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

Whether, or in what particulars, Gozbert followed the concepts of
the Church of the Plan can only be known when Dr. Sennhauser's
full report is published. From the position and course of the foundation
trenches, however, it may be inferred that the width of Gozbert's
nave was in fact twice the width of each aisle, indicating that
he may have followed closely the instruction of the designers of the
Plan that the nave of the church be 40 and each aisle, 20 feet wide.

THE NAVE

The length of Gozbert's church is not yet known because the shape
and depth of its apse could not be ascertained. Yet, even on the
basis of facts now available, it appears safe to assume that his church
was shorter by roughly one third than the Church as it is drawn on
the Plan. This suggests that Gozbert held to the mandate of the
axial explanatory title of the Church of the Plan directing that it be
200 feet long, rather than the 300 feet shown by the drawing itself.
Excavations revealed it to be indisputable that the contraction was
made in the longitudinal axis of the church, and was accomplished
by a radical shortening of its nave, rather than through diminution
of the liturgically important areas of transept and presbytery. (This
tends to confirm what is set forth in Volume I, p. 180, and above,
pp. 326ff.)

THE CRYPT

Gozbert's rectangular corridor crypt derives directly from the
schema drawn on the Plan. In contrast to it, however, the longitudinal
arms of Gozbert's crypt did not run along the crossing piers,
but were moved against the outer walls of the church. Moreover,
their entrances lay in the aisles, and the arms cross the transept not
on floor level, but below it. This is a great functional improvement
over the Plan's layout, for it considerably enlarges the space available
to monks in the transept, and eliminates disruption of that
space by passages used by laymen as transits. Another notable
innovation is the introduction of a hall crypt from which laymen
could view the tomb of St. Gall.

TRANSEPT AND PRESBYTERY

The location and course of the circumference walls of this entire
eastern body of Gozbert's church disclose that its transept did not
project beyond the outer walls of the longitudinal body of the
church, as Hardegger had already surmised (see p. 326, above). The
loss of space incurred by this amputation would have been compensated
by the spatial gain achieved through transfer of the passages
for laymen from transept level to below it.

There are sound topographical reasons why Gozbert might have
preferred an inner transept to one with extended arms. The terrain
of the site to the south of the church was constricted by the capricious
course of the Steinach River. Gozbert, in studying the Plan,
must quickly have seen that on the high ground remaining between
church and river, he had insufficient space to accommodate, in
addition to the cloister, all the service structures to the south of it.
By not extending the transept beyond the aisles of the church, he
could substantially mitigate inadequacies of space owing to the
topography of the monastery site.

The Church of the Plan has an elevated presbytery to which was
annexed, on north and south, the two-storied structures housing
Scriptorium and Library, Sacristy and Vestry. Dr. Sennhauser
found no trace of foundations or their trenches to confirm any
similar dispositions in Gozbert's church. From later sources it must
be inferred that the Carolingian scriptorium lay to the south of the
church, in the cloister. We must therefore deal with the possibility
that Gozbert's presbytery extended the whole width of the structure,
as it did in the Gothic Church (see fig. 511). If this conjecture is
proved correct, it will reveal that Gozbert thus increased, rather
than diminished, the area around the high altar.

W.H.