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. 3. |
| V. 4. |
| V. 5. |
| V. 6. |
| V. 7. |
| V.7.1. |
| V.7.2. |
| V.7.3. |
| V.7.4. |
| V.7.5. |
| V.7.6. |
| 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 |  |
VI.2.3
LAYOUT OF THE
EXTRA-CLAUSTRAL BUILDINGS
As on the Plan, the infirmary lies east of the church, the
houses for the guests to the west and northwest, and the
houses of the workmen to the south of the cloister.
AREA EAST OF THE CONVENTUAL BUILDINGS
In Cluny, as on the Plan of St. Gall, this tract contains the
monk's cemetery as well as the monks' infirmary. The
infirmary itself consists of four rooms, each 27 feet wide
and 23 feet long plus two additional rooms a little smaller
than the others. In one of these the sick brothers came to
wash their feet on Saturdays; in the other, attending
servants cleaned the pans and all the other utensils of the
sick brothers. The Farfa text does not refer to an infirmary
chapel; however, a chapel 45 feet long, 20 feet wide, and
23 feet high (oratorium sanctae Mariae) which could have
served this function is mentioned immediately before the
infirmary in the text. There is no further evidence to either
confirm or disprove this assumption.
In departure from the layout shown in the eastern tract
of the Plan of St. Gall, the novitiate has been separated
from the infirmary and moved to a site south of the east
range. As on the Plan, however, the novitiate may still
have been arranged peripherally around a cloister yard, as
Conant suggests in his latest plan. The Farfa text describes
it as composed of four parts: "In the first they meditate;
in the second they eat; in the third they sleep; in the fourth
there is a latrine on the side" (prima ut meditent, in secunda
reficiant, in tertia dormiant, in quarta latrina ex latere).
AREA SOUTH OF THE CONVENTUAL COMPLEX
Again, there are striking similarities between the Plan of
St. Gall and Cluny II. The bakery (pistrinum) lies to the
south of the monks' kitchen. The dimensions, including
the bulk of a tower that stands at the head of the bakery,
are listed as 20 feet by 70 feet. As on the Plan, the work and
living quarters for the workmen and craftsmen are arranged
along the southern edge of the monastery to the north of
the bakery. They are accommodated in a building (domus)
125 feet long and 25 feet wide.[67]
The goldsmiths, jewelers
or glaziers (aurifices, vel inclusores, seu vitrei magistri) had
their own cell, the dimensions of which are not listed in the
Farfa text. The principal house for workmen does not
include facilities for tailors and shoemakers. Their workshops
are located north of the cloister. This arrangement
differs distinctly from that on the Plan of St. Gall.
The Farfa text refers to this house simply as domus. It does not
state explicitly that this is the house for the workmen. The function of a
house of these dimensions and at this location, however, could not be
interpreted in any other manner.
AREA NORTH OF THE CLOISTER
The workshop for tailors and shoemakers (sartores atque
sutores) occupied a building 45 feet long and 30 feet wide
which extended clear to the sacristy on the north side of
the church. The sacristy is 58 feet long and has at its head
a tower (turris). Alfred Clapham proposed that the sacristy
and the house for the tailors and shoemakers might have
been installed in the masonry of the church of Cluny I,
the western half being converted into the workshop, the
eastern half into the sacristy.[68]
—a hypothesis that Conant
finds plausible.[69]
On the Plan of St. Gall this was the site
for the Abbot's House. A house for the abbot is not mentioned
at any place in the Farfa description.
The absence of a house for the abbot seems due to a
change in the rules concerning the abbot's sleeping accommodations.
The Customs of Udalric, written about 1085,
specifically state that the bed of the abbot was located in
the middle of the monks' dormitory and that it was the
abbot who gave the signal to get up in the morning: In
medio dormitorii est lectus eius prope murum; sonitum ipse
facit quo fratres diluculo ad surgendum excitantur.[70]
Since
the Farfa text fails to mention an abbot's house, this
practice must already have been in effect during the
abbacy of Odilo (995-1049). The beginnings of this development
can be observed in the tenth century monasteries of
Moyen Moutier and Leittlich. In each of these monasteries
the abbot's house was attached to the monks' cloister. To
eliminate the abbot's house entirely, thus to draw him
bodily into the community of sleeping monks, was the
ultimate step. It was the enforcement of a policy proposed
as early as 816 at the synod of Aachen, but revoked at the
synod of 817.[71]
Consuetudines Cluniacenses collectore Udalrico, Book III, chap. 2,
"De domno abbate," cf. Migne, Patr. Lat. CXLIX, 1882, cols. 733-34.
See the discussion of the legislative conflicts concerning the abbot's
right to live and eat in his own house; see I, 323-24.
AREA WEST OF THE CONVENTUAL COMPLEX
The Farfa text is quite explicit concerning the location and
use of the buildings which lie to the west of the church and
near the gate of the monastery. Again, the analogies with
the Plan of St. Gall are striking. Both on the Plan and at
Cluny this is the location of the houses in which the
monastery's visitors are received. On the Plan of St. Gall
these consisted of a House for Distinguished Guests, a
House for the Vassals and Knights who travel in the
Emperor's Following, a House for Visiting Servants, and
the Hospice for Pilgrims and Paupers.[72]
The monastery of
Cluny, according to the Farfa text, provides for a house with
bedding and eating space for forty noblemen and thirty
noblewomen, a house for the horses of the visiting noblemen,
and a house for pilgrims and paupers. The relative
location of these facilities, in both instances, appears to be
the same.
