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

Although there is little doubt about the person for whom
the Plan of St. Gall was made, we are not certain about the
identity of the person who made the Plan. In the vast and
steadily increasing body of literature that has been devoted
to this problem ever since the Plan of St. Gall was first
discussed by Henricus Canisius in 1604,[69] its authorship
has been attributed to such diverse persons as Einhard, the
friend and biographer of Charlemagne;[70] Gerungus, a
distinguished official at the emperor's court;[71] Frotharius,
bishop of Toul;[72] Ansegis, abbot of Fontanella (St.Wandrille);[73]
Hrabanus Maurus, abbot of Fulda;[74] Reginbertus,
headmaster of the monastic school at Reichenau;[75]
and Haito, bishop of Basel (803-823) and abbot of the
nearby monastery of Reichenau (806-823).[76]

[69]

Canisius, V:2, 1604, 780ff.

[70]

Mabillon, Annales, II, 1704, 571-72.

[71]

Mon. Germ. Hist., Script., ed. von Arx, I, 1826, 60, note 4.

[72]

Digot, 1853, 127ff. Digot's attribution of the Plan of St. Gall to
Bishop Frotharius of Toul was based on two arguments: the fact that
Bishop Frotharius was an experienced architect (a capacity in which he
also was employed by the court), and that there was a distinct analogy in
style between the transmittal note of the Plan of St. Gall and the Latinity
of the letters of Bishop Frotharius (the latter have been published by
Dom Martin Bouquet, VI, 1870, 386-98). Both arguments are extremely
tenuous. Digot's views were adopted without modification by Leclercq,
and became widely known through the latter's article, "Saint-Gall,"
in Cabrol-Leclercq, VI:1, 1924, cols. 87-88.

[73]

Jacob Burckhardt, in a review of Ferdinand Keller, 1844; see
Kaegi, II, 1950, 554-57.

[74]

Rahn, 1876, 89.

[75]

Dopsch, 1916, 63ff.

[76]

Beyerle, 1925, 82.

I.4.2

HAITO:
THE MOST REASONABLE CHOICE

Konrad Beyerle, who proposed Bishop Haito as the
author of the Plan, pointed with good reason to the fact
that Haito's dual rank of bishop of Basel and abbot of the
monastery of Reichenau would well account for that peculiar
blend of paternal condescension ("my sweetest son
Gozbertus") and brotherly devotion ("in the friendly zeal
of brotherhood I have depicted this for you") that characterizes
the spirit of the address with which the author of the
Plan transmits the product of his labors to Gozbert.[77]
Reinhardt rejects this line of reasoning with the argument
that, as bishop of Basel, Haito could not have addressed
Abbot Gozbert as "my sweetest son," because the abbey
of St. Gall lay in the diocese of Constance, not Basel, and
therefore Haito was not his direct superior.[78] It is true that
even after it was granted manorial independence, in 816,
the monastery of St. Gall remained under the ecclesiastical
jurisdiction of the See of Constance, but the contention
that only the direct superior could address an abbot in this
manner is not based on historical evidence. Whatever the
boundaries of his diocese, in the hierarchy of the church,
the bishop held the higher rank.[79]

To be sure, Haito was not the only bishop in the empire
of Louis the Pious to hold an episcopate and an abbacy at

[ILLUSTRATION]

3. PLAN OF ST. GALL
HOUSE FOR HORSES & OXEN & THEIR KEEPERS

Detail showing writing of both scribes

the same time—there were few in fact who did not.[80] But
as abbot of Reichenau, Haito was a close neighbor of Abbot
Gozbert of St. Gall and therefore unquestionably well
acquainted with him.

None of the other contenders for authorship of the Plan
of St. Gall have these qualifications. Einhard was trained at
Fulda and in the palace school at Aachen, and while as the
emperor's personal friend and adviser he played a prominent
role at the court, he never rose to a church position
higher than that of abbot.[81] The name of Gerungus, who
held the rank of an ostiarius at the Palace of Aachen, has
never been taken seriously by any student of the Plan,
apart from its original proponent, and was convincingly
refuted in 1884 by Joseph Neuwirth.[82] Hrabanus Maurus,
the famed abbot of Fulda, was trained in the schools of
Fulda and Tours, and rose to the rank of bishop only
toward the end of his life, in 847.[83] Abbot Ansegis of
St.-Wandrille was trained in St.-Wandrille and possibly at
the palace school of Aachen.[84] Bishop Frotharius of Toul,
the only one besides Bishop Haito of Basel who would have
qualified by virtue of rank, was schooled in the monastery
of Gorze.[85] Reginbertus, lastly, the headmaster of the
school of Reichenau, who would have qualified by virtue
of his training, stood in no relation to Abbot Gozbert that
would justify the address dulcissime fili.[86] This leaves
Bishop Haito of Basel as the only reasonable choice among
all the persons proposed as makers of the Plan.

