The Plan of St. Gall :: :: University of Virginia Library

The House for Sheep and Shepherds (fig. 493) lies between
the Goat House and the road leading to the Church. Its
center room is labeled simply "the main room" (ipsa
domusm);[651] the chambers to the left and right of the entrance,
as "bedrooms of the shepherds" (cubilia opilionum); the
U-shaped area around the living room, as "sheepfold"
(caulae; see fig. 493).[652] The position of this house near
the Church may reflect the symbolic identification of the
Good Shepherd with Christ, and sheep with the faithful.

298

[ILLUSTRATION]

PLAN OF ST. GALL. HOUSE FOR SHEEP AND SHEPHERDS

493.

493.X SITE PLAN

Sheep and goats were the smaller livestock accommodated by facilities on the Plan of St. Gall; then, as now, they remain important as a kind
of all-purpose animal, their by-products of milk, wool or hair, and meat being prime resources in the life of any self-sustaining community.
In the partly or fully nomadic civilizations of the ancient Near East, power and social standing depended to a large extent on the number and
size of flocks an individual owned. The care and protection of these creatures called for men of brave, hardy disposition, exacting vigilance,
and unremitting devotion. The image of men so qualified who performed these important tasks impressed itself on the inhabitants of the two
great Near Eastern river valleys and their hinterlands with such force that it became an integral part of the concept of sovereignty associated
with ancient kings and gods who, in official imagery, were portrayed holding shepherds' staffs.

The concept was inherited by Christianity and brought close to every faithful soul through the famous parable (Luke 15: 4-7) in which the
Good Shepherd, in forgiving a repentant sinner, rejoicing carries the lost sheep back to the fold. The Church became the herd of God, the
sheep, believers. Later, bishops and abbots both adopted the shepherd's staff as ceremonial emblem of their leadership and guardianship within
the Church

299

[ILLUSTRATION]

494. UTRECHT PSALTER (CA. 830). PSALM L (51)

UTRECHT, UNIVERSITY LIBRARY, CODEX 32, fol. 29r (detail)

[Courtesy of the Utrecht University Library]

Nathan is portrayed beside a flock of sheep, goats, and cows. Portions not illustrated here show the parable of the ewe-lamb; and Nathan
upbraiding King David for having Uriah slain and taken Bathsheba his wife—events that occurred when Psalm L was written, and which are
described in II Samuel, xi-xiii.

[651]

Domum corrected into domus; but the m not struck out.

[652]

The last two letters of caulae (in the southern lean-to) are barely
visible.

MEAT, MILK, AND WOOL

Like goats, sheep were valued both for their meat and
as milk-producing animals. These values, plus that of their
skin for the making of parchment and their wool for blankets
and winter clothing, made them one of the most useful
species of animals to the monastic economy. As was true of
the other animals, the amount of cheese that could be
obtained from the monastery's own flocks was augmented
by deliveries from outlying pastures and possessions. The
monastery of Corbie maintained ten flocks of sheep, which
supplied the monastery with cheese in the summer, and
Adalhard of Corbie in his Administrative Directives sets
out in great detail the manner in which the sheep, as well
as all of the monastery's other livestock, should be tithed.[653]

A fully grown sheep requires a floor area of 4 to 6 feet
square.[654] The floor space available in the aisle and under the
lean-to's of the House for Sheep would have accommodated
a flock of seventy to one hundred sheep.

In Biblical times, wealth was equated with large flocks.
Images of sheep, shepherds, and flocks recur throughout
the joys and laments of the Psalms. Their symbolic values
of spiritual wealth were carried forward into monastic
recitations of these songs (see caption, fig. 261, I, 346) and
into the canon of illustrations deemed appropriate for
books such as the Utrecht Psalter.

300

[ILLUSTRATION]

495. PLAN OF ST. GALL

INDIVIDUAL PRIVIES DIRECTLY ATTACHED TO ROOMS
OR HOUSES OF LODGING

[653]

Consuetudines Corbeienses, chap. 6 (De bestiis decimandis), ed.
Semmler, Corp. cons. mon., I, 1963, 395ff, and translation, III, 114.

[654]

Fream, 1962, 84ff.