The Plan of St. Gall a study of the architecture & economy of & life in a paradigmatic Carolingian monastery |
II. |
![]() | V. |
![]() | V. 1. |
![]() | V. 2. |
![]() | V.2.1. |
![]() | V.2.2. |
![]() | V. 3. |
![]() | V. 4. |
![]() | V. 5. |
![]() | V. 6. |
![]() | V. 7. |
![]() | V. 8. |
![]() | V. 9. |
![]() | V. 10. |
![]() | V. 11. |
![]() | V. 12. |
![]() | V. 13. |
![]() | V. 14. |
![]() | V. 15. |
![]() | V. 16. |
![]() | V. 17. |
![]() | V. 18. |
![]() | VI. |
![]() | The Plan of St. Gall | ![]() |
![Click to Enlarge Page 319](https://iiif.lib.virginia.edu/iiif/uva-lib:452213/full/!200,200/0/default.jpg)
VI. 1
REBUILDING OF THE
MONASTERY OF ST. GALL BY
ABBOT GOZBERT & HIS
SUCCESSORS
FROM A.D. 830 ONWARD
VI.I.I
HARDEGGER'S CONTRIBUTION
Up to the middle of the eighteenth century, the church
which Abbot Gozbert built between 830 and 837 was still
essentially intact, except for its transept and choir. From
1755 onwards, however, not only the church itself but
most of the conventual buildings as well were torn
down to make room for the magnificent and stately rococo
buildings that form the pride of modern St. Gall (figs. 505
and 506). The street pattern and the alignment of the
houses that cluster around the abbey retain with astonishing
precision the shape of the original site, but of the Carolingian
buildings that once rose on this precinct not a single
stone appears to be left above ground level. A satisfactory
answer to the question of whether, or to what extent,
Abbot Gozbert and his successors adhered to the Plan of
St. Gall as they rebuilt the monastery could only be found
through a systematic program of excavations, for which at
present there does not appear to exist a glimmer of hope.[1]
If we are nevertheless not entirely ignorant about Gozbert's
work, this is due to the existence of a precious set of
architectural drawings made early in the eighteenth century
when much of the Carolingian work was still discernible.
These late drawings have been brilliantly analyzed by
August Hardegger, first in a dissertation published in
1917,[2]
and a few years later in a volume of the Baudenkmäler
der Stadt St. Gallen, which Hardegger wrote in
cooperation with architect Salomon Schlatter and Traugott
Schiess.[3]
It is to the imaginative, yet sober and cautious
reasoning displayed in these studies, that we owe whatever
tangible knowledge can be gleaned from the available
sources about the design and layout of the monastery
rebuilt by Abbot Gozbert and his successors.
For a peremptory review of excavations undertaken in 1964 in
connection with the installation of a new heating system in the 18thcentury
church see Sennhauser, 1965. A full report by Sennhauser on
these findings is pending.
