VI.2.2
LAYOUT OF THE
CLAUSTRAL BUILDINGS
As on the Plan of St. Gall, the cloister at Cluny lies to
the south of the church. The east range contains the
dormitory and its annexes; the south range, the refectory
and the kitchens; the west range, the cellar and the parlor.[48]
EAST RANGE
In Cluny, as on the Plan, the monks' dormitory (dormitorium)
occupies the second floor of the east range. The Farfa
text describes it as 160 feet long and 34 feet wide, with walls
reaching to a height of 23 feet. But in the space below the
dormitory some important innovations have been made.
On the Plan of St. Gall, this entire space is occupied by the
Monks' Warming Room coextensive with the dormitory of
40 feet by 85 feet overhead. In Cluny, this space is internally
divided into a chapter house (45 feet long and 34 feet wide);
an auditorium (30 feet long); and a camera (90 feet long).
The Monks' Warming Room (calefactorium) has been reduced
at Cluny to a surface area of only 25 feet by 25 feet
and shifted into the south range. This amounts to complete
reassignment of the space beneath the dormitory, a modification
for which an explanation will later be offered.[49]
Chapter house
In the monastery shown on the Plan of St. Gall the chapter
meetings were held in the northern cloister walk, which
was made wider (15 feet) than the other three walks (12½
feet) and furnished with benches.[50]
The same arrangement,
as has been shown above, prevailed at Fontanella, which
might indicate that the cloister walk next to the church was
the common location for the capitulum in Carolingian
times.[51]
Attempts made by Hager and others to show that
a separate chapter house existed at Jumièges in the seventh
century, at Reichenau in 780, at Fontanella by 823-833,
and in the monastery of St. Gall after 830, can be shown to
be based on faulty textual exegesis, and in one case on the
use of a corrupted text.[52]
To use the northern cloister walk for chapter meetings,
however, had disadvantages. Although warmed by the
rays of the sun in the winter, when the arc of sun is in
the southern hemisphere, and sheltered from the north
wind by the church, the open cloister walk offered little
protection from inclement weather. The physical discomforts
endured in the winter or on rainy days must have
called early for a more protected location for the chapter
meetings.
Certain passages in the Casus Sancti Galli of Ekkehart IV
(980-1060) suggest that in the abbey of St. Gall chapter
meetings were then held in the Monks' Warming Room.
It is quite possible that the special room for chapter meetings
at Cluny II owes its existence at the head of the east
range to the desire to convert into a separate space a portion
of the former warming room that in the earlier days had
served temporarily for chapter meetings during inclement
weather. Ekkehart mentions that on the order of the abbot,
a raging monk was punished during a chapter meeting by
being "bound to a column of the warming room and
harshly beaten," (ad columpnam piralis ligatus acerrime virgis
caeditur).[53]
Another passage indicates that the pyrale was
the traditional place for punishment in the monastery,
since it was there that the whip was kept.[54]
Punishment
was traditionally carried out in the chapter house in the
Middle Ages. This practice seems already to have been
current in the time of Ekkehart IV, since a text from
Paderborn of 1023 explicitly states that punishment was
administered in the chapter house.[55]
Inner parlor
Its name (auditorium) in the Farfa description suggests that
it served as an area where monks might talk to one another
when silence was being observed in the rest of the cloister.[56]
Supply room
The largest architectural entity in the east range after the
dormitory is a space 90 feet long and 34 feet wide which in
the Farfa text is designated as camera, that is, "store-" or
"supply room".[57]
It is too far away from the kitchen to be
interpreted as a pantry or larder. Since the Farfa description
lacks any reference to a vestiary in which the clothes
of the monks are kept, it is possible that this room was a
storehouse for clothing and such other material necessities
that were furnished by the camerarius (chamberlain) who
was in charge of the workmen and craftsmen. On the Plan
of St. Gall, the monks' clothing was kept, and perhaps even
tailored, in the large vestiary which formed a second story
over the refectory (40 feet by 100 feet). Since the generous
clothing allowance provided by the synod of Aachen in
816 was adopted by Cluny, the storeroom for clothing would
need to be about the same size as that of the Vestiary on
the Plan of St. Gall.[58]
One of the primary changes necessitated by the inclusion
of the chapter house and inner parlor in the east range was
that these additions made this range along with its annexes
(the monks' bath and privy) extend southward well beyond
the cloister square. In other respects, the relative position
of the dormitory, privy, and bathhouse are identical with
those on the Plan of St. Gall.
