III.1.7
MONKS' LAUNDRY AND BATHHOUSE
CONCEPT OF CLEANLINESS & DIRECTIVES
CONCERNING THE USE OF BATHS
The custom of taking baths, in view of the traditional
monastic repugnance toward the sensuality with which this
practice had been associated in Greco-Roman times, was
always a somewhat controversial issue in the life of the
monks. St. Anthony rejected the use of baths entirely. His
biographer Athanasius reports that "he never washed his
body with water to cleanse it from filth nor his feet, and
even abstained from putting them in water except from
necessity."[84]
St. Benedict, with the tolerance that characterizes
[ILLUSTRATION]
211.X[86]
PLAN OF ST. GALL. REFECTORY. INTERIOR VIEW LOOKING EASTWARD
AUTHORS' RECONSTRUCTION
The entrance to the Refectory from the south cloister walk, left middle ground, centers on the north wall directly opposite the reader's pulpit, which centers on the
south wall. Beneath the pulpit stands the table for visiting monks.
The abbot's table centers on the east wall, a commanding position from which he surveys the community of which he is the ruler, ever mindful of his office and the trast
reposing in him as abbot, father, in accordance with the admonition of St. Benedict, founder of the Order (page 330). Here with twelve brothers on his right and twelve
on his left, the abbot, with the rest of the community at tables ranged around the rooms, eats in silence. As the mortal body partakes of earthly food, the reader from
his pulpit brings spiritual sustenance of sacred writings, articulated in a voice that is heard throughout the great space.
The Refectory is illustrated with masonry-built walls (for historical evidence, see page 258). To reconstruct a space of that size as stone-vaulted in the Carolingian
period would be anachronistic. The illustration shows a wood-structured ceiling.
We interpret the measure of the Refectory on the facsimile Plan to be 40 feet wide (16 standard modules). With allowance made for wall thickness, it would have
been unlikely to exeed about 37½ feet internal measure, or 15 standard modules—no mean span, yet quite feasible to bridge by a timbered ceiling. The length, east
to west, articulates with the cloister east-west dimension, 100 feet. Allowing for wall thickness, it is taken as 95 feet, or 38 standard modules, which conveniently
resolves to seven bays: a center bay of 5 modules, with three bays of 5½ modules on each side of the center bay. Thus six bays of 5½ modules plus one bay of 5 modules
(= 95 feet) is the basis for our reconstruction of the interior perspective.
Considering that the girder and beam system carried the monks' Vestiary on the upper level, we include curved timber struts supported on monolithic masonry
corbels deeply embedded in the long side walls. This scheme gives an unsupported center span of about 17 feet, with two side spans, each less than to feet, spans of such
modest length as to be commonplace and to offer no structural problems. Seven windows in the south wall, one in each bay, give abundant direct sunlight throughout
the year. On the north wall the six windows that open on the cloister shelter are somewhat less effective than those on the south. A system of wood girders, beams,
parlins, supporting a plank wood floor, invites the use of painting, particularly on the planks, purlins, and beams. Color thus used has amazing power to bring brightness
and lift to a ceiling. With dark evenings and dark mornings of a northern winter, painted color was a simple, but effective, mode to gain light and cheer. All this,
conjectural for a building never constructed, is an interpretation.
E. B.
his judgment, permitted the use of baths "to the
sick, as often as may be expedient," but prescribes that
"to the healthy and especially to the young" this privilege
"be granted seldom" (
Ualnearum usus infirmis, quotiens
expedit, offeratur, sanis autem et maxime iubenibus tardius
concedatur).
[87]
During the preliminary negotiations of the
first synod of Aachen there was a strong movement to
revert to the ascetic precepts of the early desert monks,
which culminated in a proposal "to interdict the use of
baths entirely, except when imposed by sickness" (
usus
balnei interdictus omnino est excepto quibus necessitas infirmitatis
insistit).