VI.1.2
THE CHURCH
The dedicatory inscription of the Plan and the general
historical context in which it was made leave no doubt that
the Plan was drawn upon the request of Abbot Gozbert
(816-836) of St. Gall for the purpose of giving him guidance
in rebuilding his monastery.[4]
Gozbert began this
project in 830 by demolishing the church which Abbot
Otmar had built toward the middle of the preceding
century.[5]
The work on the new church proceeded so
rapidly that it could be dedicated in 837.[6]
Gozbert's church was gutted by fires in 937, 1314, and
1418 but the bulk of the walls, the clerestories of the nave
and their supporting arcades apparently were not signally
affected by these events.[7]
By contrast, the transept and the
choir were completely rebuilt by the Abbots Eglolf and
Ulrich VIII, from 1439-83.[8]
It is in the form it had then
attained that the church is portrayed on the oldest bird's-eye
views of the city: in a woodcut dated 1545 by Heinrich
Vogtherr, in an etching on iron by Melchior Frank, dated
1596 (fig. 507), in an engraving of essentially the same
view by Matthaeus Merian, published in 1638 (fig. 509X),
as well as in several other drawings, the most important of
which are a pen drawing of 1666 and a large drawing on
parchment of 1671.[9]
In 1712 the abbey was ransacked by the Protestants and
the monks were expelled.[10]
When they returned a few
years later it was painfully clear that extensive restorations
would have to be undertaken. In anticipation of that event
some detailed architectural surveys were made. In 1717
architect Johannes Caspar Glattburger surveyed the church
and recorded its dimensions.[11]
Two years later Pater Gabriel
Hecht made a scale-drawn plan of the entire monastery
site, dated September 17, 1719 (fig. 510). In 1725-26 he
added to this a set of no less than fourteen architectural
drawings, in which he set forth how he thought the damaged
church and other monastic buildings should be renovated.[12]
![Click to Enlarge Page 320](https://iiif.lib.virginia.edu/iiif/uva-lib:452214/full/!200,200/0/default.jpg)
508. ST. GALL. ABBEY AS IT APPEARED ABOUT 1642. BIRD'S-EYE VIEW FROM THE EAST
DETAIL OF A MODEL OF THE CITY OF ST. GALL
ST. GALL, HISTORISCHES MUSEUM [photo: Horn]
render the condition of the still surviving parts of the
medieval church with great precision and show that what
Hecht had in mind was not so much a reconstruction as a
superficial modernization of the then existing work. Hecht
proposed that the gothic choir be retained in its entirety.
He added some baroque touches in surface treatment by
superimposing a new columnar order upon the exterior
elevation of the choir. In the interior he modernized the
Gothic supports but otherwise retained the structure as he
found it, leaving its Gothic vaults and windows wholly
untouched. In the nave, likewise, he does not appear to
have undertaken any radical changes. Hardegger is convinced
that the arcades and the superincumbent clerestories
of the nave which Hecht had before his eyes as he made his
drawings were in essence still those of Abbot Gozbert's
church (compare fig. 511A and B with fig. 512B and C).
He feels that Hecht proposed to retain the intercolumniation
of Gozbert's church and confined himself to simply
increasing the heights in this part of the building. The only
truly new feature in his proposal was the conversion of the
two nave bays lying next to the choir into a pseudotransept
surmounted by a dome, and the introduction on each of
the two long sides of the church of a continuous system of
chapels. For the rest he confined himself to superimposing
upon the existing work a decorative relief of surface
features, designed in the prevailing taste of the period.
This included in the the interior the complete encasing of
Gozbert's arcade columns in baroque shaped piers.
Although Hecht's design proposals had no effect on the
actual course of events, which took a radical turn a quarter
of a century later, they are of incomparable historical
value because they embody with amazing accuracy the
record of what was then still left, or could then be discerned,
of Gozbert's church. In analyzing this material, Hardegger
came to the following conclusions concerning Gozbert's
church and its relation to the Plan of St. Gall:
1. As stipulated in the explanatory legends of the Plan
of St. Gall, Abbot Gozbert assigned to the nave of his
church a width of 40 feet and to each of his aisles a width
of 20 feet—dimensions which also are in conformity with
the manner in which the Church is drawn on the Plan.
2. In full compliance with the intercolumnar titles of
the Plan, but in deviation from the drawing (in which the
![Click to Enlarge Page 321](https://iiif.lib.virginia.edu/iiif/uva-lib:452215/full/!200,200/0/default.jpg)
509. ST. GALL. ABBEY AS IT APPEARED ABOUT 1642. BIRD'S EYE VIEW FROM THE SOUTHEAST
DETAIL OF A MODEL OF THE CITY OF ST. GALL
ST. GALL HISTORISCHES MUSEUM [photo: Horn]
arcades an intercolumnar span of 12 feet.