SOUTH RANGE
In both the Plan of St. Gall and Cluny II the refectory
formed the principal mass of the south range, although at
Cluny the refectory was apparently a building of one storey.
It is 90 feet long, 25 feet wide, and 23 feet high. At Cluny
as on the Plan, the monks' kitchen (coquina regularis) lies
at the western end of the refectory in the corner between
refectory and cellar; but at Cluny there is also a kitchen
for laymen (coquina laicorum) not found on the Plan of
St. Gall. The dimensions of the two kitchens of Cluny
are the same, 25 feet by 30 feet. Since the Farfa description
of the house for noblemen and of the hospice for paupers
does not include any reference to kitchens, the coquina
laicorum may represent a consolidation of the formerly
autonomous kitchens of these two houses.[59]
The dimensions of the calefactory at Cluny indicate that
it was part of the south range. It has the same width as the
refectory, 25 feet, distinctly narrower than the buildings
of the dormitory range, which are 34 feet wide. The sequence
of the account suggests that the calefactory was at
the eastern end of the south range. This is a solution
different from that of the Plan of St. Gall, but at the same
time, the position of the calefactory at Cluny next to the
east range might suggest a development from its earlier
position under the dormitory in the east range on the Plan
of St. Gall.[60]
WEST RANGE
At Cluny II, as on the Plan of St. Gall, the cellar (cellarium)
forms the principal building of the west range. It is 70 feet
long and 60 feet wide. Next to it lies a long and narrow
room which the Farfa text designates "aelemosynarum."
This room is 10 feet wide and 60 feet long; its name suggests
that it served as an area in which the almoner administered
to the needs of transient paupers. An inscription on the
Plan of St. Gall indicates that a room of similar shape and
nearly the same dimensions (15 feet by 47½ feet) performed
the triple function of serving as "an exit and entrance to
the cloister," as a Parlor "where the monks could converse
with guests" and as "the place where the feet [of the
visiting pilgrims] were washed" (exitus & introitus ante
claustrū ad colloquendum cum hospitibus & ad mandatū faci-
endū).[61]
A passage in chapter 46 of book II of the Customs
of Farfa reveals that it was in connection with the ritual of
the mandatum that the visiting paupers received their customary
ration of wine and bread (justitiam vini et libram
panis);[62]
and in a complete description of this ritual
found in the first book of these customs, explains that
the place where the paupers' feet are washed, is "in the
cloister to the side of the church" (
in claustro juxta eccles-
iam)
[63]
which indicates that the
eleemosynarium at Cluny was
located in the same relative position as the Parlor on the
Plan of St. Gall, and also served some of the same
functions.
[64]
A parlor or auditorium is not mentioned in the Farfa
text, but appears in the two passages of the Ordo Cluniacensis,
written around 1086. In one of these the claustral
prior is admonished to "go through the whole cloister
beginning at the door of the auditorium, carefully checking
that the eleemosynarium is closed and locked" (Claustrum
incipiens ad ostium auditorii, sollicite observans quatenus
Eleemosynaria sit clausa et obserata).[65]
In the other, the
door of the eleemosynarium is mentioned next to "that other
door through which those who come from outside enter
the cloister" (ad ostium . . . Elemosynariae, et ad illud, per
quod de foris venientium est ingressus in claustrum.[66]
Both
passages suggest that auditorium and eleemosynarium were
two different areas. Architecturally this could have been
accomplished in two ways: either by relegating the function
of the parlor to a separate space, or by dividing the
oblong eleemosynarium internally into two areas accessible
by separate doors, one used as parlor, or auditorium, for
the reception of guests, the other for the washing of the
feet and the distribution of alms. In the former case one
would have to assume a separate room immediately to the
north of the eleemosynarium, perhaps in the court around
the galilee where Conant indicates a room for the Porter.
