III.1.4
CLOISTER YARD
The Cloister Yard is attached to the southern flank of the
Church (fig. 203). It consists of an open inner court surrounded
on all sides by galleried porches, through which the
monks must pass in order to move from one of their three
principal claustral structures to another. The claustral range
connects with the Church, on ground floor level, through a
door in the southern transept and, on the level of the
Dormitory, through a night stair used primarily in connection
with the services held at night or at dawn. The official
"exit and entry" (exitus and introitus) to the Cloister is the
so-called Parlour, a narrow and somewhat elongated room,
located between the Church and the Cellar. Permission to
enter this room for conversation with visiting friends or
relatives, or to pass beyond the barrier of its carefully controlled
passages into the outer monastery grounds or into
the secular world can only be granted by the abbot, and
only for the specific needs, such as labour in the workshops,
garden and fields, or the rare occurrence of a journey to
another monastery conducted in the common interest of
the abbey.
In all other respects the cloister of the monks is hermetically
sealed off from the world around it by the continuous
bulk of masonry formed by the Church and the
three principal claustral ranges.
DIMENSIONS
In his commentary to the Rule of St. Benedict, written in
Civate between 845 and 850, Hildemar of Corbie remarks
that the cloister of a monastery should be "large enough so
that the monks can attend to all of their chores without
finding cause for murmur, yet not so grand as to invite
them to spend their time in gossip" (Nec debet esse ista
parva, ut cum aliquid vult operari monachus, occasionem
invenerit murmurandi propter parvitatem, nec ita debet esse
ampla, ut ibi occasionem possit invenire fabulandi cum
aliquo).[16]
And in a subsequent paragraph he adds the
important piece of information that in his day, "It is
generally held that a cloister should be 100 feet square, and
not less, because that would make it too small; however if
you should wish to make it larger this is permissible"
(Dicunt multi, quia claustra monasterii centum pedes debent
habere in omni parte, minus non, quia parva est; si autem
velis plus, potest fieri).[17]
The cloister yard of St. Gall complies
with this rule (figs. 69 and 203). It measures 100 feet
from west to east, and 102½ feet from south to north. It
contains in its center an open space 75 feet square, and all
around it a galleried walk.
THE PUZZLE OF THE SAVIN PLANT
The yard, which was perhaps covered with grass, is
intersected by four paths (quattuor semitae p transuersum
claustri) that emerge from the middle of each cloister walk
and terminate in a square enclosure decorated in the center
with a circle, designated sauina, and four branch-like
symbols extending from the circle outward into the corners
of the square.
Savina or savin are common names for Juniperus sabina,
a low, spreading shrub or small tree of Mediterranean
origin that was introduced in Germany and France in pre-Carolingian
times and from there its horticultural use was
extended to England.[20]
A profusely illustrated Byzantine
copy of the famous Herbal of Dioscurides displays a delicate
drawing of this tree (fig. 204).[21]
The leaves of this plant
are poisonous and today, for that reason, the savin appears
to be barred from public parks.
[23]
Yet in the Middle Ages,
as well as in classical Roman times it was used for a variety
of medical cures. Dioscurides, writing in the first century
A.D., informs us that applied as a poultice the leaves of the
savin tree stop spreading ulcers and soothe boils, mixed
with honey they cause carbuncles to break; drunk with
wine they draw out the blood by urine and draw off the
foetus.
[24]
More recent sources attest their use as a cure
against the spread of intestinal worms, primarily for cattle,
a purpose to which this herb is applied even today by the
peasants of Southern and Central Germany.
[25]
The savin is one of the plants prescribed in the Capitulare
de villis as obligatory for the gardens of Carolingian crown
estates.[26]
It is also mentioned in the Brevium exempla
amongst the plants grown in the royal fisc of Treola.[27]
In
both of these sources, it should be noted, it is listed among
the herbs, not with the trees.
Sörrensen describes the species as a shrub-like plant of
jagged growth, in general not growing higher than 3-10
feet, never forming a straight stem, but always growing
crooked and bent. He wonders why a plant so entirely
lacking in tallness, fullness, and beauty should occupy such
a central position in the life of the monks.[28]
I had occasion to study the savin in the summer of
1968 while on vacation on the Island of Ibiza in Spain,
where it grows profusely, and was fascinated to observe
that on this island it attains a considerably wider range of
shapes and sizes than one would gather from Sörrensen's
description. At the edge of the windswept coastal cliffs, the
plant hugs the ground and retains a prostrate mushroom-shaped
form attaining a diameter of up to 15 feet but
rarely exceeding a central height of three or four feet (fig.
