LIKELIHOOD OF HILDEBOLD'S INVOLVEMENT
IN ORIGINAL SCHEME
My own analysis of the Plan of St. Gall and its relation
to the monastic reform movement[174]
has made a good case
for the assumption that someone, or some group, at
Aachen had been charged with the responsibility of working
out a master plan which was to show how the resolutions
taken by the assembled abbots and bishops about monastic
life and ritual reflected themselves in the physical layout
of an exemplary monastery. Bishop Hildebold, or someone
close to him, may have been in charge of this project. The
emphasis that it gives to houses used for the reception of
visitors—and in particular to the reception of the emperor
and his court—[175]
makes one want to assign it conceptually
to a man who grew up in the time of Charlemagne rather
than in the time of Louis the Pious. These facilities are
treated with special care, if not a touch of lavish attention,
and give the impression of being devised by a man who
was not only thoroughly familiar with the architectural
needs of the traveling emperor, but also sufficiently convinced
of the unison of regnum and sacerdotium in the
office of the sovereign to justify the inclusion of that much
space for his reception on the hallowed grounds of a
monastery.
We do not know to what extent the prototype plan was
formally approved at Aachen. It may have been discussed
and endorsed in toto. Or it may have been accepted with
certain specific reservations. Some issues, as we have seen,
were controversial.[176]
It was Boeckelmann who first expressed the intriguing
view that at the two synods of Aachen, two parties were
wrestling about the aims of the future reform of the church:
an "old guard" who had reached the peak of their career
under Charlemagne and were now gradually dying out,
and another group of men who supported St. Benedict of
Aniane in his advocacy of more constrictive reforms.[177]
My
own studies of Bishop Haito's commentary to the preliminary
acts of the first synod[178]
and Semmler's analysis
of the antagonistic views held by such men as Abbot
Adalhard of Corbie (who was put into exile before the
synods started)[179]
have confirmed this view. There is good
cause to believe that among the various topics that were
subject to controversy at Aachen—such as the permissibility
of baths,[180]
the issue of whether there should be a
secular school in the monastery,[181]
and the delicate problem
of where the abbot should sleep and eat—[182]
was also the
question of the optimal length of the church.
In 817 Abbot Ratgar of Fulda was deposed from his
abbacy by Emperor Louis the Pious, apparently on the
ground that Abbot Ratgar, in erecting at Fulda the largest
church then existing north of the Alps (321 feet long and
100 feet wide), had taxed the brothers' physical and mental
resources beyond endurance, ruined the monastery's
economy, and shortened the lectio divina, neglected the
traditional hospitality due pilgrims and other guests, and
forced the monks to violate time-honored customs in
many other ways.[183]
These events show clearly enough that
the issue of what the desirable length of a monastic church
should be was very much alive at the time of the synods.
It is quite possible, therefore, that the reduction of the
length of the Church of the Plan of St. Gall from 300 feet
(shown in the drawing) to 200 feet, as stipulated in one of
its explanatory titles is, as Boeckelmann suggested, not the
expression of a change of spirit that occurred between the
time when an original scheme was drawn (816-817) and
the time when the copy was made (around 820), but a
corrective measure imposed upon the original scheme
when it was discussed and endorsed at Aachen.[184]
In
adopting this change in his copy, Bishop Haito did not
take it upon himself to alter the drawing. He retraced the
layout of the prototype plan as he found it on the original
drawing.
