SETBACK AND RE-EMERGENCE
On the preceding pages I have shown that the square
schematism appeared in western architecture neither as
abruptly and nor with as few historical preconditions as was
formerly thought. This raises the question: why, once
conceived, did it so suddenly disappear, not to re-emerge
until almost two centuries later?
The answer to this, I think, is relatively simple. The
square schematism, in the highly sophisticated and accomplished
form, which it attained in the layout of the Church
of the Plan of St. Gall, was born within the conceptual
framework of a building that had an overall length of no
less than 300 feet and for that reason could readily be
divided internally into a sequence of 40-foot squares. When
in the revisionary textual titles of the Plan it was suggested
that the church be reduced to a length of 200 feet and that
the columnar interstices be shortened from 20 to 12 feet,[312]
the modular order of the original layout was demolished.
There is no evidence to suggest that this reduction in size
was conditioned by structural or aesthetic considerations.
The change occurred as has been shown,[313]
at more or less
the same time—and probably for the same reasons for
which—the abbot of Fulda was deposed for overtaxing the
spiritual and economic resources of his monastery with the
construction of a church considered by his monks as being
outrageously large. In this historical climate the dimensions
of the Church of the Plan of St. Gall, as laid down in the
drawing, could no longer be considered prototypal. The
grandiose scale of the original concept had received a
shattering blow in the neo-asceticism of the monastic reform
movement, and, in consequence, was abandoned.
The political chaos that followed the reign of Louis the
Pious offered no opportunities for a return to the earlier
concepts. Their renascence had to await the political and
economic consolidation that was brought about in Germany
by the house of the Saxon kings, and in France by the rising
power and importance of the dukes of Normandy that
peaked in the conquest of England.
The steps that lead to the re-emergence of square
schematism in Ottonian and Norman architecture are well
known and need not be reiterated. They are marked by
such highlights of medieval architecture as St. Michael's
Church at Hildesheim, 1010-1033 (fig. 188); the Abbey
Church of Jumièges, 1040-1061 (fig. 189); and the second
stage of the imperial cathedral of Speyer, ca. 1080-1106
(figs. 186 and 190).
St. Michael's at Hildesheim had a total length of 230 feet
and was internally composed of a sequence of seven
modules 30 feet square plus an apse with a radius of 20 feet
(fig. 188).[314]
One could not wilfully construct a more convincing
mirror-image of the modular square division of the
Church of the Plan of St. Gall (figs. 61 and 173).
I do not know of the existence of any accurate measurement
studies of the Abbey Church of Jumièges (10401067).
But from the plans of Martin du Gard[315]
and of
Lanfry[316]
one gains the impression that it might have been
based on a modular sequence of 35-foot squares, four of
those composing the nave, one the crossing, one the fore
choir, and one half the apse, for a total of six and one-half
squares.
Whether or not the renascence of these modular concepts
at Hildesheim and Jumièges has any direct connection with
the Plan of St. Gall is impossible to say. The discussion of
this subject has suffered from the fact that until very
recently the square schematism even of the Church of the
Plan of St. Gall had been questioned.[317]
Yet the similarities
can hardly be overlooked. As in the Church of the Plan of
St. Gall (fig. 61), so in Hildesheim and in Jumièges the
general dimensions of the principal spaces were calculated
as multiples of the crossing square. In both of these churches
this modular division was aesthetically underscored by a
rhythmical alternation of light supports with heavy supports,
the latter marking the corners of the module, the
former rising in the interstices between them. The system
has two isolated Carolingian precursors in the abbey
churches of Werden (dedicated 804)[318]
and Reichenau-Mittelzell
(consecrated in 816)[319]
but becomes a governing
principle of style only in the Ottonian period, starting with
the abbey church of Gernrode (961-965)[320]
and leading
from there in successive steps of refinement through the
magnificent series Hildesheim[321]
—Jumièges—Speyer. A
feature of primary developmental implications—completely
overlooked in all authoritative studies on the Abbey Church
of Jumièges—were the great diaphragm arches that spanned
the nave crosswise, rising from shafts attached to every
alternate pier.[322]
Aesthetically this is a first attempt to visually connect the
alternating support articulation of the nave walls with the
aid of a bold transverse member reaching full width across
the space of the nave as well as full height into the roof of
the structure. The diaphragm arch has been variously derived
from Roman,[323]
Syrian,[324]
Mohammedan,[325]
and
Italian[326]
sources; but its prototype is much closer at hand;
in the masonry arches that frame the area of intersection in
churches with nave and transept of equal height, and
establish in the transepts of these churches a modular cross
division of space that precedes that of the nave by centuries
(Church of the Plan of St. Gall, 816-17; Hildebold's
Cathedral of Cologne, after 800 and before 819; and perhaps
even the abbey church of St. Riquier, 790-799).[327]
The ultimate prototype of the diaphragm arch is, of course,
the triumphal arch of the Early Christian basilica[328]
and
the testing ground for its migration from the transept into
the longitudinal body of the church are the aisles, where
precocious modular cross division by means of transverse
arches appear as early as the beginning of the ninth century
(Werden-on-the-Ruhr, dedicated by Bishop Ludger in 804
and Reichenau-Mittelzell, consecrated by Bishop Haito in
816).
