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III.1.11

PARLOR

ITS DUAL ROLE: CONVERSATION WITH
VISITORS & WASHING OF FEET

Between the Cellar and the southern aisle of the church lies
the Parlor, a long rectangular room that serves as exit and entrance
to the Cloister, where the monks may engage in conversation
with their guests, and where the washing of the
feet takes place (exitus & introitus ante claustrū ad conloquendum
cum hospitibus & ad mandatū faciendū). The parlor measures
15 feet × 47½ feet and is lined entirely with benches. It
is the only legitimate place of contact between the monks and
the outside world. It is here that, with the permission of the
abbot or prior, they may meet with friends or visiting
relatives. Here, also, they perform one of the most venerable
Christian services, the so-called mandatum. Keller[254] translated
the phrase ad mandatū faciendū mistakenly as "the
place where orders are given to the servants," and some of
the later commentators of the Plan inherited this error.[255]
Mandatum is "the washing of the feet" and refers to an old
monastic custom, based upon the example set by Christ
himself, when before the Last Supper he humbly washed
the feet of his disciples, admonishing them to fulfill his
"new mandate" (novum mandatum)[256] by perpetuating this
rite. The custom has a long Biblical tradition and was widespread
in eastern countries, where owing to the general use
of sandals, the washing of the feet was from the earliest
times recognized everywhere as a courtesy shown to
guests. In the hot climate of the Mediterranean countries,
with their dusty and often rain-soaked roads, to offer water
to a guest for his feet was one of the duties of the master of
the household, and in certain areas was even the equivalent
of a formal invitation to stay overnight.[257] Often this
service was rendered by slaves, occasionally by the daughter
or wife of the owner of the house.[258] Common both in the
Jewish and the Hellenistic world, the custom of washing
feet was taken over by the Early Christian and became an
integral part of the monastic tradition.

MANDATUM FRATRUM
AND
MANDATUM HOSPITUM

A distinction must be made between the mandatum
fratrum, i.e., the washing of the feet of one brother by
another, and the mandatum hospitum, the washing of the
feet of guests. St. Benedict establishes both rites as obligatory,

[ILLUSTRATION]

250. PLAN OF ST. GALL. AIR VIEW OF NOVITIATE AND INFIRMARY

AUTHORS' INTERPRETATION

This drawing is after the reconstruction model of the buildings of the Plan made for the exhibition Karl der Grosse, in Aachen, 1965.
Besides the Monastery Church (an airview of which is shown in fig. 352) the building complex which accommodates the claustral compounds
of the Novitiate and Infirmary, in consummate symmetry on either side of the dominant mass of a double apsed Church, is the largest single
building shown in the Plan. Its layout, wholly unrelated to the vernacular tradition of the North, is one of the finest products of the Carolingian
renascence—a concept perhaps inspired by the layout of the Constantinian aula at Trier (fig. 240) or Roman imperial summer residences,
such as Konz (fig. 241) and Kloosterberg (fig. 242). Its classicism could be defined as an architectural counterpart to some of the finest and
most classicising manuscripts of the so-called Palace School, such as the famous Aachen or Vienna treasure Gospels, whose evangelists,
portrayed in senatorial robes and seated in open landscapes, cannot be stylistically derived from the preceding Hiberno-Saxon schools of
illumination, but are a revival of an illusionistic Roman tradition that had been lost in the shuffle of the Great Migrations.

but places a higher premium on the mandatum
hospitum, as it is in the service rendered to the poor "that
Christ is most truly welcomed."[259] The so-called Customs
of Farfa (in reality the Customs of Cluny, written under
Abbot Odilo, between 1030 and 1048) furnish us with a
complete description of this ritual.[260] The brother who is
placed in charge of the service saw that everything indispensable
for its conduct was kept in readiness: "the
cauldron, in which the water is heated" (laebetem ubi
aquam calefaciat), "the basin in which their feet are washed"
(concam ad lavandum pedes eorum) and "three towels of
linen" (tria linteamenta). One towel was used for drying
the hands of the monks in charge of the service; with the
second the pauper's feet were dried; the third one was for
drying their hands.[261] The ritual took place after the
evening meal, when the brothers left the refectory, assembled
in procession in the cloister wing "next to the cellar"
(juxta promptuarium)[262] and chanted the songs by which
the service was introduced. The feet of one pauper after
another were washed, and the monks to whom this task
was assigned alternated with one another, each in succession.
The first monk washed, dried, and kissed the feet of
the first pauper. The second one relieved him of the towel
and basin and carried it to the brother who stood near the
water and the aqua manile, dried his own hands and withdrew
to his station. Then the next brother advanced to
attend to the next pauper, and the procedure was repeated
until the feet of all were washed. At the end the pauper's
hands were rinsed.[263]