3. In full compliance with the great axial title of the
Church of the Plan, but again in deviation from the
drawing (where the church is shown to have a length of
more than 300 feet) he reduced the length of the church to
200 feet. He attained this goal by drastic changes in the
design of the nave of the church, but retained the layout of
transept and choir virtually in the form in which it was
shown on the Plan.
Hardegger's supporting evidence for these conclusions is
presented below.
CONCERNING THE WIDTH AND THE LENGTH
OF GOZBERT'S CHURCH
According to the scale-drawn plan made by Father Gabriel
Hecht, in 1725-26 the nave of the medieval church had a
length of 155 feet. Its clear inner width was 46 feet, that of
the aisles 23 feet. The two clerestories rested on sixteen
piers, each 3 feet square. They were placed at intervals of
17 feet (measured on center) and had between them a clear
arcade span of 14 feet.[13]
Hardegger could establish that
Gabriel Hecht, in measuring the medieval building as well
as in laying out his own drawings availed himself of the
so-called Württemberg foot[14]
which had a unit value of
28.6 cm., and consequently was considerably smaller than
the foot used in drafting the Plan of St. Gall. Hardegger
thought that the architect who drew the Plan of St. Gall
scaled his layout with a foot that formed an equivalent of
33.3 cm.[15]
Converted to this scale, the measurements
recorded by Gabriel Hecht would read as follows: length
of nave: 133 feet; clear width of nave: 40 feet; clear width
of aisles: 20 feet; clear span of the arcade openings: 12 feet.
This in complete harmony with the dimensions stipulated
in the explanatory titles of the Plan of St. Gall, with one
difference only: the builders of Gozbert's church interpreted
![Click to Enlarge Page 322](https://iiif.lib.virginia.edu/iiif/uva-lib:452216/full/!200,200/0/default.jpg)
509.X MATTHAEUS MERIAN. ABBEY AND CITY OF ST. GALL. BIRD'S-EYE VIEW FROM THE EAST
ETCHING: 20.7 × 31.2cm. FIRST PUBLISHED IN 1638 & BASED ON THE MELCHIOR FRANK ETCHING, FIG. 507
Merian's etching defines with great clarity the tripartite division of the post-medieval city; the abbey, the upper, and the lower town all
separated from one another by high girdle walls. The city by now had grown to more than six times the ground area of the monastery in the
shadow of which it had arisen. The wedge-shaped boundaries of the rise of land on which the monastery was built are distinctive. (For
identification of the parts of the Church with its staggered roof levels, see caption to fig. 513.)
Noteworthy among the medieval buildings east of the Church are: the circular chapel of St. Gallus (built 958-971) and north of it St. Peter's
chapel, the oldest sanctuary on the grounds and dating from before the incumbency of Abbot Gozbert. East of it and in axial prolongation lies
St. Catherine's chapel, where the monk Tutilo was buried in 912, and that served as chapel for the abbot's palace. (The latter, a tall building
north of St. Catherine's, is not identical with the PALATIUM built by Grimoald, abbot from 841-872, and gutted by fire in 1418; it may have
been located further west.
![Click to Enlarge Page 323](https://iiif.lib.virginia.edu/iiif/uva-lib:452217/full/!200,200/0/default.jpg)
509.Y JOHANNES ZUBER, CADASTRAL PLAN
OF THE CITY OF ST. GALL & ENVIRONS, 1835.
[scale of figure 509.Y as shown, about 1:11,500]
ST. GALL, STADTBIBLIOTHEK, CH 9000. SIZE OF ORIGINAL: 53 × 746m
[By courtesy of the Stadtbibliothek]
The plan carries the title GRUNDRISS DER STADT ST. GALLEN NEBST DER
UMGEBUNG AUFGENOMMEN VON
JOH. ZUBER. LITHOGRAPHIE VON HELM UND SOHN, ST. GALLEN, 1835.
