The Plan of St. Gall :: :: University of Virginia Library

I cannot conclude this review of the historical and
bibliographical vicissitudes of the Plan of St. Gall without
drawing attention to two further events of vital importance
for this study, neither of them directly concerned with the
Plan. The first of these was the publication in 1910-43 of
the six volumes of Emile Lesne's monumental Histoire de
la propriété ecclésiastique,[44] a veritable storehouse of
knowledge, harboring a wealth of information on the
monastery as a legal, manorial, administrative, and educational
institution. The second was the publication, in
1963, under the general editorship of Kassius Hallinger,
OSB, by the Pontifical Athenaean Institute of St. Anselm,
in Rome, of the first volume of the Corpus consuetudinum
monasticarum,[45] a new critical edition of the monastic
consuetudinaries of the eighth and ninth centuries, elucidated
by a critical apparatus of incomparable excellence
and including inter alia the new edition of such crucial
contemporary sources as the resolutions, preliminary and
final, drawn up in 816 and 817 in connection with the two
reform synods of Aachen,[46] as well as that masterpiece of
administrative and manorial logistics, the so-called Statutes
of Adalhard of Corbie (Consuetudines Corbeienses), drawn
up in January 1821/22 by one of the most distinguished
abbots of the Frankish empire.[47] A complete translation of
this informative source, by my colleague Charles W. Jones,
will be found in Appendix II.[48]

The publication of this vast collection of monastic
consuetudinaries was preceded and accompanied by a
series of penetrating studies on the monastic legislation
enacted during the reign of Louis the Pious, from the pen
of one of its principal editors, Dr. Joseph Semmler,[49]
which opened new avenues for the understanding of the
monastic reform movement that forms the spiritual home
of the Plan of St. Gall. My indebtedness to the Corpus
consuetudinum monasticarum and the distinguished editors
and commentators is visible in countless places throughout
this book.

[ILLUSTRATION]

2. PLAN OF ST. GALL: THE DEDICATORY LEGEND

Addressed to Abbot Gozbert of St. Gall (806-836) by a churchman of higher rank who fails to identify himself, this letter of transmission
discloses (in the term EXEMPLATA) that the Plan is not an original but a copy, and therefore presumes the existence of a prototype.

The nature of its scripts reveals that the copy was made in the Abbey of Reichenau, perhaps around 820, but not earlier than 816/817 or later
than 830, the year in which Gozbert began to rebuild his monastery with the aid of the Plan.

The placement of the letter on the Plan's upper margin reveals that this scheme was to be viewed from west to east, not from south to north as
would be the case in similar post-medieval, and modern layouts.

A typographic transliteration of the letter with English translation is shown on the opposite page

[44]

Lesne, 1910-43.

[45]

Corpus consuetudinum monasticarum, ed. K. Hallinger, I, 1963. Since
these lines were written, this publication was augmented by two further
volumes (II, 1963; III/IV, 1967).

[46]

Legislatio Aquisgranensis, ed. Semmler, Corp. Cons. Mon. I, 423-82;
superseding earlier editions of the monastic legislation of 816-817, Bruno
Albers (ed.), Consuetudines monasticae, III, 1907, 79ff. and 115ff.

[47]

Semmler, in Corp. cons. mon., I, 1963, 355-422; superseding an
earlier edition by Leon Levillain, 1900, 338-86.

[48]

See Vol. III, 93ff.

[49]

Semmler, 1958, 1958/60, 1960, 1963; and Verhulst and Semmler,
1962.