University of Virginia Library

I.13.5

WATERWAYS

The availability of a good water supply was a prime condition
for the proper functioning of a monastic settlement.
This was expressed in unmistakable terms by St. Benedict[270]
and can be inferred from countless later accounts of the
selection of suitable sites for new monastic settlements.

Most monasteries were built in the immediate vicinity of
a stream. When, toward the middle of the sixth century,
Cassiodorus the Senator founded the monastery of
Vivarium near his ancestral home of Scyllacium, in
Calabria, Italy, he established it on the river Pellena,
deflected its flow so that it brought drink to the brothers,
serviced the monastery's garden and mills, and filled the
ponds (vivaria) for the stocking and breeding of fish.[271] In
like manner, during the reign of King Pepin (751-768),
when Count Wilbertus and Countess Ada searched for an
appropriate site for the new monastery of Lièssies, they
gave primary consideration to the availability of "water for
the running of the mill, the serving of the bakery, kitchen,

garden, and the other monastic workshops."[272] Even the
hermits were dependent on a good supply of water. St. Gall,
in 612, established himself with full deliberation at the side
of a pool which nature had carved beneath a waterfall of
the river Steinach, in Switzerland, and which he had found
to abound in fish. And a century later when this cell of the
Irish missionary was converted into a cenobitic monastery
by Abbot Otmar (719-759) it was—again deliberately—
erected at the side of this stream.[273] Elaborate waterworks
are known to have been installed by Sturmi (744-799) in
the monastery of Fulda to provide the brothers with drinking
water and to create the required slope for the sluices
which carried the water to the mills.[274]

In general the water required for the sustenance of the
community and the operation of its water-driven works was
diverted from this stream at the upper side of the monastery,
conveyed to the monastic workshops through a carefully
constructed system of flues, and then directed back to
the bed of the stream at a lower level, carrying with it all
of the monastery's waste. In many English abbeys of the
twelfth and thirteenth centuries, where the buildings themselves
have disappeared, the course of the waterways is now
completely exposed, and can be studied under ideal conditions.[275]
When a stream of running water was not available
nearby, the supply had to be brought in from a distant
source by means of an aqueduct.[276]

Such a system of aqueducts existed at the Canterbury
monastery and is depicted on two large sheets of parchment,
now inserted (with somewhat trimmed margins) into the
famous Canterbury Psalter of the Library of Trinity
College, Cambridge.[277] Drawn around 1165, probably by
Wibert (d. 1167) who engineered the system, these drawings
(one of which is shown in fig. 52.A) trace the course of
the water from its source in the surrounding countryside
through five settling tanks—located in cornfields, vineyards,
and orchards—to a circular conduit house; thence,
through a passage in the city walls into the precinct of the
monastery itself. There is branches out into several separate
subterranean systems serving the monastic houses and
workshops, and finally it empties into the large sewers from
which the waste is carried into the town ditch.[278]

A literary parallel to this depiction of a medieval monastic
water system is to be found in Book II of the Vita prima
sancti Bernardi, written in 1153 by Arnold of Benneval,
who refers to the reconstruction of the monastery of Clairvaux
after St. Bernard's return from Rome in 1133 and the
construction of its waterworks as follows:

The Plan of St. Gall nowhere suggests the existence of
any waterways. But it would be incorrect to infer from this
that the availability of water and its distribution throughout
the various monastic shops and houses was not a factor of
first importance in establishing their sites. The majority of
the privies are so placed that wastes can be sluiced through
straight channels, and the water-driven mills and mortars
are located at the monastery's edge, where water of an
adjacent stream was apt to be within easy reach. All other
shops and houses are placed in such a manner as to tie them
without difficulty into a logical and simple water system.

Figure 53 shows how easily a well-planned system of
waterways could be superimposed upon the Plan of St.
Gall.

[ILLUSTRATION]

52.A PLAN OF A WATERWORKS:

CANTERBURY, CHRISTCHURCH MONASTERY

[by courtesy of the Trustees of Trinity Library, Cambridge]

This plan of Christchurch waterworks, together with a supplementary and unfinished
plan of the extra-mural parts of the same waterworks, is inserted as a foreign leaf in
the famous Canterbury Psalter (Cambridge, Trinity College Library, ms. 110, fols. 284b
and 285). The plan dates around 1165 and was probably drawn by Wibert (d. 1167).
It is reproduced here slightly reduced from its original size of 11⅝″ × 16⅝.

For a detailed description and a brilliant analysis of the principles of delineation used in
making this extraordinary drawing, see Willis, 1868, 158ff and 176ff. Additional
literature is cited in James, 1935, 53.

[ILLUSTRATION]

52.B PLAN OF A WATERWORKS: AN INTERPRETATION

CANTERBURY, CHRISTCHURCH MONASTERY

[analysis by Willis, 1868, modified by Wysuph, Horn, Born, 1975]

[ILLUSTRATION]

52.C DESCENT BY GRAVITY FROM SUPPLY SOURCE
AT A HIGHER LEVEL TO TERMINAL
DEBOUCHEMENT

The delineation of Christchurch Monastery tells more as pictorial representation, and
of architectural appearance, than it reveals of functional building planning: waterways
shown are schematic. The document shows a water source on high ground, east of the
Monastery, flowing through five (settling?) tanks in cornfields, vineyards, and orchards,
through the monastery wall to Laver I (east cloister), thence to Laver II (Great
Cloister), thence returning on the east to Laver III. This waterway, with Lavers I,
II, III, may be taken as the primary supply system (solid blue line in Plan and
Diagram). Three secondary branches (segmented blue line) are designated on Plan
and Diagram as 1, 2, 3.

Branch 1 leaves the main line between Lavers I and II, flows southward to a
cemetery fountain, then on to debouche in the Piscina. Branch 2 flows northward
from Laver II to a point south of the Brewery where it turns abruptly eastward to
serve the monk's bathhouse, then flows southward to a tank or catchbasin (M) on the
drainage line (solid red line). Branch 3, departing where Branch 2 flows eastward,
serves the Brewery. A short eastward leg serves the Bakery, a short westward leg, the
Abbot's House. From Laver III, at the end of a short extension eastward, the
primary line terminates, draining into the Piscina (blue dotted line).

In addition to the potable supply system a scheme of drainage (red), more or less
polluted, is discernible. Originating in the Great Cloister, it descends southward and
terminates beyond the walls on the north.

The interpretation (figs. 52.B, 52.C) assumes that the drainage line (red), descending in
a short arc from Vestiarium to abut the roof line on the infirmary complex, continues
directly northward through or under the structure to join the drainage system (from
Piscina and tank M) at or near the Infirmary toilets; thus, non-potable water never
comes in contact with the Piscina.