509.Z DETAIL Central portion of St. Gall with the cathedral (shown at about 1:11,500)
source: STADT S. GALLEN, 1964, 1:5000 Art Institut Orell Füssli AG Zurich, 1964
![Click to Enlarge Page 324](https://iiif.lib.virginia.edu/iiif/uva-lib:452218/full/!200,200/0/default.jpg)
510. PATER GABRIEL HECHT. "ICHNOGRAPHIA"
MEASURED PLAN OF THE MONASTERY OF ST. GALL DATED A.D. SEPTEMBER 1719 ST. GALL, STIFTSARCHIV
KARTEN UND PLÄNE, M.83
[By courtesy of the Stiftsarchiv]
The disposition of church and cloister are basically the same as those shown on the etching of Melchior Frank (fig. 507), except that the church
was enlarged westward in 1623-26 by two bays that absorbed the space formerly occupied by St. Michael's chapel. All of the smaller chapels to
the east of the Church (St. Gall, Holy Sepulchre, St. Peter's, St. Catherine's) were demolished during a building campaign undertaken by
Abbot Gallus II Alt in 1666-1671. He erected a long wing of domestic facilities east of the church (nos. 18-25) including a new dining room
and audience hall for the abbot (no. 18) and a new chapel for St. Gall (no. 19), new lodgings for the porter (no. 20) and beyond the passage
beneath the porter's lodging, servants' quarters, a bakery, and a pharmacy (nos. 21-25). The old but decaying abbot's palace remained at its
original site (no. 48) but the site of St. Peter's and St. Catherine's was now occupied by a carriage house (no. 32).
![Click to Enlarge Page 325](https://iiif.lib.virginia.edu/iiif/uva-lib:452219/full/!200,200/0/default.jpg)
511.A PATER GABRIEL HECHT. MEASURED PLAN OF THE ABBEY CHURCH OF ST. GALL, 1725-26,
WITH SUGGESTIONS FOR MODIFICATION
ORIGINAL FORMERLY ST. GALL STIFTSBIBLIOTHEK,
Evacuated and lost during World War II [after Hardegger, 1917, plate facing p. 4]
Gabriel Hecht retains the church of Otmar, the nave and aisles of Gozbert's church, as well as Eglolf's choir. He adds on either flank of the church
two continuous rows of chapels, and converts the last two bays of the nave into a pseudo-transept surmounted by a tower.
of the Plan worked with a 40-foot square, the corners of
which coincided with the center of every second arcade
support. Being composed of nine arcades of spans of 12
feet on center, the nave of the Plan of St. Gall would have
had a clear inner length of 108 feet. If one adds to this the
thickness of the eight piers, each of which was 3 feet square,
one arrives at a clear inner length of 132 feet, which corresponds
within a margin of error of only 1 foot to the layout
of the church measured by Gabriel Hecht. To place this
figure into proper historical perspective, the reader must
be reminded of the fact that Abbot Gozbert's church was
two bays shorter than the church which Father Gabriel
had before him. Before 1623 the two westernmost bays of
the church were taken up by an open porch, surmounted by
a chapel that was dedicated to St. Michael (fig. 513). This
chapel was built after Gozbert's death as a connecting link
between the main church and the church of St. Otmar.
Consecrated in 867, it was taken down to make room for
an enlargement of the monastery church by two additional
bays when the chapel of St. Otmar was rebuilt, between
1623 and 1626.[16] If one subtracts the length of these two
added bays (34 Württemberg feet or 23 Carolingian feet)
from the total length of the nave (155 Württemberg feet or
133 Carolingian feet) one arrives at an original length of
121 Württemberg feet or 105 Carolingian feet. This comes
as close to the 108 feet of the nave of the Plan as one could
expect, in absence of any more tangible archaeological
information. It left 95 more feet of the total length of 200
![Click to Enlarge Page 326](https://iiif.lib.virginia.edu/iiif/uva-lib:452220/full/!200,200/0/default.jpg)
511.B PATER GABRIEL HECHT. LONGITUDINAL SECTION OF ABBEY CHURCH OF ST. GALL, 1725-26,
WITH SUGGESTIONS FOR MODIFICATION. FORMERLY ST. GALL STIFTSBIBLIOTHEK
Evacuated and lost during World War II [after Hardegger, 1917, plate facing p. 5]
apse.[17]
Hardegger, 1917, 47; Poeschel, 1961, 31 accepts this interpretation
of the scale of the Plan. Hardegger's assumption was confirmed by our
own calculations (cf. I, 95-97).
