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

There is an interesting ornamental detail on the Plan of
St. Gall which suggests that the prototype plan might,
indeed, have been drawn by a hand that was trained in the
scriptorium of the court of Charlemagne, namely the
"tendril"-shaped design which designates the trees in
the Monks' Cemetery (fig. 17).[185] This motif has close
parallels in a group of sumptuously illuminated manuscripts
formerly designated as "Ada School" (after the
legendary donor of one of its principal manuscripts) but now
generally ascribed to the Court School.[186] The motif appears
first in the Godescalc Gospels, the earliest richly illuminated
manuscript of the group, written and illuminated
by the monk Godescalc (781-783) upon the request of
Charlemagne (fig. 18).[187] There one also finds its classical
prototype form (fig. 19). It reappears in the canon arches
of the Ada Gospels, written around 800 by a certain "Ada
Ancilla Dei," reputed to have been a sister of Charlemagne
(fig. 20).[188] It is found again in the canon arches of the
Harley Gospels (fig 21),[189] and the Gospels of St. Medard de
Soissons,[190] both from the beginning of the ninth century,
as well as in various places of the Lorsch Gospels (figs. 22
and 23), one of the latest and most illustrious manuscripts
of the Court School, written and illuminated around 810,
presumably upon the request of Charlemagne (now in
part in Alba Julia, Roumania, Bibliotheca Documentara
Batthyaneum; in part in the Vatican Library, Pal. lat. 50).[191]

The motif does not appear to be common to any of the
other major schools of the period.[192] I am tempted to
ascribe the drawing of the prototype plan to a man who
was trained in the tradition of the Court School. For
reasons already given, this man must have worked in close
association with Bishop Hildebold of Cologne, who as
sacri palatii arcicapellanus (a title which he held from
791 to the day of his death in 819) continued to remain,
even under the reign of Louis the Pious, the highest
ranking churchman in the empire. More evidence in favor
of the supposition that the original scheme of the Plan was
developed by someone close to the imperial court is to be
found in the striking similarities between the geometrical
square-grid pattern used in the dimensional layout of the
Plan with those which were employed, almost two decades
earlier, in the layout of the palace grounds at Aachen.[193]

There is no reason to assume that the scheme of the
prototype plan differed in any appreciable manner from
that of the copy. The very fact that the copy was made by
tracing precludes this. Even the textual annotations must
have been an integral part of the original, since without
them, the purpose of a great number of buildings of
virtually identical design would have remained incomprehensible.[194]
Clearly not part of the original plan, of course,
were the letter of transmission and the inscription of the
main altar of the Church, which relate to the specific
purpose of the copy.[195]

[ILLUSTRATION]

ADA GOSPELS (BEGINNING OF 9TH CENT.)

20.A

20.B

TRIER. Municipal Library, Codex 22, fol. 6v [photo: Ann Münchow]

Details of two columns of canon table (figures 183 and 184,
below, also illustrate portions of the Ada Gospels).

[ILLUSTRATION]

21. HARLEY GOSPELS

LONDON, British Museum, Harley Ms. 2788, fol. 9r

Early 9th cent.

[by courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum]

Detail, columns of canon tables.

Stylistically the illuminations of this manuscript lie midway between
those of the Ada Gospels (fig. 20) and those of the Gospels of
St. Medard of Soissons, all of which precede the Lorsch Gospels.
The Godescalc Gospels (figs. 18-19) can be dated with accuracy;
the others are datable only on stylistic grounds.

[ILLUSTRATION]

22. LORSCH GOSPELS

BUCHAREST, National Library (formerly Alba Julia, Roumania), fol. 71r

about 810.

[after Braunfels, 1967, 141]

Detail from text of St. Matthew Gospels.

In the frames of the text columns of the Lorsch Gospels the tendril
motif appears, in linear form as on the Plan of St. Gall, on at least
eighteen different folios, besides numerous variations and enrichments
on other folios including the more plantlike classical prototype form.

