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.