The house for the forty noblemen and the thirty noblewomen
at Cluny has been discussed in detail in a preceding
chapter.[73]
It belongs to the same building tradition as the
House for Horses and Oxen on the Plan of St. Gall, and its
two privies, which accommodated seventy toilet seats, forty
for men and thirty for women, reflect the highest standard
of medieval sanitation.[74]
The house for the horses and servants who travel in the
following of the distinguished guests extends from the
north gate to the south gate. It is 25 feet wide and has an
impressive length of 280 feet. The ground floor accommodates
the horses of the traveling guests and for that purpose
is divided into stalls (per mansiunculas partitas). Above the
stable there is a sunroom (solarium) where the servants
eat and sleep. This room is furnished with at least two
ranges of tables 80 feet long and 4 feet wide.[75]
The dimensions of the house for pilgrims and paupers
are not listed in the Farfa text. The building is simply
referred to as "the place where those can come together who
ride without squires and there receive from the almsbrother
sufficient charity in the form of food and drink" (locus . . .
ubi conveniant omnes illi homines, qui absque equitibus
deveniunt, et caritatem ex cibo atque potum . . . ibi recepiant
ab elemosynario fratre). The text tells us that it lies at the
head of the house for horses and servants, but does not
reveal whether this means to the south or north of it.
Conant placed it as the northern end of the stables. The
relative location of these facilities for guests, consequently,
appears to be like that on the Plan of St. Gall.
The Farfa text says nothing about any houses for livestock
and their keepers but the topography allows for a
forecourt of considerable dimensions precisely at the place
where one should expect them in the light of the Plan of
St. Gall.
Conant assigned this solarium to the monastery's lay brothers.
This is not implied in the Farfa text and is incompatible with the studies
of Kassius Hallinger, which indicate that the Cluniacs did not adopt the
lay brothers institution before the last decade of the eleventh century
(Hallinger, 1956, 14ff). The Farfa text only states that "servants" and
"excess guests that could not receive their meals in the house for the
visiting noblemen" (famuli . . . et quotquot ex adventantibus non possunt
reficere ad illam mansionem) should sleep and eat in the solarium above the
stable. The term famuli could refer to both the servants of the visiting
noblemen or visiting servants from the monastery's outlying estates.
It is likely, however, that those of the guests were intended. The servants
of the noble guests would then be lodged near the horses of their company,
as the travelers on the Plan of St. Gall were with theirs, and the
house for the nobles' retinue would be located near to their guest house,
as on the Plan. Each noble guest must have had at least two servants, so
housing for at least 140 servants would have been necessary. This was
probably the function of the room above the stables, since it provides a
large area and since the Farfa text specifies that it housed the guests
whom the palatium would not accommodate, as well as the famuli,
Furthermore, no other housing is provided for the retainers of the noble
guests.
IRREGULAR SHAPE OF ODILO'S CLOISTER YARD
The original concept of the Plan of St. Gall was that the
Church should be 80 feet wide and 300 feet long, but an
explanatory title inscribed in the longitudinal axis of the
Church directs that in actual construction it should be
reduced to 200 feet.[76]
The church of Cluny II, built by
Abbot Mayeul between 965 and 981, was only 140 feet
long (Ecclesia longitudinis CXL pedes).[77]
Conant believes that the timbered houses in which Abbot
Mayeul lodged the monks of Cluny lay further inward than
Odilo's conventual buildings, and that when Odilo constructed
the new masonry ranges he located them outside
and around the original structures.[78]
If this assumption is
correct, the old cloister yard of Cluny would have been
considerably smaller than the cloister yard of the Plan of
St. Gall (only about 75 feet square, as compared to the 100
by 102½ feet of the Plan or the 100 by 100 feet stipulated
original dormitory of the monks indeed have been located
inside of Odilo's masonry ranges, the original dormitory
of Cluny would have been in axial prolongation of the
transept of Mayeul's church, i.e., in the same relative
position in which it is shown on the Plan of St. Gall. Moving
his claustral ranges further out, Odilo would have
brought the cloister yard of Cluny back to the dimensional
standards set by the Plan of St. Gall but at the same time
would have created an irregularly shaped cloister yard, in
which the east range was separated from the transept. This
solution had no lasting effect on later monastic planning.[80]
It may very well have been the outcome of special local
conditions, namely the inordinate smallness of Mayeul's
church and original cloister which could only be overcome
by disconnecting dormitory and transept.[81]
Conant's arrangement also depends on the 1700-1710 plan of
Cluny (now in the Musée Ochier).
If the west range of Cluny II remained in the position in which
Conant shows it, and the east range were aligned with the transept,
the cloister yard would still be in line with the standard set on the Plan
of St. Gall. Nevertheless, if the east range is placed to the east of the
transept, it does account for a passage in the Farfa text which states that
the chapter house, which was located at the northernmost end of the
dormitory range, had "four windows on the east and three on the north"
(ad oriente fenestrae IIIIor; contra septemtrionem tres). In order to accommodate
three windows, the north wall of the dormitory range would
have to have been a free-standing wall and could not have butted directly
against the southern transept wall of the church. Clapham in his reconstruction
of Cluny, however, placed a passage way between the transept
and chapter house and thus provided for the windows in the text. Clapham,
1930, 167, 173.
| The Plan of St. Gall | |