Hardegger's interpretation of the measurements furnished by
Gabriel Hecht find confirmation in the measurements recorded by
Johannes Caspar Glattburger, in 1917, as Erwin Poeschel has pointed
out (Poeschel, 1961, 30ff). As already mentioned, they are, recorded
in Acta monasterii, B. 322 p. 839 and 841. Glattburger, who like Gabriel
Hecht used the Württemberg foot, listed the total length of the church
as 272 feet. If one subtracts from this figure the 34 Württemberg feet of
the two added westernmost bays of the church, one arrives at a total
length of 238 Württemberg feet or the equivalent of 206 Carolingian
feet, again close enough to justify the assumption that Gozbert complied
with the explanatory title of the Plan that stipulated that the church
should only be built to a length of 200 feet.
CONCERNING THE LAYOUT OF THE TRANSEPT
AND THE CHOIR OF GOZBERT'S CHURCH
In examining the drawings of Gabriel Hecht, Hardegger
observed that the dimensions of the choir built by the
abbots Eglolf and Ulrich VIII between 1439 and 1483
corresponded almost precisely to the layout of the eastern
portion of the Church of the Plan.[18]
He felt convinced
that the masonry of Eglolf's choir followed the lines of the
Carolingian work (figure 512A-C). Eglolf apparently had
simply merged the space of the crossing of Gozbert's church
with that of its presbytery, converting them into the nave
of a choir whose aisles extended to the eastern end of the
church, but did not project laterally beyond the body of
Gozbert's church. The new choir absorbed in its mass
the subsidiary spaces which in the church of the Plan
accommodated Scriptorium and Library.
Hardegger's observations were keen and his argument
is persuasive. One fails to understand why he had so little
influence on the controversy generated by those who tried
to resolve, in retrospect, what a Carolingian architect might
have done had he redrawn the Church of the Plan in the
light of the corrective measurements given in its explanatory
titles.[19]
To leave choir and transept intact made sense
in functional terms: it was here that the monks were
stationed during their religious services for a total of four
hours each day.[20]
To effect the required reduction of
space by changing the dispositions of the nave also made
sense, for here the loss of space was incurred not by the
monks, but by the laymen, who attended only a fraction of
![Click to Enlarge Page 327](https://iiif.lib.virginia.edu/iiif/uva-lib:452221/full/!200,200/0/default.jpg)
511.C PATER GABRIEL HECHT. EXTERIOR ELEVATION OF THE ABBEY CHURCH OF ST. GALL, 1725-26,
WITH SUGGESTIONS FOR MODIFICATION. FORMERLY ST. GALL STIFTSBIBLIOTHEK
Evacuated and lost during World War II [after Hardegger, 1917, plate facing p. 18]
not on a regular schedule.
Otmar, a man of noble Alemannic birth, raised in the episcopal city
of Chur in Raetia, became abbot of the monastery of St. Gall in 719
and died in exile on the island of Werd in the Rhine River in 759. For
these and other bibliographical details and sources see Duft, 1959, 17.
The most recent review of what is known about Otmar's Church is in
Poeschel, 1961, 7-9.
See Poeschel, 1961, 41ff; Hardegger, 1917, passim; idem in Hardegger-Schlatter-Schiess,
1922, passim.
For descriptions and reproductions of these drawings, see Poeschel,
1957, 38-39 and ibid., fig. 46 (Heinrich Vogtherr), figs. 53 and 54
Melchior Frank), fig. 56 (pen drawing of 1666) and fig. 57 (bird's-eye view
on parchment of 1671).
