheel of the work into swiftly spinning
BARBEGAL (ARLES), FRANCE
wheels, fed by two channels of water, and could produce in a ten-hour day, with
all wheels in operation, enough flour to feed the nearby city of Arles and the
entire army of the province of Narbonne.
vertere fecit). Another water mill is mentioned by the same
Gregory of Tours in his description of the city of Dijon.[484]
More evidence (so far overlooked) attesting the rapid
spread of use of water mills in Merovingian Europe may
be found in the Lives of Father Romanus (fifth century),
of St. Remy (ca. 437-533), and of Athala, Abbot of Bobbio
(615-627).[485]
The availability of water for the operation of a
445. HERRADE DE LANDSBERG. HORTUS DELICIARUM (1195), fol. 112A
(formerly) STRASSBOURG, BIBLIOTHÈQUE PUBLIQUE
[after Straub and Keller, 1901, pl. xxx]
Two women attend a water-powered mill. This illustration
is after a postmedieval copy of a manuscript that was
destroyed during the Franco-German war.
situating a monastery which Count Wibertus and Countess
Ada, during the reign of King Pippin, erected for their
daughter St. Hiltrud (d. ca. 790) at Liessies.[486] Two water
mills on the Leto River were given to the monastery of
Aniane by Charlemagne in a donation charter dated Aachen,
June 799;[487] another one in the vicinity of Dover is mentioned
in a charter of King Ethelbert, dated 762.[488] The
context of the chapter in which Abbot Adalhard in 822
defines the duties and privileges of the millers employed
by the Abbey of Corbie and its various dependencies leaves
no doubt that he is referring to water-powered mills, since
he stipulates that the millers be furnished, inter alia, with
everything that is required for the maintenance and repair
of their sluices (sclusa).[489] The Abbey of St.-Riquier in 798
had a water-driven mill which received its power from a
small stream called Scarduo running through the middle
of the monastery.[490] From the ninth century onward references
to water mills are made with increasing frequency.
An interesting incident in connection with the establishment
of water mills is the account of the failure of Abbot
Habertus of Laubach (d. A.D. 835) to cut an aqueduct to
channel water to the mills through the rugged slopes of the
mountain which surrounded his monastery.[491] In the centuries
that follow, references to water mills become legion.
The Domesday Book (ca. 1080) lists 5,624 of them.[492] From
the twelfth century on they are frequently depicted in
illuminated manuscripts. In the precision of their detail,
some of these representations compare favorably with
modern engineering drawings; (cf. fig. 445).[493]
Gregorii Episcopi Turonensis Liber Vitae Patrum, chap. xviii, in
Mon. Germ. Hist., Scriptores Rerum Merovingicarum, I, 1881, 734-35.
Cf. Bloch, 1935, 545.
Gregorii Episcopi Turonensis Historia Francorum, Book III, chap.
19, in Mon. Germ. Hist., op. cit., 128; and The History of the Franks by
Gregory of Tours, ed. Dalton, II, 1927, 103: "Before the gate it turns
mill-wheels with wondrous speed."
For the life of Father Romanus see: Vita Patrum Iurensium Romani,
Lupicini, Eugendi, Book I, chap. 18, in Mon. Germ. Hist., op. cit., III,
1896, 141; for the life of St. Remy see: Vita Remigii Episcopi Remensis
Auctore Hincmaro, ibid., 306-7; for the life of Abbot Athala see: Vitae
Columbani abbatis discipulorumque eius libro duo auctore Iona, Book II.
(Vita Atalae), chap. 2, in Mon. Germ. Hist., op. cit., IV, 1902, 114-15.
Vita S. Hiltrudis Virginis in Coenobio Lesciensi, chap. 2, in Schlosser,
1896, 226-27, No. 705.
"Primo enim acqua rivuli Scarduonis medium praeterfluens claustrum,
ibidem farinarium in usus fratrum volvebat." (Schlosser, 1896, 263, No.
792).
Folcuini Gesta Abbatis Lobiensis, chap. 12, ibid., 67-68, No. 237:
"temptavit et idem abbas aquaeductum a foreste ducere, ardua montium
sulcans, sed perficere non potuit opus praeposterum et sero inchoatum."
Fig. 445 is fol. 112a in the Hortus Deliciarum of Herrade de Landsberg
(ed. Straub and Keller, 1901, pl. XXX). Herrade became Abbess
of the monastery of Hohenburg in 1167 and died in 1195. The earliest
pictorial representation of a medieval water mill (according to Bennet
and Elton, II, 73) is to be found in a French manuscript of the twelfth
century, British Museum, London, Harley Ms. 334, fol. 71v. It is
undershot, as are most of the medieval mills depicted in manuscripts.
That overshot wheels were in use, however, as early as the thirteenth
century, is demonstrated by a water mill represented in the Sachsenspiegel;
cf. von Künssberg, 1934, fol. 65 (the manuscript dates from
1221-24).
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