THE GOZBERT HORIZON: A.D. 830-836
(± 0.00M TO - 0.10M)
A rich record of Gozbert's work remained about 0.80 m above the
lower Otmar horizon. These features were unmistakably identifiable
wherever terrain was accessible, and undisturbed by later work:
foundation trenches for outer walls, for nave arcades, and for a
transverse foundation marking the line where nave and transept
met; a number of capitals and abaci of the Carolingian supports
re-used in the masonry of the Gothic choir foundations.
THE NAVE
The floor and parts of the rising masonry of a circumambient
corridor crypt were also located, the crypt's longitudinal arms connected
in the east by a traverse shaft, in the west by the steps giving
access to this crypt. The floor level of the southern shaft was
- 2.45 m, that of the northern shaft, - 2.40 m to - 2.46 m.
In the middle of the transverse shaft and extending west from it
lay the relatively well-preserved rising masonry of a hall crypt
ca. 5m deep and ca. 7m wide, but the supports and vaults of this
crypt had been demolished and re-used by the builders of the
Baroque church. In the center of the western wall of this hall crypt
was an opening; behind it the masonry of a tapered shaft rose
upward at a gentle slope toward the old base of the sarcophagus of
St. Gall, which in Carolingian times stood on a higher level some
2.00 m west of the crypt. The eastern-oriented end of the sarcophagus
was thus brought in view of the visiting pilgrims.
In the middle of the east wall of the transverse shaft was an
opening and masonry of a window with splayed jambs, the existence
and location of which suggests that the choir of Gozbert's church
had no apse, but may rather have terminated in a straight wall.
UNIDENTIFIABLE FEATURES
No longer identifiable owing to disturbance by work later than
Gozbert, or else inaccessible to excavation, were: location and
shape of the nave arcades of Gozbert's church, their foundations
and rising masonry having been cleared away for re-use in the
Baroque church, as well as supports and vaults of the hall crypt
which were demolished, then renewed by the builders of the
Baroque church. Nor was it possible to determine the position of
Gozbert's high altar, for the terrain west of the sarcophagus of St.
Gall was heavily disturbed by service channels associated with
mechanisms of the Baroque organ. Dr. Sennhauser thinks it possible
that the Carolingian high altar might have been located east of the
tomb of St. Gall on the elevated floor level supported by the vaults
of the crypt.
Lack of access permitted no determination of the foundations of
the eastern crossing piers (if they ever existed) which would have
lain in the substructure of the Baroque choir stalls. The outer surface
of the east wall of the transverse shaft of the corridor crypt, and
the foundations of the apse of Gozbert's church, if there were one,
also lay in terrain unable to be explored because of the superincumbent
high altar and sacristy of the present church.
