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VI.2.4

CONCLUSIONS

Schlosser's and Hager's analyses of the Farfa text, Clapham's
attempt to apply it to the monastery of Cluny, and
Conant's reconciliation of this text with the actual topography
of the monastery of Cluny, make it clear that the
monastery constructed by Abbot Odilo of Cluny (995-1049)
was, in its principal dispositions, a reflection of the scheme
displayed on the Plan of St. Gall. There are certain modifications,
some of which can be traced to a change in custom.
But the fundamentals remain unaltered. The historical
weight of this observation becomes apparent only if one
realizes that the layout of the monastery shown on the Plan
of St. Gall was by no means the only Carolingian or early
medieval arrangement available for imitation.

The cloister of Jumièges (Gemeticum), founded by Philibert
around 650, had dormitory, refectory, and cellar installed
in one two-storey building 50 feet wide and with an
unheard-of length of 290 feet. Refectory and cellar shared
its ground floor; the dormitory extended the entire length
of the upper storey.[82]

The triangular cloister yard of Angilbert's monastery at
St. Riquier (Centula), built 790-799 (figs. 196-197) shows
that the square was by no means the only form available
for the layout of a Carolingian cloister yard. In the monastery
of Fulda, built by Ratger between 817 and 822, in the
cathedral of Cologne, built by Bishop Hildebold between
800 and 819, and even in the master monastery of Inden,
built from 815 onwards by Louis the Pious for Benedict of
Aniane, the monks' cloister was to the west, not to the south
of the church. In the case of Cologne, the cloister was not
even square, but of trapezoid form.[83]

Yet another arrangement different from that set forth on
the Plan of St. Gall was the layout of the monastery of St.
Wandrille (Fontanella). Here the conventual buildings
built by abbots Gervold (787-806) and Ansegis (823-833)
lay to the north of the church. The refectory and the cellar
were in the east range, the dormitory in the west, and the
domus in the north (fig. 520A).[84]

The analysis of Cluny II as described in the Farfa text
discloses, however, that it was the arrangements seen on
the Plan of St. Gall which became the guiding pattern for
later monastic plans. This may be due to the fact that the
arrangement of the monastic offices which appears on the
Plan of St. Gall was more practical than any of the other
arrangements. The location of the cloister to the south of
the church, the warmest side in the winter, was especially
desirable in northern countries. The dormitory and the
warming room of the monks were conveniently located in
the east range, near their choir in the church where they
spent at least four hours each day, beginning with a service
held at two o'clock in the morning. The refectory and the
kitchen with their activities were isolated in the south
range, the area farthest from the church. The cellar was
placed in the west range, facing the outer court from which
it took provisions. The location of the medical services and
of the novitiate to the secluded eastern tract of the monastery,
the houses for the workmen to the south with easy
access to water, the livestock and their keepers in the large
courtyard to the west, the houses for the guests near the
gate of the monastery—all of this made perfect sense in
terms of monastic planning.

The affiliation of the Plan of St. Gall with the reform of
Benedict of Aniane, however, may have been the most
important reason for the survival of this layout in later
monastic planning.[85] The prime objective of this movement—viz.,
to establish binding rules regulating even the
smallest details of monastic life—was never forgotten,
especially since the resolutions made during the two great
reform synods of Aachen had been promulgated by Louis
the Pious as public laws.[86] The capitularies of the emperor
contained a clause instructing the attending bishops and
abbots to make these new ordinances known to their monks,
and Louis the Pious appointed inspectors to see that all
monasteries observed these customs. The monastery of
Inden was to serve as a training ground for monks whose
task it became to go out and insure compliance throughout
the empire with the unity of customs established at
Aachen.[87]

The transmission of the missionary ideals of the synods
to the monastery of Cluny can be traced through a series of
monastic foundations in direct lineage from Benedict of
Aniane to Cluny. Benedict himself, under the direction
of Louis the Pious, sent twenty monks to the newly founded
Abbey of St.-Savin in Poitou.[88] St.-Savin escaped the
ravages by the Normans in the second half of the ninth
century and maintained the regularity of its monastic life.
Around 870 the monks of St.-Savin restored the ancient
abbey of St.-Martin-les-Autun, and with it, reasons Watkin
Williams, "would have arrived the spirit of the Concordia
regularis and the observances prescribed at the councils of
Aachen."[89] Consequently, from St.-Savin to St.-Martin-les-Autun,
and from there to Baume-les-Messieurs, the
parentage of Cluny can be traced to Benedict of Aniane.

Dom Bruno Albers has further established, on the basis of
textual similarities, that the Ordo Qualiter of Benedict of
Aniane and the Capitula of 817 were passed to Baume-les-Messieurs
and then to Cluny.[90] This was the traditional
heritage professed by Cluniac monks. According to John,
the biographer and friend of Odo, second abbot of Cluny,
"Euticius instituted those customs which have hitherto
been observed in our monasteries" (Benedict of Aniane's
baptismal name was Witiza, or Euticius in Latin).[91]

It is self-evident that such an important issue as the
layout and order of the buildings in which the monks and
their serfs were housed would have been part of this overriding
preoccupation with uniformity of custom. The layout
of the monastery of Cluny, as described in the Farfa
text, discloses that in the middle of the eleventh century the
arrangements set forth on the Plan of St. Gall were indeed
alive. But in precisely what manner this tradition was bequeathed
to Cluny may never be ascertained. We are
unfortunately completely ignorant of the layout of the
cloisters in the chain of abbeys which leads from Benedict
of Aniane to Berno of Cluny. The seventeenth-century
engravings of St.-Savin and St.-Martin-les-Autun cannot
be trusted to give reliable information on the early medieval
layout, since both of these monasteries were extensively
rebuilt in the later Middle Ages.[92]