On the Protestant upheaval of 1712, see Hardegger, 1917, 1ff;
Hardegger-Schlatter-Schiess, 1922, 168ff; Poeschel, 1961, 65ff.
Before World War II, these drawings, bound into a fascicule, were
in the Stiftsarchiv of St. Gall (cf. Hardegger-Schlatter-Schiess, 1922,
173 note 1). After their evacuation during the war, their whereabouts
were no longer traceable (cf. Poeschel, 1961, 45, note 4).
VI.1.3
THE CLOISTER
It is clear that the cloister lay to the south of the church
where it still is today (although completely rebuilt), and it
is equally clear that the dormitory occupied the upper level
of the eastern range which adjoined the southern transept
arm precisely as on the Plan of St. Gall. This can be
inferred from Ekkehart's account of the ignominous visit
which Abbot Ruodman of Reichenau paid to the monastery
of St. Gall under the cover of night and the description
of the complicated route which he had to take in order to
get from the cloister to the monks' privy.[21]
From the same
![Click to Enlarge Page 328](https://iiif.lib.virginia.edu/iiif/uva-lib:452222/full/!200,200/0/default.jpg)
ST. GALL. ABBEY CHURCH. SUCCESSIVE STAGES
512.B
512.A
A.
PLAN OF ABBOT GOZBERT'S CHURCH OF 830-837 AS RECONSTRUCTED BY AUGUST HARDEGGER
[after Hardegger, 1917, plate facing p. 521]
B.
PLAN OF THE ABBEY CHURCH AS RECORDED BY PATER GABRIEL HECHT IN 1725-26
[after Hardegger, loc. cit.]
![Click to Enlarge Page 329](https://iiif.lib.virginia.edu/iiif/uva-lib:452223/full/!200,200/0/default.jpg)
512.C ST. GALL. ABBEY CHURCH. LONGITUDINAL SECTION OF 1626-1756 AS RECONSTRUCTED BY
AUGUST HARDEGGER ON THE BASIS OF GABRIEL HECHT'S DRAWINGS OF 1725-26 (FIGS. 511.A-C)
[after Hardegger, 1922, 139]
FIGURES 512. A, B, C ARE SAME SCALE (CA.1:700)
Bays 3-9 of the nave and aisles were built by Gozbert and are the oldest parts, dating from 830-837. Otmar's church, dedicated 24
September 867, located west of Gozbert's church was originally separated from it by an entrance hall surmounted by St. Michael's chapel
which was dedicated 25 September 867 (cf. figs. 513.A-B, and figs. 507-509). The choir was entirely built by Eglolf, 1439-1483, on a ground
area co-extensive with the transept and choir of Gozbert's church that had been damaged by fire in 1418. In 1623-26 St. Michael's chapel
was demolished and Gozbert's church was enlarged westward by two bays, thus extending it all the way to Otmar's church.
the entrance of the church, as we would expect it to be in
the light of the Plan of St. Gall. Ekkehart IV mentions a
warming room (pyrale) in a context which suggests that in
the tenth and early eleventh century it was used for disciplinary
actions traditionally undertaken during chapter
meetings.[22] In the same chapter he also implies that the
washhouse (lavatorium) was reached from the warming
room; in fact the text seems to suggest that it was part of
this room. In departure from the Plan of St. Gall, however,
the Scriptorium was not on the north side of the church
but next to the pyrale.[23]
We know nothing about the location of the refectory
or the cellar but there is no reason to presume that they
were laid out in a manner other than that proposed on the
Plan. The Carolingian refectory and dormitory perished
in the great fire of 1418 and were completely rebuilt by
Abbot Eglolf (1427-1442).[24]
Ekkeharti (IV.) Casus sancti Galli, chap. 112; ed. Meyer von
Knonau, 1877, 379ff; ed. Helbling, 1958, 192-93.
