University of Virginia Library

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.