University of Virginia Library

READER'S PULPIT

The reader's pulpit (analogium) is marked by a square
with a circle inside and appears to be raised on a platform.
In later times the reader's pulpit generally consisted of a
semicircular balcony with lectern corbelled out from the
wall and accessible by a stairway built into the wall. A good
example is the reader's pulpit in the refectory of the
Cistercian monastery of Poblet, Catalonia (fig. 212).[101] In
even better states of preservation are the pulpits of the
refectories of the priory of St.-Martin-des-Champs at
Paris,[102] the cathedral of Chester (Cheshire),[103] and the
Abbey of Beaulieu (Hampshire).[104] Traces of others are
found in many ruined abbeys, such as Tintern and
Fountains.[105] The pulpit of the Refectory of the Plan of St.
Gall, however, is square, not semicircular or polygonal like
the later examples. Moreover, the layout of the wall

[ILLUSTRATION]

217. PLAN OF ST. GALL. MONKS' KITCHEN

Interpretation by Völckers

[after Völckers, 1949, 27]

[ILLUSTRATION]

218. WOODCUT FROM KUCHEMAISTREY, AUGSBURG,
1507

[after Schiedlausky, 1956, 22]

Kitchen with cook and maid. Völckers' reconstruction is handsome,
but incompatible with the inscription FORNAX SUPER ARCUS, "a
stove supported by arches." Square stoves on arches with firing
chambers and cooking wells must have been common in Antiquity as
well as in the Middle Ages, as figs. 218-221 show.

benches which run around the perimeter of the hall does
not allow access to a stairway built into the wall itself. I am
inclined to think that the pulpit was reached by an open
stairway.

The reader's pulpit faces the entrance to the Refectory,
which lies in the middle of the southern cloister walk. The
symbol used for this entrance differs from that of any other
door on the Plan. It suggests a double door arrangement
with entrance and exit separated by a median wall partition,
such as are used as standard passageways even today in
countless churches, in England as well as on the continent.