VI.1.4
EXTRA-CLAUSTRAL BUILDINGS
Ekkehart's account of the fire of 937[25]
discloses that the
Outer School was located north of the church on a lot
which corresponded closely to the site it occupies on the
Plan of St Gall. The fire was set by a vindictive student in
the attic of the schoolhouse and was carried by the north
wind on to the roofs of the church and of the cloister.
![Click to Enlarge Page 330](https://iiif.lib.virginia.edu/iiif/uva-lib:452224/full/!200,200/0/default.jpg)
ST. GALL ABBEY CHURCH. CONDITION OF 1439 TO 1525
513.B
513.A
RECONSTRUCTION BY AUGUST HARDEGGER, BASED ON FRANK, 1507, AND HECHT, 1725-26
[after Hardegger, 1922, 69]
Reading from west to east: church of St. Otmar and St. Michael's chapel (above entrance to Gozbert's church), both dating 867; Gozbert's
church, 830-37; Eglolf's choir, 1439-1483; Hartmut's tower (SCHULTURM) near entrance to church, 872-883; tower of Ulrich (VI) von Sax
(FESTERTURM), 1204-1220. The four-storied building in the background (HELL) built by Abbot Ulrich Rösch, 1463-1491 (not shown on the
plan), was probably a guesthouse. (Dates after Otmar refer to tenure of abbots.)
![Click to Enlarge Page 331](https://iiif.lib.virginia.edu/iiif/uva-lib:452225/full/!200,200/0/default.jpg)
514. THE PLAN OF ST. GALL IMPOSED ON A CADASTRAL PLAN OF ST. GALL OF 1965
RED DRAWING, PLAN OF ST. GALL, SHOWN 1/8 ORIGINAL SIZE (1:1536) IMPOSED ON CADASTRAL PLAN AT SAME SCALE
Even a cursory glance at the shape of the site to which the monastery was confined discloses that it could not have been an easy task to
attempt literally to superimpose the rectangular scheme of the Plan of St. Gall upon so irregular a plot. The superimposition emphazises the
ideal character of the Plan and foreshadows adjustments that, in ensuing centuries, were to be made in many other places where the topography
of a particular site prevented complete realization of the ideal monastery of the Plan.
In order to be built on this particular site, as foreseen on the Plan, the Great Collective Workshop, the Granary, the houses for fowl and their
keepers, the Gardener's House, most of the Monks' Vegetable Garden, and even a corner of the cemetery, would have had to lie across the
gorge of the Steinach, that at its lowest point lay some 50 feet lower than the monastery ground level. (cf. caption, figure 505, and similar
superimpositions made by Hardegger, 1922, 22, fig. 3; and Edelmann, 1962, 289.) This drawing also shows that the ground area of the Baroque
church of St. Gall is congruent not only with that of the church as originally conceived on the Plan but also with the surface area the entire
aggregate the medieval churches had attained after Otmar's church had been added to Gozbert's church (cf. fig. 513).
![Click to Enlarge Page 332](https://iiif.lib.virginia.edu/iiif/uva-lib:452226/full/!200,200/0/default.jpg)
On the Plan of St. Gall the Abbot's House is located
east of the Outer School in axial prolongation of the northern
transept arm of the Church. The palace (palatium),
built by Abbot Grimoald (841-847) with the aid of masons
from the imperial court (palatini magistri) was also to the
north of the church although further eastward. A deed
of 1414 reveals that it was furnished with a solarium; as is
stipulated on the Plan of St. Gall. Like most of the other
buildings it was gutted by the fire of 1418 and subsequently
completely reroofed as well as rebuilt internally by Abbot
Henry IV and his successor Eglolf (1427-43).[26]
On the
Ichnographia drawn by Gabriel Hecht in 1719, (fig. 510),
and in the bird's-eye view of the city of St. Gall issued by
Melchior Frank in 1595 (fig. 507), as well as on the anonymous
city view of 1666,[27]
this rebuilt variant of the
Carolingian palace is truthfully portrayed.
