III.2.7
NOVITIATE & INFIRMARY COMPLEX IN
THE CONTEXT OF THE WHOLE PLAN
THREE SEPARATE CLOISTERS: AN ANSWER
TO MONASTIC STRATIFICATION
Conceptually, of course, this plan is an elaboration of the
layout of the monastery's principal church and claustrum,
and like the latter, it has its compositional roots in clearly
definable functional needs. Monastic custom required that
the novices be separated from the regular monks, the healthy
from the sick, and all of the religiosi from the family of
the monastery's serfs and workmen. This called for a
tripartite internal division of the claustral section of the
architectural plant as well as for a separation of this entire
aggregate of cloisters from an outer belt of service buildings,
in which the serfs and workmen were housed. The Plan of
St. Gall offers a brilliant answer to these needs: in axial
prolongation of the monastery church and the cloister of the
regular monks, a second church, of one-third the length of
the principal church, internally halved so as to be able to
serve the occupants of two further cloisters, ranged symmetrically
to either side of this sanctuary.
AXIALITY OF CHURCHES:
A PRINCIPLE INHERITED FROM EARLY
CHRISTIAN ARCHITECTURE
The placing of this complex on the axis of the main
church recalls a scheme that was in use in Early Christian
times in the eastern parts of the Roman empire, in such
places as the sanctuary of Menas in Abu Mina, Egypt,
fourth to fifth century,[301]
the cathedral of Gerasa (Jerash,
Palestine, ca. 400), and the church of St. Theodor, in the
same town, 494-96 (fig. 243),[302]
as well as an early Byzantine
complex at Ephesus, in Asia Minor.[303]
In all of these places
several churches were arranged in sequence, one behind
the other, along the same axis. The prototype of this
arrangement may have been the Constantinian Anastasis
Church at Jerusalem.[304]
A striking early medieval parallel
existed at St. Augustine's Abbey at Canterbury (fig. 244).
There, three churches, aligned east to west, were built in
Saxon times (SS. Peter and Paul, 598-616; St. Pancras,
before 613; St. Mary, about 618) and a fourth one at the time
of Abbot Wulfric (d. 1059).[305]
Undoubtedly, there were
others;[306]
the majority of the early medieval twin or cluster
churches, however, were laid out in lateral sequence or in
rather haphazard fashion.
GROUPING OF BUILDING MASSES: A
TRANSFER TO SITE ORGANIZATION OF PRINCIPLES
DEVELOPED IN BOOK ILLUMINATION
In the layout of the churches and cloisters of the Plan
of St. Gall another influence must be acknowledged: with
all of its classicism, it also has an amazing kinship with the
layout of some of the great illuminated pages found in
Carolingian and Iberno-Saxon manuscripts, in particular,
with those pages which illustrate the opening words of
each Gospel. Again, it may be futile to point at any one
specific example. Yet as one glances at the great decorated
page with the opening word of St. Mark's (Quoniam) in
the Book of Kells (fig. 245),
[307]
one cannot help but be
struck by the compositional similarities between the layout
of its dominant letter masses (stem and loop of the great
initial
Q) and that of the dominant architectural masses on
the Plan of St. Gall (aggregate of churches and cloisters):
their asymmetrical axiality, the manner of their framing by
secondary surrounding units (fig. 246). One cannot help
wonder whether there might not be some compositional
connection between the shape of the large inverted
L that
forms the second dominant motif of the
Quoniam-page of
the Book of Kells and the manner in which the guest and
service buildings to the south and west of the Church of the
Plan of St. Gall are pressed into an L-shaped sequence of
roofs that frame the dominant building masses of Church
and cloister in a similar manner. I am far from attempting
to establish any direct connection between the Plan of St.
Gall and the Book of Kells—the influence could have come
from common sources in a dozen different ways—but
should like to confine myself to the more general observation
that the comparison suggests that in the grouping of
the basic architectural masses of his monastery site the
architect may have drawn some inspiration from the
grouping of the letter masses on the great illuminated
manuscripts of his period.