While the feet of the newly arrived guests were washed
daily, the mandatum fratrum was a weekly service extended
to the assembled brothers by the incoming and outgoing
servers, each Saturday after the evening meal. Although it
is quite clear that the feet of the paupers were washed in
the Parlour—both in the light of the latter's explanatory
title, as well as in view of the fact that the Parlour was the
only place where monks could legitimately meet with
guests—the Plan of St. Gall does not tell us anything
about the place where the feet of the brothers were
washed. In leading Benedictine monasteries of the eleventh
century it was done in the chapter house, as can be deduced
without any shadow of doubt from the Customs of Farfa
(1030-48), the Customs of the Monastery of Bec, composed
on the request of Lanfranc while he was prior of his
abbey, 1045-70 and the Customs of Lanfranc, worked out
by Lanfranc between 1070 and 1077 for Christchurch
Monastery after he had been made archbishop of Canterbury.[264]

The monastery shown on the Plan of St. Gall, as has
been pointed out at the beginning of this chapter, was not
provided with a separate chapter house. The chapter
meetings were held in the cloister wing that ran along the
southern aisle of the Church, and for that purpose the wing
was furnished with two benches extending its entire length.
This was the only place in the cloister beside the Refectory
where the monks could be seated en masse, as they would
have to be when their feet were washed. It is for this
reason, as well as the association of the rite with the
chapter house in later centuries, that I am inclined to
assume that in the monastery portrayed on the Plan, the
mandatum fratrum was performed in the northern cloister
wing. During inclement weather both the chapter meetings
and the mandatum fratrum may have been shifted to the
Warming Room.[265]

The rite of the washing of feet was dear to the brothers.
When the abbot of Fulda proposed to abolish it, the monks
of that monastery remonstrated before the emperor who
ordered it to be reinstated.[266] In remembrance of the
washing of the feet of the disciples of Christ before the
Last Supper, the mandatum conducted on Maundy
Thursday was a special event. The synod of 816 directs
that on this day the service be rendered by the abbot
himself, who dries the feet of each monk with his own
hands and serves him a drink in a beaker.[267]

[ILLUSTRATION]

251. PLAN OF ST. GALL. ABBOT'S HOUSE

The House of the Abbot lies in axial prolongation of the northern transept arm of the Church, in a position corresponding to that of the Monk's
Dormitory on the opposite side of the Church. In contrast to the Guest and Service Buildings which have peripheral suites of outer spaces
ranged symmetrically around an inner hall with a central hearth that emits smoke through a hole in the roof (see vol. II, pp. 117ff), it consists
of two oblong spaces separated by a median partition wall, one serving as the abbot's living room (Mansio Abbatis), the other as dormitory
(Dormitoriū). Along each long side of the house is an arcaded porch opening on the surrounding yard. Like the corresponding arches in
the Monks' Cloister (fig. 203) and in the cloisters of the Novitiate and Infirmary (fig. 236) these are shown in horizontal projection (cf. above,
pp. 55ff). The inscription SUPRA CAMERA ET SOLARIUM written in the pale brown ink of the correcting scribe (cf. above, p. 13 and below
p. 321) leaves no doubt that the abbot's house had two levels. The upper story accommodated a supply or treasure room (CAMERA) and a sun
room (SOLARIUM). This arrangement precludes the use of an open central hearth, and necessitates installation of chimney-surmounted corner
fireplaces (cf. II, pp. 249ff) in the abbot's living and bedroom.