The Plan of St. Gall a study of the architecture & economy of & life in a paradigmatic Carolingian monastery |
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MONKS' LATRINE IN THE MONASTERY OF CLUNY II |
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 | The Plan of St. Gall |  |
MONKS' LATRINE IN THE MONASTERY OF CLUNY II
The longhouse became the preferred medieval form for
monastic latrines. The earliest prose description of this
type of building known to me is that of the monks' latrine
in the monastery of Cluny II. The author of the Consuetudines
Farfenses, writing around 1043, defines it as follows:
500. PIAZZA ARMERINA. PROVINCE OF ENNA,
SICILY
VILLA OF EMPEROR MAXIMIANUS, †310 A.D.
[Redrawn from Gentili & Bandinelli, 1956]
1:600
The villa, probably an imperial hunting lodge, consisted of clusters of rectangular and
curved-wall buildings laid out on shifting axes around a large galleried court containing
a fountain. Its most prominent architectural features are the emperor's audience hall
(BASILICA) at the eastern end of the court, his dining hall (TRICLINIUM) to the north,
and an elaborate cold and warm water bath (FRIGIDARIUM, TEPIDARIUM) at the
southeastern corner of the complex near its entrance. The residential quarters lay to the
south side of the court and audience hall.
The latrines were judiciously sited: a large one next to the baths, probably the first to
be used by returning hunters, and a smaller one near the living quarters, in a wedge-shaped
space between QUADRIPORTICUS and thermal installations. Their amphitheatrical
layout allowed users to attend to their needs in full view of everyone else—a
reflection of the unihibited affirmation with which the ancients responded to the body's
natural functions, and an attitude quite opposed to the reticent privacy and hierarchical
social segregation with which these facilities are treated in the repressing ambience of a
medieval monastery.
501. CLUNY II. MONKS' PRIVY (ODILO'S MONASTERY, 994-1049). PLAN
AFTER DESCRIPTION IN THE CONSUETUDINES FARFENSES
The location of the latrine at Cluny is ascertained by excavation of its foundations. It lay at right angles to the monks' dormitory at a distance
of about 1·50m from it, and was accessible through its southern gable wall by a connecting bridge at dormitory level. The dormitory itself
occupied the upper level of a long structure that bounded the claustral complex to the east. For more detail, see Conant's reconstruction of the
layout of Cluny II shown in fig. 515, and his description of Odilo's work in Conant, 1968, 59-67.
"The latrine of the monks is 70 feet long, 23 feet wide. In
the building there have been arranged 45 seats with a small
window above each seat, 2 feet high, 1½ feet wide. Above
these are wooden structures, and above this wooden construction
there are seventeen windows, 3 feet high, 1½ feet
wide" (Latrina LXXta pedes longitudinis, latitudinis XXti et
tres; sellae XL et quinque in ipsa domo ordinatae sunt, et per
unamquamque sellam aptata est fenestrula in muro altitudinis
pedes duo, latitudinis semissem unum, et super ipsas sellulas
compositas strues lignorum, et super ipsas constructionem
lignorum facte sunt fenestrae Xeë et VIItë, altitudinis tres
pedes, latitudinis pedem et semissem).[680]
The specifications for
this building disclose a perspicacious awareness of the need
for light and ventilation: two tiers of windows, sixty-seven
in all. Since each seat is provided with its own window the
latrines must have been ranged along the outer walls of the
building, as shown in figure 501, which is based on the
dimensions recorded in the Farfa text and the assumption
of a surface area 2½ feet square for each seat.
| The Plan of St. Gall | |