On the Plan of St. Gall
If one analyzes on the Plan of St. Gall the ratio between
the number of toilet seats provided for the disposal of
human waste and the number of potential users, one
arrives at the startling conclusion that the standards of
sanitary hygiene in a medieval monastery of the time of
Louis the Pious were far advanced not only over those of
any of their classical proto- or antitypes, but—with the
sole exception of modern de luxe hotels—even conspicuously
superior to common standards of modern sanitation.
The House for Distinguished Guests, as we saw, had
bedding facilities for eight noblemen and eighteen servants.
Since the bedrooms for the noblemen were equipped with
their own privies, the eighteen seats of the outhouse must
have been the reserve of the eighteen servants.[659]
They were
set up at a ratio of 1:1. On the level of the court this appears
to have been the norm. The royal guesthouse of the
monastery of Cluny, a facility which was designed for the
accommodation of seventy guests, was furnished with the
same number of toilet seats.[660]
The Outer School of the
Plan of St. Gall, designed for an occupancy of probably
twenty-four students, has an outhouse equipped with fifteen
seats (fig. 496B),[661]
which yields a ratio of 1:1.6. The
House for Bloodletting, probably never occupied simultaneously
by more than twelve monks,[662]
has seven seats (fig.
496C); it therefore had a probable ratio of 1:1.7. The
Abbot's House with a bedding capacity of eight[663]
has six
toilet seats (fig. 496D), yielding a ratio of 1:1.3. And the
dormitories of the Novitiate and the Infirmary, each of
which appear to have been designed for an occupancy of
twelve persons,[664]
are provided with an outhouse equipped
with six seats, corresponding to a ratio of 1:2.