The transept of the Cathedral of Speyer looks as though
it might have been conceived as a triad of 50-foot squares.[329]
The spacing of the piers in the original building (Speyer I,
constructed between 1030 and 1061) did not perpetuate
these dimensions; and when the nave, between 1080 and
1106 (Speyer II) was covered by groin vaults, mounted on
arches rising from shafts attached to every alternate pier,
this resulted in a sequence of oblongs rather than squares.
This variance in modular shape and size is an impurity of
minor importance; the epochal historical advance achieved
in Speyer was that the modular division of the ground floor
was here, for the first time, embodied in an all-pervasive
system of shafts and arches that divided the space lengthwise
and crosswise as well as in its entire height into a
modular sequence of clearly definable cells or bays. Once
this point was reached, the walls between the rising shafts
and arches could be perforated—and were in fact transformed
progressively into that intensely skeletal armature
of shafts and arches that led to the formation of the Gothic.
The self-contained and divisive vaults that covered the
bays of Romanesque and Gothic churches—firmly set off
against each other by their strong relief of framing arches
and ribs—were bound to strengthen the modular organization
of the spaces they covered. Yet they cannot by any
stretch of imagination be interpreted as a technical precondition
of that concept. Modular area division—as has
been made abundantly clear by the examples here cited—
preceded modular vault construction by centuries and
reached far beyond the realm of architecture into the layout
of the decorative pages of Christian service books. It has its
roots in a cultural frame of mind, not in technical conditions.
[ILLUSTRATION]
190.X GENOELS-ELDEREN DIPTYCH
190.Y
Shown same size
as original
BRUSSELS. MUSÉES ROYAUX D'ART ET D'HISTOIRE
[by courtesy of the Musées Royaux]
The monumentality of architecture in concept, execution, and fabric
may tend to overwhelm the scale of, and make distant, those objects that
men once handled and used in their daily pursuits. Tools, books, jewelry,
harness trappings, weapons, liturgical objects—with few exceptions they
are gone from us. The survivors, many of them precious then, as now,
lie in museums, remote from the purposes of their makers and rendered
exotic by their scarcity. Thus, the integration in spirit of such intimate
objects with monuments of architecture is somewhat difficult to achieve.
The many handicrafts that provided embellishment to daily life in a
monastic community such as was proposed by the Plan of St. Gall, has
been but lightly touched upon in this study. That works of art and
adornment were important to the community is undisputed. The Plan
has accommodations for making weapons and associated equipment,
saddlery and presumably other harness tack, and goldsmithing. Silversmiths,
lapidaries, and enamellers may have worked with armourer and
swordsmith. These crafts were housed with other facilities for more
ordinary work, in a pair of buildings in the southwestern tract of the
presumed site. Lay artisans were intended to reside in the community,
as is evidenced by comprehensive housing provided in the Plan.
Crafts that enhanced the praise of God by ornamentation of books,
vestments, and liturgical objects to assist in worship, were proper
activities for monks. Most notable were manuscript copying and
illumination, and ivory carving was likely among them. It is not
referred to specifically on the Plan of St. Gall, probably because its
execution did not require special facilities such as forges, smelters, and a
welter of noisy tools. The work of the ivory carver, silent and delicate,
often closely connected with all aspects of bookmaking, could be done
in a scriptorium, in company with scribes and illuminators.
The illustrated book cover is closely related to illuminations of the
Godescalc Gospels (781-783), earliest of the Court School manuscripts.
It has the same flatness of relief, the same delicate linearity, clearly
distinguishing it from the softly rounded forms and classicizing drapery
style of the later ivories of this school. The model must have been an
Early Christian ivory of Coptic or Syrian origin and representing a
style widely diffused in Merovingian Europe.
The front cover of the diptych shows Christ standing on the asp and
basilisk, flanked by two angels. The back cover displays the Annunciation
(upper register) and Visitation (lower register). Both covers are
pieced from several ivory plaques of different sizes. The work is
perforated and may have been mounted on a foil of gold leaf. The eyes
are inlaid lapis; interlace and step-patterns of the frames are clearly
influenced by insular art and stand in strong contrast to the perspective
illusionism of the two scenes. For references, see Braunfels, KARL DER
GROSSE, WERK UND WIRKUNG (exh. cat.), No. 534, pp. 345-46.
END OF PART II