205). In more sheltered places 200 to 300 yards inland, it
rises to tree height of 17 feet, with two or three stems of
relatively straight growth emerging from a common trunk,
but usually hidden by the spreading branches completely
covered with short imbricated leaves (fig. 206). This
variety can be of a full and well-shaped form—somewhat
like the juniper trees on the high desert plateau that borders
on the east slopes of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Yet
another variety, often rising to similar height has boldly
contorted trunks fully exposed, to a height of 6 to 8 feet,
and above that level branching out into a crown that
resembles that of an umbrella pine (fig. 207).
I feel as much at a loss as Sörrensen did, in explaining
why the savin should occupy such a central place in the
planting program of the Plan of St. Gall. The fact that it is
an evergreen must certainly have been an important consideration;
its medicinal benefits unquestionably another,
and not least, perhaps, the fact that its leaves were used in
the making of spiced wine. And one also wonders whether
its aromatic substance may have been a component of the
materials used in making incense. In contrast to Sörrensen,
I would not consider its size or shape to have been a deterrent
factor. One of the most precious features of the
cloister yard, the only place where the monks had daily
access to nature, was its exposure to the sun. To have it
planted with trees of clearly limited height had its advantages.
The architect who designed the Plan of St. Gall appears
to have been aware of the botanical characteristics of the
savin. He defines it visually as a prostrate plant with
straight branches spreading out from the center to the four
corners of the planting square, their short set boughs being
set in the manner of herring bones. The whole is of a
design that is quite distinct from the erect curvilinear
symbol used for tall trees in the Monks' Cemetery (fig. 17).
As in the latter one might interpret this design to stand for
either a single tree or to designate a cluster of trees. The
planting bed, 17½ × 17½ feet square, is large enough to
accommodate a tall tree in the center, with four lower, more
prostrate plants around it spreading out into the corners.
THE GALLERIED PORCHES
The arches (arcus) of the four covered walks which
surround the cloister garth are shown in vertical projection.
They consist of a central opening 10 feet wide and 7½ feet
high, and a group of four arches, each 5 feet wide and 5 feet
high, on either side of this passage, which unquestionably
rested on a low basement wall. The north walk of the
Cloister which runs along the southern aisle of the Church
(porticus ante eclam) is broader than the other three. From
the inscription we know that this walk performed the
function of the later chapter house, and for that purpose is
provided with two long benches, both on the Church and
on the cloister side, where the monks could face each other
in two single files; Hic pia consilium pertract & turba
salubre ("Here let the pious group hold their wholesome
deliberations").
[30]
It was here that a monk could confess his
sins and ask for forgiveness, that the overseers (
circatores)
would announce transgressions of any sort committed by
the brothers, that one monk could accuse another, and that
punishment was pronounced and enforced, including such
corporal chastisement as flogging. It was here also where
much of the temporal business of the abbey was transacted,
where charters were sealed, where novices were admitted,
and where the dead and departed were commemorated.
In subsequent centuries these activities were transferred
to a special chapter house. In Carolingian times, it seems,
this step had not yet been undertaken.
The claims advanced by Georg Hager and Joseph
Neuwirth that separate chapter houses existed in the Abbey
of Jumièges as early as the seventh century and at Reichenau
in 780 are untenable. It is based, in the case of Jumièges
on an improper textual exegesis of a good hagiographical
source (Life of St. Philibert, d. 750), and in the case of
Reichenau, on a twelfth-century forgery of a deed alleged
to have been written in 780.[31]
An arrangement very similar to that shown on the Plan
of St. Gall existed in the Abbey of St.-Wandrille (Fontanella).
An account written by a contemporary of Abbot
Ansegis (d. 833) tells us that the latter "was buried outside
the church of St. Peter, and to the north of it, in the
porticus wherein the brethren are accustomed to hold their
meetings" (tumulatus extra basilicam s. Petri ad aquilonalem
plagam, in porticu, in qua fratres conventum celebrare soliti
sunt ac consultis Deo dignis aures accomodare).[32]
This same
porticus, as George Forsyth has pointed out,[33]
is mentioned
earlier in the chronicle as built by Ansegis himself to be a
place "where the brethren should gather together to seek
insight on all subjects, to listen daily to the reading of the
Holy Writ, and to consider any proposed action" (propter
quod in ea consilium de qualibet re perquirentes convenire
fratres soliti sint; ibi namque in pulpito lectio cotidie divina
recitatur, ibi quicquid regularis auctoritas agendum suadet,
deliberatur).[34]
