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 |  |
V.4.3
UNCERTAINTIES ABOUT THE ROOF
Up to this point, we are on relatively safe ground. The
problem becomes more delicate as we turn from the supporting
members of the roof to the design of the roof itself.
Admittedly all the material evidence that has been brought
to light so far remains confined to those portions of the
building which stuck in the ground or reached vertically
from the floor level of the excavated house to an optimal
height of about 5 to 6 feet—as much as was buried in the
mound of earth and manure that was heaped upon the floor
of an abandoned house when a settlement had to be reconstructed
on higher ground because of the rising water
level. The roofs that lay above this survival level have
vanished entirely and so far no one has been lucky enough
to find a portion sufficiently large and sufficiently well
preserved to obtain some real assurance of the detail of its
constructional make-up. It is quite obvious that the two
rows of freestanding inner posts must have been connected
lengthwise and crosswise by means of plates and tie beams.
Without such connections the supporting frame could not
have withstood the load and thrust of the roof, and especially
not in those cases where the post stood not in the ground
but on stones or masonry bases[190]
—but whether the crossbeams
lay beneath the longitudinal timbers or above them
must remain conjecture. Wholly inexplicable, on the basis
of the archaeological material available at this date, is the
design of the roof itself.
Fortunately, however, this gap in the surviving body of
material evidence can be closed by the architectural historian
of the Middle Ages, who can adduce as supplementary
evidence the record of a group of aisled medieval halls
and barns in timber whose roofs survive.
335. ALBRECHT DÜRER. THE VILLAGE OF KALKREUTH
WATERCOLOR. CA. 1500, KUNSTHALLE, BREMEN BY COURTESY OF THE KUNSTHALLE, BREMEN
ORIGINAL 31.4CM WIDE, 21.6 CM HIGH
Most of the rural architecture of medieval Germany and the medieval Lowlands was destroyed in the ravages of the Thirty Years' War
(1618-1648) but its visual likeness and setting was recorded before that holocaust with great descriptive accuracy in superb watercolors by Dürer
(1471-1528), and in engravings after Peter Breugel the Elder (1525?-1569).
Settlements such as Kalkreuth, and the unnamed Dutch village shown at the right were, as architectural concepts and by their practical function
of virtually the same cast as the hamlet of Ezinge, itself some 1800-1900 years their elder, a reconstruction of which is shown in figure 295.
In all these settlements some of the houses were used to store the harvest, others for the accommodation under one roof of man and beasts.
The earliest surviving structures of this type date from the end of the fifteenth century, but the tradition remained unbroken. The Dutch and
German Lowlands are replete with buildings dating from the 17th and 18th centuries in which the former and his family live and sleep, even
today, under the same roof with the cattle and the harvest—hardly differing in some respects from the way their ancestors had done in the
medieval and protohistoric buildings discussed on p. 23ff.
Jan Jans's Landelijke Bouwkunst in Oost-Nederland, Enschede, 1967, is a fine record of this building tradition and a masterpiece of
architectural drafting. Das Bauernhaus im Deutschen Reich und seinem Grenzgebiete, 1906 (Verband Deutscher Architekten
und Ingenieurvereine) is a primary source for study of rural architecture in Germany. Helm, Das Bauernhaus im Gebiet der freien
Reichstadt Nurnberg, Berlin, 1940, has good architectural analysis of the south German material.
336. ENGRAVING AFTER PETER BRUEGEL THE ELDER. LANDSCAPE NO. 13 OF THE SEQUENCE
MULTIFARIARUM CASULARUM RURIUMQUE LINEAMENTA. PUBLISHED BY HIERONYMUS COCK IN 1559
[COPYRIGHT BIBLIOTHÉQUE ROYAL DE BELGIQUE, BRUSSELS]
ORIGINALS IN SERIES VARY, 14.2-14.7CM HIGH, 19.3-22.0CM WIDE
337. HUSTERKNUPP, LOWER RHINE VALLEY,
GERMANY [after Herrnbrodt, 1958, fig. 74]
In the 9th century this was the form of the main dwelling in the ancestral castle of the
counts of Hochstaden. The posts were preserved to the level of the eaves. The walls
were formed by vertical boards slotted into sill and wall plates
338. STELLERBERG, DITHMARSCHEN, GERMANY
[after Rudolf, 1942, Pl. 7]
This reconstruction of House 3 of a 9th-century fortified settlement shows a gable wall
of horizontal boards slotted into vertical posts and a truss-and-purlin roof assembly
covered with thatching.
| The Plan of St. Gall | |