[88]
Judging from Bishop Haito's reaction, this
proposal could not have enjoyed great popularity. Refusing
to implement it for his own monasteries, he urges, in
expectation of a clarification in future directives, that "in
the meantime bathtubs be made in abundance under the
supervision of the prior and of the cellarer, in which the
brothers may bathe, individually, and not together, as
necessity commands, and having previously received benediction,
giving relief to themselves in turn and allowing no
access to others" (
interim uero fiant cupae balneariae
abundanter prepositi et cellerarii ordinatione factae in quibus
se fratres singillatim et non communiter cum necessitas
exposcit benedictione ante percepta lauare possint inuicem
sibi solatia prebentibus sine accessu extraneorum).
[89]
In its final promulgation the synod of 816 struck a compromise
by permitting the use of baths at Christmas and
on Easter, reiterating the stipulation that the bath must be
taken singly (Ut balneis generaliter tantum in Natiuitate et
in Pascha Domini ueruntamen separatim utantur),[90]
and in
the synod of the subsequent year the matter was given a
new degree of flexibility by a directive that submitted the
taking of baths "to the discretion of the prior" (Ut opus
balnearum in arbitrio prioris consistat).[91]
A further boost to
personal cleanliness and hygiene was given, at that same
synod, by the stipulation that the provost provide the
brothers with soap and ointment and see to it that they
keep these items near their beds together with the other
things they need.[92]
The monk Hildemar considers the use
of baths at Christmas and Easter sufficient and militates
against the introduction by certain abbots of a third bath
during the beginning of the feast of Pentecost. He suggests,
that the monks who are engaged in heavy and soiling work
might be allowed to bathe more frequently and reemphasizes
that all baths must be taken singly in a wooden tub
(tina) capable of accommodating one person only. No
monk, in taking his bath, should ever be in full sight of any
other monk, or should ever be seen in the nude on this as
well as any other occasion. Hildemar categorically rules out
the use of "bathtubs made of stone, in which three or two
or even four might bathe simultaneously" (petrinum
balneum, ubi tres vel duo aut etiam quattuor balneari possint)
and leaves no margin of doubt about the reason for this
precaution; since the sharing of baths in such tubs will
give occasion to "that most detestable crime" (in quo loco
illius sceleris nefandissimi occasio potest esse) to which a monk
must never succumb. "It would be of little help," so
Hildemar contends in borrowing a phrase coined by St.
Gregory, "to fortify an entire town, and yet leave a
passage open through which the enemy may enter."
[93]
NUMBER, LOCATIONS & LAYOUT OF FACILITIES
FOR BATHING & WASHING
The Plan of St. Gall shows facilities for baths in four
different locations. It provides for a bathhouse for the
sick,[94]
a bathhouse for the novices,[95]
a bathhouse for the
abbot,[96]
and a bathhouse for the monks. The bathhouse for
the monks, or rather the "bathhouse and laundry for the
monks" (balneatoriū & lauandi locus), since both these
facilities were combined in the same structure, lies in the
corner between the dormitory and the refectory. It is a
rectangular structure measuring 22½ × 32½ feet, which is
accessible from the calefactory of the monks by a covered
passageway (egressus de pisale); it is divided internally into
two rooms of approximately equal size, a laundry, which is
provided with a fireplace, and a bathhouse with two tubs
for bathing. Both rooms are entirely surrounded with wall
benches, and the round arch over the door that connects
the laundry with the bathing room suggests that the
building was a masonry structure. Figure 210 is a reproduction
of a woodcut in Schedel's Liber chronicarum,[97]
depicting
Seneca bleeding himself to death, which furnishes us
with a convincing portrait of the kind of tub (cupa balneariatina)
we could expect to find in this building. This example
could be amplified by scores of others. These tubs may
have been used for the washing of clothes as well as for
bathing. Chapter 4 of the synod of 816 rules that the monks
should do their own laundry,[98]
but the aged and sick, who
were incapable of attending to this chore, could be relieved
by others.[99]
It is possible that a special entrance in the
passageway that connects the laundry with the warming
room owes its existence to this eventuality, since it would
make the monks' laundry accessible to novices or serfs
performing this labor for the weak and the aged.
That the Laundry should be directly connected with the
Warming Room makes sense, since the latter, as we have
learned from Adalhard, was the place where the monks
hung up their clothes for drying. But the washing room
may also have been connected with the Dormitory. The
layout of the beds provides for an exit directly over the
egressus de pisale.