Moreover, new weight was added to this view in 1957 by
Bernhard Bischoff's careful paleographical analysis of the
textual annotations of the Plan, which showed that the
explanatory titles were written in the monastery of
Reichenau.

[ILLUSTRATION]

4. PLAN OF ST. GALL
NORTH PORCH OF WESTERN PARADISE

First three lines by second scribe, last three lines by main scribe

[77]

Ibid.

[78]

Reinhardt, 1952, 16-17.

[79]

The jurisdictional authority of the bishop over the abbot had been
established by St. Benedict of Nursia in chapters 62, 64, and 65 of his
Rule (see Benedicti regula, ed. Hanslik, 1960, 144ff; ed. McCann, 1952,
140ff; ed. Steidle, 1952, 302ff) and was continually reasserted in the
Middle Ages despite unceasing attempts on the part of the abbots to free
themselves from episcopal control. See the pertinent remarks on the
episcopate and monachism in Hauck, II, 1912, 58ff, 241ff.

[80]

Cf. Hauck's informative remarks on this subject, ibid., 208.

[81]

For a brief review of Einhard's career, see von Schubert, 1921,
742-43. Einhard was a lay abbot, and does not seem to have received
even the lower orders. That he, only an abbot, could not have used the
address dulcissime fili to another person of the same rank had already been
pointed out by Digot (1853, 128). To this argument I have added the
observation that the standard formula used by Einhard in addressing
other abbots always ended with the words "Einhard the Sinner"
(Horn, in Studien, 1962, 107, note 21). The collection of Einhard's letters
(by Hampe in Mon. Germ. Hist., Ep. V, 1899, 105-45) contains one
letter addressed to Abbot Gozbert of St. Gall (ibid., 129, No. 39). Its
opening line reads: "Religioso Christi famulo Gozberto venerabili Abbati
E[hinhartas] P[eccator]." This has a ring quite different from the
dulcissime fili of the author of the transmittal note of the Plan of St. Gall.
For a more complete account on Einhard, see the works discussed by
Francois L. Ganshof, 1924.

[82]

Neuwirth, 1884, 14-15.

[83]

For a brief review of the life of Abbot Hrabanus Maurus, see von
Schubert, 1921, 731-33.

[84]

See Gesta abbatum Fontanellensium; ed. Loenwenfeld, 1886, 49; and
the more recent edition of Lohier-Laporte, Gesta SS. Patr. Font. Coenobii,
1936, 92ff. Ansegis, born around 770, entered the monastery of St.Wandrille
at the time of Abbot Geroaldus (787-806), a relative of his,
who introduced him to the palace ("Denique, tenente locum regiminis huius
coenobii Geroaldo abbate, propinquo suo, hoc accessit monasterium tonsuramque
capitis ab eo suscipit. Denique non multo post ad palatium eum perducens,
in manus gloriosissimi regis Karoli commendare studuit.") For further information
on Abbot Ansegis, see the article by P. Fournier, "Anségise," in
DHGE, III, 1914, cols. 447-48 and the translation of the Constitution of
Ansegis by Charles W. Jones, III, Addendum II, 125.

[85]

See Gesta episcoporum Tullensium; ed. Waitz, VIII, 1848, 637, and
the article "Frothaire," in Chevalier, I, 1905, col. 1621.

[86]

Dopsch's suggestion of "Gozbert's aged teacher, Reginbertus of
Reichenau" has been convincingly refuted, in my opinion, by Beyerle
(1925, 82), who proved that there is no evidence that Gozbert received his
training at the school of Reichenau. While it is conceivable—although
perhaps not very likely—that a teacher, as pater spiritualis (a possibility
that Father Iso Müller had brought to the attention of the International
Symposium at St. Gall in 1957), might continue to use the address
dulcissime fili even after his former pupil had risen to the rank of abbot,
this would be applicable to Reginbertus of Reichenau only, of course, if
it could be established that Gozbert had been his pupil.

University of Virginia Library

I. 4

THE MAKER OF THE PLAN: BISHOP HAITO OF BASEL?

I.4.1

OTHER CONTENDERS & OTHER VIEWS

I.4.2

HAITO: THE MOST REASONABLE CHOICE

3. PLAN OF ST. GALL HOUSE FOR HORSES & OXEN & THEIR KEEPERS

4. PLAN OF ST. GALL NORTH PORCH OF WESTERN PARADISE

THE MAKER OF THE PLAN:
BISHOP HAITO OF BASEL?

HAITO:
THE MOST REASONABLE CHOICE

3. PLAN OF ST. GALL
HOUSE FOR HORSES & OXEN & THEIR KEEPERS

4. PLAN OF ST. GALL
NORTH PORCH OF WESTERN PARADISE