REINLE, 1963-4
Reinle's reasons for questioning the conceptual homogeneity
of the Plan were of an entirely different order. In
his analysis of the dimensional incongruities between the
Church as it is shown on the Plan and the measurements
listed in some of its explanatory titles,[215]
he had come to the
disconcerting conclusion that the drafter of the scheme
made use of no fewer than three different scales:
1. A foot equivalent to 34.0 cm., which determined the
dimensions of the Church and the Cloister.[216]
2. A foot equivalent to 29.2-29.7 cm., used in the
construction of the Novitiate and the Infirmary.[217]
3. A foot equivalent to 30.0 cm., used in the planning
of the guest and service structures of the monastery, as
well as of the Monks' Cemetery and Garden.[218]
These findings, Reinle concludes, show that the Plan is
composed of heterogeneous parts, compiled from several
disparate sources.[219]
I am venturing to add to Reinle's three scales as a fourth
possibility the conjecture that all of his calculations are
wrong. They are advanced not on the basis of a thorough
and exhaustive scale analysis of the Plan, but on the simple
assumption that certain key dimensions of the Plan—such
as the length of the Church or the width of the Cloister
Yard—correspond to certain demarcations on a straightedge
graduated in Carolingian feet, the precise value of
which is unknown. Reinle observed correctly that the
40-foot width of the nave of the Church corresponds to
6.7-6.8 cm.[220]
This he considers to be the equivalent of
one fifth of a Carolingian foot: 33.5-34.0 cm. Here again
he allows himself to be trapped in an anachronism. The
medieval foot, as will be amply stressed, was not divided
into fifths but into twelfths.[221]
Reinle's reason for believing
that the large building to the east of the Church, which
contains the Novitiate and the Infirmary, was drawn on a
scale different from that used in the layout of the Church
is that none of the principal internal parts of the Novitiate
and the Infirmary can be understood as a fraction of the
Carolingian foot of 34.0 cm.[222]
The answer to this is very
simple. It cannot—because Reinle's reconstitution of the
Carolingian foot used for his construction of the Church is
wrong. The same criticism can be extended to the other
deviational scale that Reinle believed he recognized in the
layout of the guest and service structures of the Plan of
St. Gall.
Reinle's attempt to question the conceptual homogeneity
of the Plan of St. Gall appears no more convincing than
those of Reinhardt and Poeschel. It is also no less distressing.
Like them it violates, on inadequate grounds, the very spirit
of the historical forces that produced the Plan.