The original cemetery of the monks was east of the
monastery church between the chapel of St. Peter's and
the Steinach River[28]
on precisely the same location in
which it was shown on the Plan of St. Gall; and St.
Peter's itself[29]
(perhaps in conjunction with St. Catherine's
chapel) lay on the site that on the Plan is occupied by a
double chapel that served as oratories for the novices and
the sick. It consisted, as can be inferred from the city view
of Melchior Frank (fig. 507) and several other drawings, of
three contiguous building masses of varying width and
height arranged along the same axis.
Here our knowledge of the position of the offices of the
Carolingian monastery ends. Whatever evidence survives
of their original disposition is hidden in the ground. The
city and the canton of St. Gall, not to speak of the Confederation
of Switzerland, whose support would be needed
in a project of this magnitude, have not faced as yet the
challenge of clarifying this important historical problem
through a program (long overdue) of systematic excavations.
In the meantime it must be underscored that in those
cases for which historical evidence is available, the layout
of Gozbert's monastery appears to have conformed with
the scheme of the Plan. This condition may even have
applied to most of the unknown sectors of the site, except
for the Hen and Goose Houses in the southeastern corner
of the Plan. Their location is in conflict with the relief of
the actual plateau on which the abbey rose. Here the steep
embankment of the Steinach River, that swings sharply
toward the north, would have called for adjustments that
might also have affected some of the neighboring buildings.
A glance at the city view of Melchior Frank (fig. 507) and
the photographs of the monastery site, forming part of the
magnificent model reconstruction of the city of St. Gall,
made in 1919-22 by architect Salomon Schlatter (figs. 508
and 509) reveals this condition with great clarity. In
figure 514 we have superimposed the course of the river
and other boundaries of the monastery site upon the scheme
of the Plan. The axis of the church is given by its still-existing
crypt. The superimposition shows that between
the church and the Steinach there is sufficient room for all
of the buildings that on the Plan are located to the south of
the Church. The houses for the animals and their keepers to
the west of the Church, could easily have been accommodated
in the great area that now is occupied by the St.
Gallus Platz.[30]
The original entrance to the monastery was
in the west, as it is on the Plan of St. Gall, through the
Gallustor (later: Grüner Turm).[31]
The only truly distinctive
difference between the scheme of the Plan and the actual
monastery was that Gozbert's church did not terminate
with an apse in the west—understandably so because in
St. Gall, St. Peter, to whom this apse is dedicated on the
Plan, had already a sanctuary of his own.[32]
In the Abbey of
St. Gall, instead, this area was occupied by a chapel
dedicated to St. Otmar and connected with the church by
an open porch that was surmounted by an oratory dedicated
to St. Michael (fig. 513). St. Otmar's chapel was built by
Abbot Grimald and consecrated on September 24, 867 by
Bishop Salomon.[33]
It rose on the space that was released on
the actual building site by the reduction of the church as
originally drawn on the Plan from 300 to 200 feet. The only
point in which Hardegger failed was that in his reconstruction
drawings of Gozbert's church (fig. 512A) he did not
remain faithful to his own argument but allowed the two
transept arms to project beyond the masonry of the Gothic
choir (obviously in the desire to make them more fully
conform with the Plan). H. R. Sennhauser informs me that
this was not borne out by excavations conducted under the
pavement of the present church, which showed that the
circumference walls of the Gothic choir rose indeed, as
Hardegger had postulated, on the foundations of the
corresponding Carolingian work (see below, pp. 358-59).
FRANCISC (FRANZISKA, FRANSISQUE)
A favorite weapon of the Franks, wielded with great dexterity as a battle axe, often hurled.
Ekkeharti (IV.) Casus sancti Galli, chap. 67; ed. Meyer von Knonau,
1877, 240-43; ed. Helbling, 1958, 127-28.
![]() | The Plan of St. Gall | ![]() |