University of Virginia Library

III.1.6

MONKS' PRIVY

LAYOUT

From the southern gable wall of the dormitory an exit
opens into an L-shaped passageway that leads into the
Monks' Privy. This building is 30 feet wide and 40 feet
long. Along its southern wall it is furnished with a bench
containing nine toilet seats (sedilia) that are slightly larger
than the seats in the other privies, and, unlike them, not
set directly against the wall but parallel to it at a small
distance. A square support in the north-eastern corner of
the room serves as a stand for a light (lucerna) which,
Hildemar postulates in his commentary to the Rule of St.
Benedict,[73] was a necessity. Short strokes intersecting the
walls at suitable distances designate that the privy should
be furnished with window slits for daylight and ventilation.[74]
Not easy to identify in the absence of any explanatory
titles are three oblong areas in front of the three
remaining walls. Keller interpreted them as tables.[75] Later

[ILLUSTRATION]

208. PLAN OF ST. GALL. MONKS' DORMITORY AND WARMING ROOM, WITH PRIVY, BATHHOUSE,
AND LAUNDRY

The Dormitory forms the second story of a building 40 feet wide and 85 feet long (see fig. 192). It is furnished with seventy-seven beds that
one must assume were separated by wooden partitions as well as equipped with head and foot boards, and a modicum of locker space for storing
extra clothing. It is not clear whether the Dormitory could be heated, but its location above the Warming Room suggests the possibility that on
cold days heat from the lower chambers might rise into the upper through ducts in the walls or adjustable openings in the floor.

St. Benedict ruled (see above, p. 249) that the brothers "if possible should sleep in one room." This directive is probably the primary historical
impetus for construction of such large sleeping halls. The earliest structure of this type appears to be the dormitory of the Abbey of Jumièges,
ca. 650. (See the reconstruction of the layout of this monastery by Horn, 1973, 35, fig. 35. For procedure followed by the maker of the Plan
in developing the layout of beds within a grid of 2½-foot squares, see above, p. 89. The term DORMITORIUM is not classical and does not appear
in general use before the 8th century; see III, Glossary, s.v.)

students of the Plan, sufficiently puzzled by their purpose,
ignored them entirely. That they were meant to be tables
seems to me precluded by their dimensions alone (5 × 10
feet and 5 × 17½ feet), not to mention the fact that tables
are not a traditional part of the furnishings of a privy. From
a purely functional point of view one would expect to find,
besides the toilet seats, one or two areas serving as urinals,
a stand with pitchers filled with water or some other means
of providing water for washing the hands, and perhaps a
bin for the storage of straw.

A STRANGE VISIT AT NIGHT: ITS SANITARY,
MORAL, AND ARCHITECTURAL IMPLICATIONS

That straw was used for sanitary purposes in the Middle
Ages may be inferred from a story in Ekkehart's History of
the Monastery of St. Gall, which is of interest in more than
this particular respect. It tells us how the monks of St. Gall
foiled an attempt of Ruodman, the reform abbot of the
neighboring monastery of Reichenau (972-986)[76] to convict
them of laxity in monastic discipline. Having failed in
previous and more conventional attempts to prove corruption
in the monastery of St. Gall, he took an extraordinary
course of action, which the chronicler describes with painstaking
accuracy: the abbot mounted his horse, rode to St.
Gall, and entered the monks' cloister, unrecognized, in the
depth of night, searching like a thief for evidence that might
support his accusations (equite ascenso sanctum Gallum
noctu invadens claustrum clandestinus introiit, ut siquid reatui
proximum invenire posset furtive perspiceret). Frustrated by
finding no incriminating evidence, he decided upon the
even more unusual expedient of installing himself as a
quiet observer on one of the seats in the monks' privy.
Since this occurred in the monastery in which he himself
had been raised, he was familiar with the layout of the
buildings, and the writer describes with great precision the
steps which the abbot had to take in order to reach his
goal: from the cloister yard where his inquisition started
he went into the church, climbed up to the dormitory, and
from there gained access to the privy (e parte aecclesiae
dormitorium ascendit secessumque fratrum pedetemptivus ascendit
et occulte resedit). As he passed through the dormitory
his presence was discovered by an alert monk from St.
Gall, who instantly woke his fellow brothers, took them in
procession to the privy and placed a shining lantern
(lucerna) in front of the abbot, together with a handful of
straw (stramina)—a derisive gesture, obviously, through
which he invited the distinguished visitor to terminate his
ritual so that he could be properly received by his angry
hosts.[77]

This story helps to clarify a number of points about the
Plan. First of all the fact that the relative location of

[ILLUSTRATION]

210. WOODEN BATHING TUB

HARTMANN SCHEDEL. LIBER CHRONICARUM (NUREMBERG, 1493),
fol. cv

The subject is Seneca bleeding to death in his bath. For another
medieval example of a wooden bathtub, see fig. 238.

cloister, church, dormitory, and privy in the monastery of
St. Gall was identical with that shown on the Plan.
Secondly, that the monks' privy could not be reached
directly from the cloister yard, but only through the
monks' dormitory.[78] And lastly, that the monks' privy was
level with the dormitory, and hence probably formed the
upper story of a building that had a cesspool or a trench
flushed with running water on its ground floor. This is the
classical medieval arrangement, attested by numerous
examples, both on the continent and in England, about
which more will be said in a later chapter.[79] Since it is the
arrangement of the monastery of St. Gall, built with the
aid of the Plan, it is probably also the arrangement that the
designer of the Plan had in mind. In analogy with all of
these conditions, therefore, I would interpret the detached
position of the toilet seats in the Monks' Privy of the Plan,
in conjunction with the line drawn in front of them and the
line that defines the wall behind them, as the means by
which the draftsmen indicated that the seats were suspended
axially over a cesspool or water-flushed channel
below it. The space behind the seats might be the logical
place for straw to be stored.

TIMES SET FORMALLY ASIDE FOR THE
USE OF THE PRIVY

Because of the rigid time schedule of the monks, their
number, and the many hours which they had to spend
collectively in the church celebrating the divine services,
the use of the privy, too, was subject to the need for timing.
The Rule of St. Benedict prescribes that from Easter to the
first of November "the hour of rising be so arranged that
there be a short interval after Matins, in which the brothers
may go out for the necessities of nature, to be followed at
once by Lauds, which should be said at dawn."[80] Other
consuetudinaries provide for similar opportunities between
the hours of rising and Matins[81] and before the principal
meal of the day.[82] In Centula with its 390 monks (three
choirs of 130 monks, all worshiping simultaneously) the
problem of timing was solved by a directive of Angilbert,
which prescribed that "after the services had been fulfilled
in a seemly fashion, the third part of each choir should go
out of the church and fulfill their corporeal necessities."[83]