The Plan of St. Gall a study of the architecture & economy of & life in a paradigmatic Carolingian monastery |
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 | The Plan of St. Gall |  |
IV.5.1
MEN & HORSES FOR BATTLE & OTHER
SUPPORTIVE SERVICES
Like all the other landed corporations of the empire, the
estates of the monks were bound to render their share in
the defense of the country (ad hostem). The men of the
church were forbidden to render military service in person,[169]
but they were obliged to furnish to the army an appropriate
contingent from among their vassals.[170]
Thus the Abbey of
St.-Germain-des-Prés at the time of Abbot Irminon placed
at the emperor's disposal not only men whom it held in
tenure, but also furnished the army with carts, oxen, beef,
mutton, pork, and wine.[171]
In an order issued to him by
Charlemagne between 804 and 811, Fulrad, the Abbot of
St.-Quentin, was directed to join the army at its assembly
place at Stassfurt, in Saxony, on June 17, with his men fully
equipped and armed. The men were to be fitted out in such
a way as to be able to proceed to whatever point in the
country the emperor wished to dispatch them. The order
itemized the type of weapons each man was to carry and the
tools with which each wagon was to be stocked: straight
axes, broadaxes, augers, hatchets, hoes, shovels. The troop
was to be provisioned with rations for a period of three
months, and with arms and clothing for a period of six.[172]
Some of these services were exacted only in times of war;
others were rendered in the form of periodic "gifts" or
"donations" (dona or munera) which had acquired an obligatory
character.[173]
The annual "gift" required of each abbey
at the time of Louis the German consisted of two horses,
two shields, and two lances.[174]
In addition to the men the monasteries had to furnish for
the service of the king, they maintained others for the protection
of their own land, and it is on permanent resources
of this kind that the king may have drawn in times of war.
The Chronicle of Hariulf furnishes us with the names of
100 armed men whom the Abbey of St.-Riquier maintained
on its various manors.[175]
An inventory of 831 lists the total
number of men then in the service of the Abbey as 110 and
informs us that "each man always has ready for inspection
a horse, a shield, a sword, a lance, and other armaments."[176]
Hariulf defines their duties very clearly: "They served the
abbot and the other officials of the church on land and sea
or wherever else the brothers needed their concourse . . .
accompanied the abbot and the priors on their journeys . . .
They always gathered dutifully at the monastery on the
days of the feast of St. Richarius, Christmas, Easter, and
Pentecost, as thoroughly equipped as each could and by
his presence lending to our church almost the appearance
of a royal court."[177]
It is the maintenance of a military retinue of this kind
which explains the presence in the House for Workmen, on
the Plan of St. Gall of "shieldmakers" (scutarii) and
"grinders and polishers of swords" (emundatores et
politores gladiorum).[178]
In addition to their direct share in the military defense
of the country, the annual presentations to the king (servitium
regis)—and especially those made by the royal abbeys—
might include a considerable amount of eatable livestock
and other agricultural products. Thus the servitium regis of
the Abbey of Werden around 1050 amounted to 8 cows, 83
pigs of various size, 8 peacocks, 195 chickens, more than 95
cheeses, 870 eggs, 47½ malters of bread, 95 sheffels of oat,
172 pitchers of beer, 485 bowls, and 147 beakers.[179]
The
volume of services that the monastery rendered to the state
in time of war of course exceeded by many times the revenues
it was required to furnish in time of peace.
Admittedly this imposition of military obligations upon
the abbey, as Dom Ursmer Berlière has pointed out, "is in
formal opposition to the constitutive principle of the Benedictine
order," and, further, it is understandable that this
"intrusion of the world into the cloister" should become
one of the primary targets of the reformists in the centuries
that followed.[180]
At the time of Charlemagne and Louis the
Pious, the interdependence of church and state was not yet
questioned. In their search for peace and Christian unity
and their common concern to see the will of God embodied
on each, the administration of church and state worked
hand in hand.[181]
262. UTRECHT PSALTER (CA. 830). PSALM LXXXIV (85), DETAIL
UTRECHT UNIVERSITY LIBRARY, CODEX 32, fol. 49v
[courtesy of Utrecht University Library]
The detail here shown forms the lowest register of the illustration. It explicates with various scenes from agriculture and animal husbandry
the phrase "and our land shall yield her increase" (verses 12-13) in the rich and imaginative pictographic style characteristic of the Early
Christian prototype of this psalter.
To the left, a man tills the soil with the primitive Roman plow (not as efficient as the medieval plow). At the right, two men cut sheaves of
grain by hand with sickles, as was done in Roman and medieval times. Below them, oxen and sheep graze along the banks of a stream that
issues from springs to the left of the picture. (For more details and a reproduction of the entire illustration see Dewald, 1932, 38-39.)
In capitularies issued by Carloman in 742, Pepin in 744, and Charlemagne
in 802. See Karlmanni principis capitulare, April 21, 742, chap. 2;
ed. Boretius, in Mon. Germ. Hist., Legum II Cap., I, 1883, 25. Pippini
principis capitulare Suessionense, March 2, 744, chap. 3; ed. ibid., 29; and
Capitulare missorum, 802 (?), chap. 37; ed. Boretius, ibid., 103.
In capitularies issued by Pepin in 744, and Charlemagne in 808, and
801-813. See Pippini principis capitulare Suessioniense, op. cit.; and
Capitulare missorum, 808, ch. 5; ed. Boretius, op. cit., 137, and Capitulare
Aquisgranense, 801-813, chaps. 9 and 10, ed. op. cit., 171.
"Statuimus etiam, ut annuatim inde dona nostre serenitati veniant, sicut
de ceteris monasteriis, id est caballi duo cum scutis et lanceis." (Deed of Louis
the German, dated Ulm, July 22, 854. See Wartmann, I, 1863, 52-54.)
Vicus militum CX: unusquisque semper equum, scutum, gladium, lanceam,
ceteraque arma exhibet. "Inventaire des Cens et Redevances dus a
l'Abbaye de Saint-Riquier," Hariulf, ibid., 308.
"Quique cum sibi subditis militibus nostro abbati et ministris ecclesiae
nobiliter satis serviebant terra marique, vel ubicunque eorum comitatu
quilibet e sancti loci fratribus indiguisset. . . . quos ubique abbas, vel praepositi,
secum ducebant, quique consuetudinaliter in die festi sancti Richarii,
et in Nativitate Domini, vel in Resurrectione, seu in Pentecoste, semper
monasterio aderant, accurate prout quisque poterat, ornati, et ex sua frequentia
regalem pene curiam nostram ecclesiam facientes" (Ibid., 96-97).
But Hariulf's reliability has been questioned (Evergates, "Historiography
and Sociology in Early Feudal Society: The Case of Hariulf and the
≪Milites≫ of St.-Riquier, Viator, VI, 1975, 35-49).
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