[ILLUSTRATION]

23. LORSCH GOSPELS

BUCHAREST, National Library (formerly Alba Julia, Roumania), fol. 10v

ca. 810

[after Braunfels, 1967, 20]

Detail of the fifth canon arch.

The churchman in charge of the technical and aesthetic execution of the prototype plan (816-817) was trained at the so called "Court
School"—a scriptorium that flourished in the emperor's entourage. It produced a magnificent series of sumptuously illustrated manuscripts in
which decorative motifs of the preceding Hiberno-Saxon school of illumination (7th and 8th centuries) fused with classical tradition under the
influence of a new group of Romano-Christian and Romano-Byzantine manuscripts that must have found their way to the emperor's court.
The Godescalc Gospels is the earliest known manuscript of this school. It was executed between 771 and 773, at Charlemagne's request, by the
scribe Godescalc, a member of the emperor's following.

The illustrious manuscripts produced by the Court School during the next four decades included the Ada Gospels, the Harley Gospels, and the
Gospels of St. Medard. The work of the school reached an aesthetic height in the Lorsch Gospels. Written and illuminated around 810, and
kept during the Middle Ages in the monastery of Lorsch, it was done entirely in gold and includes, besides the twelve canon arches, portraits of
the four evangelists and a striking image of Christ in Majesty at the beginning of Matthew.

At some unknown time after the Middle Ages, the Lorsch Gospels were separated into two parts. The Gospels of Mark and Matthew, were
transmitted to the Biblioteca Documentaria Bathyaneum and were eventually moved to the National Library, Bucharest; the Gospels of Luke
and John came to be held by the Vatican Library.

At the Council of Europe exhibition, KARL DER GROSSE (Aachen, 1965), the two parts of the Lorsch Gospels were re-united for the first time
in centuries, and subsequently published in a superb facsimile edition, under the editorship of Wolfgang Braunfels.

The union between classical illusionism and northern linearism that characterizes the style of Court School manuscripts has its parallel in
architecture in the modular reorganization of the monolithic spaces of the Early Christian basilica, the nature and cultural significance of
which is analyzed below in our discussion of square schematism (pp. 221ff).

[ILLUSTRATION]

24.A THE PLAN OF ST. GALL

The drawing above illustrates how the large skin upon which the Plan is drawn is composed of an aggregate of five separate pieces of calfskin
which, after being sewn together, form a drawing surface 113 cm high × 78 cm wide, a size impossible to obtain from the hide of a single animal.
Our interpretation of the manner in which these skins were sewn together is given in the analysis of details reproduced and annotated on the
pages that follow.

Figure 24.B (page 36) shows in shaded tones the locations of these details.

[185]

For more details on the Monks' Cemetery, see II, 21.

[186]

For a recent review of the manuscripts of the Court School, see
Mütherich, 1965, 9-53.

[187]

For the Godescalc Gospels, see Koehler, text vol. III, 1958, 22ff.

[188]

For the Ada Gospels, see ibid., 34ff and 83ff.

[189]

For the Harley Gospels, see ibid., 56ff.

[190]

For the Soissons Gospels, see ibid., 70ff.

[191]

For the Lorsch Gospels, see ibid., 88ff and the magnificent facsimile
edition published by Wolfgang Braunfels in 1967.

[192]

It found its way into the Utrecht Psalter (Utrecht, University
Library, written during the episcopate of Archbishop Ebo, 806-835).
In this manuscript, however, the motif is only used as a designation for
vines, never for trees. For a typical example see the illustration to Psalm
LXVI (67), which shows two vines, each attached to a stake at the side of
a tree (De Wald, n.d., Pl. CXII).

[193]

Eight of the guest and service buildings are of virtually identical
design. Of these one might be able to identify, by the type of their
furnishings and the presence of facilities for cooking, baking and brewing,
the House for Distinguished Guests and the Hospice for Pilgrims and
Paupers. The purpose of the others would be undeterminable without
explanatory titles.

[194]

See above, pp. 9ff and below, pp. 139ff.

[195]

For evidence to support this conjecture see our remarks in "Confirming
Evidence: The Palace Grounds at Aachen," below, pp. 104ff.