The Plan of St. Gall a study of the architecture & economy of & life in a paradigmatic Carolingian monastery |
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The hemina of St. Benedict: Charlemagne's
attempts to establish its value |
| III.1.11. |
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 | The Plan of St. Gall |  |
The hemina of St. Benedict: Charlemagne's
attempts to establish its value
St. Benedict allows each monk "a hemina of wine a
day"[226]
and leaves it to the discretion of the prior to add
to this a little more "if the circumstances of the place, or
their work, or the heat of the summer require more."[227]
He holds out the promise of a "special reward" for those
"upon whom God bestows abstinence"[228]
and admonishes
the superior "to take care that neither surfeit nor drunkeness
supervene."[229]
The precise content of the measure of
wine which St. Benedict designated with the term hemina
is unknown.[230]
Charlemagne made an attempt to ascertain
243. GERASA (JERASH), PALESTINE. THREE EARLY CHRISTIAN SANCTUARIES ON AXIS
[after Krautheimer, 1965, 119, fig. 50]
In the foreground and to the left the atrium and church of St. Theodore, built A.D. 494-496; in the center, but on a slightly lower level, the
cathedral of Gerasa, built around A.D. 400. It had at its rear another atrium enclosing a shrine of St. Mary located directly behind the apse of
the cathedral. This atrium was approached by a grand staircase from yet a lower level. Three sanctuaries were thus aligned on a common axis.
244. CANTERBURY, ENGLAND
PLAN OF SAXON ABBEY CHURCH OF SS PETER AND PAUL, FOUNDED BY ST. AUGUSTINE (597-604), AND THE CHURCH OF ST. MARY
[same period; after Clapham, 1955]
To the left lies the church of SS Peter and Paul; to the right, the church of St. Mary. The church of St. Pancras, lying in eastern
prolongation of the axis of these two churches, and dating from the same period, is not visible in this plan. The church of St. Wulfric (interposed
between SS Peter and Paul and St. Mary) was not part of the original concept. In the medieval monastery of St. Gall, St. Peter's chapel
(prior to 830), Gozbert's church (830-836) and Otmar's church (dedicated 867) lay in axial prolongation; see II, figs. 507-509.
Hildemar, in discussing this event, in his commentary to
chapter 40 of the Rule of St. Benedict, claims that the
emperor succeeded in retrieving the old measure and that
this was the measure currently used in the monasteries of
the empire as the basis for the daily allotment of wine.[231]
The event is also referred to in a letter by Abbot Theodomar
of Monte Cassino to Charlemagne, where it is said
that a sample measure was dispatched to the emperor. Two
of these according to the estimate of the older brothers of
Monte Cassino formed the equivalent of the hemina of St.
Benedict, one being served at the midday meal, the other
at supper.[232] The text leaves no margin for doubt: it was
not the original hemina of St. Benedict (or a duplicate
thereof) that the emperor received from Monte Cassino
but a sample of which the senior monks "supposed"
(aestimaverunt, i.e., judged by careful consideration, yet
from incomplete data) that it was half the equivalent of that
measure. St. Benedict's original hemina, as we learn from
Paul the Deacon's History of the Lombards had been taken
to Rome by the Monks of Monte Cassino, as they fled from
the invading barbarians in 581, together with the original
measure for the Benedictine pound of bread, and the
original manuscript of the Rule of St. Benedict.[233] There
is no evidence that these two measures were returned to
the monastery in 720 when it was rebuilt, and the content
of Theodomar's letter, as well as a good deal of other
evidence, indicates clearly that in the eighth century even
in St. Benedict's own monastery the precise value of the
Benedictine hemina was forgotten.[234]
Tamen infirmorum contuentes inuecillitatem credimus eminam uini per
singulos sufficere per diem. Benedicti regula, loc. cit.
Quod si aut loci necessitas uel labor aut ardor aestatis amplius poposcerit,
in arbitrio prioris consistat. Benedicti regula, loc. cit. The reform
synod of 816 confirmed the directive of St. Benedict that a special
measure may be added to the regular pittance of wine on days on which
the monks were subject to heavy labor, and added to those the days
when they celebrated the mass for the dead. Synodi primae decr. auth.,
chap. 11; ed. Semmler, Corp. cons. mon., I, 1963, 163, 373.
Quibus autem donat deus tolerantiam abstinentiae, propriam se
habituros mercedem sciant. Benedicti regula, loc. cit.
Endless discussions have been carried on with regard to this subject,
ever since Claude Lancelot, in 1667 published his Dissertation sur
l'hemine et la livre de pain de Saint Benoit et d'autres anciens religieux.
(For this and other early literature on the subject see Delatte, 1913, 309
and 313ff.) The issue may never be solved to full satisfaction, but it has
fascinating cultural implications; and the question just how seriously
the design, the dimensions and the number of the barrels in the Monks'
Cellar must be taken, cannot be settled without establishing, at least in a
tentative form the upper and lower limits of the daily ration of wine that
each monk was permitted to drink with his meal at the time of Louis the
Pious, the reason we attach some importance to this subject.
Unde Carolus rex, qualiter ipsam heminam intellegere ac scire potuisset,
misit Beneventum ad ipsam monasterium S. Benedicti, et ibi reperit antiquam
heminam, et juxta illam heminam datur monachis vinum. Similiter
et juxtam eam habemus etiam et nos. Expositio Hildemari, ed. Mittermüller,
1880, 445.
Misimus etiam mensuram potus, quae prandio, et aliam, quae cenae
tempore debeat fratribus praeberi; quas duas mensuras aestimauerunt
maiores nostri emine mensuram esse. Direximus etiam et mensuram unius
calicis, quam obsequiaturi fratres iuxta sacrae regulae textum solent accipere.
Theodomari epistola ad Karolum regem, chap. 4; ed. Hallinger and
Wegener, Corp. cons. mon., I, 1963, 163. There is some question about
the authenticity of this letter. See Hallinger and Wegener, loc. cit.;
Semmler, 1963, 53-54; and Winandy, 1938.
Pauli Historia Langobardorum, Book IV, chap. 17; ed. Bethman
and Waitz, Mon. germ. hist., Sript. rer. Lang., Hannover 1878, 122:
Circa haec tempora coenobium beati Benedicti patris, quod in castro Casino
situm est, a Langobardis noctu invaditur. Qui universa diripientes, nec unum
de monachis tenere potuerunt, ut prophetia venerabilis Benedicti patris . . .
dixit . . . Fugientes quoque ex eodem loco monachi Roman petierunt secum
codicem sanctae regulae, quam praefatus pater composuerat, et quaedam
alia scripta necnon pondus panis et mensuram vini et quidquid ex supellecti
subripere poterant deferentes.
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