University of Virginia Library

II

THE
MONASTERY CHURCH

II. 1

DESCRIPTION

INTRODUCTION

THE Church of the Plan of St. Gall (figs. 82, 84, 93, and 99) is an aisled cruciform structure with an apse at either
end, an eastern and western paradise, and two detached round towers on its entrance side. Its most remarkable
feature, historically, apart from its length, is the fact that its layout is based on a system of squares that bears
startling resemblance to the so-called square schematism of the German Romanesque. This system is here carried
out with a logic and consistency unparalleled in any of the Carolingian churches actually constructed, with the sole
exception, possibly, of the cathedral and monastery church that Archbishop Hildebold (d. 819) built at Cologne
sometime after the year 800 (figs. 16-18).[1]

The Church measures 300 feet from apse to apse.[2] Its nave and transept have the same width, 40 feet, and thus
their area of intersection, the crossing, forms a square. The fore choir and two transept arms repeat the dimensions
of the crossing square, and the dimensions of the nave are so arranged as to cover a surface area of exactly four-and-one-half
times the size of the crossing square. The width of the aisles, 20 feet, is half the width of the nave (40 feet);
the interstices between the columns which support the clerestory wall on either side of the nave are spaced at intervals
of 20 feet on center.

The most striking feature to a modern visitor, were he able to enter this church, would be the many screens and
railings which divide the interior into separate areas for worship (figs. 82, 84, 93, and 99). In the time of Constantine
the Great, the Christian house of worship had only one altar, and its nave and aisles were so arranged
architecturally that the entering crowd could move from the entrances to the altar in a straight, continuous movement
that paralleled the columnar rhythm of the arcades supporting its walls (fig. 81). No barriers blocked the path
of those proceeding to the altar until they reached the chancel railing, which screened off the space for the officiating
clergy. By contrast, the Church of the Plan of St. Gall is furnished with seventeen altars (nineteen, if we add the
altars of its towers), but except for a narrow passage in each aisle by which the pilgrims gain access to the tomb of
St. Gall in the crypt, only one-sixth of the entire surface area of the Church is open to laymen (fig. 82): a portion
of the nave of the Church, 40 feet wide and 110 feet long, extending from the second pair of columns to halfway

beyond the seventh pair. The western half of this space is reserved for the performance of baptismal rites; the
eastern half for services held for pilgrims, and for the Monastery's serfs and workmen. All the remaining portions of
the Church—transept, presbytery, the terminal bays of the nave, most of the aisles, and the two apses—are screened
off for exclusive use by the monks and their clergy.

II.1.1

APPROACH

The official approach to the Church, which is also the only
legitimate access to the Monastery grounds, is a road 25 feet
wide and 145 feet long. This road is coaxial with the Church
and intersects, to the west of it, the large tract of land that
accommodates the houses for the monastic livestock and
their keepers, and the houses for servants and knights who
travel in the emperor's following (fig. 83). The road is
identified by a distich written in capitalis rustica:

There must have been other entrances to the service yards
for the passage of livestock, for hauling in the harvest and
wine on wagons or carts, and for the delivery of tithes from
outlying estates, but these passageways were not open to
pilgrims. Since the Plan does not tell us anything about the
outer wall enclosure, we do not know where such entrances
might have been. As the yards that lie to the west of the
Church are completely surrounded by fences, the Monastery
may not have required an outer gate.

II.1.2

ATRIUM

The gate to the Monastery is a large semicircular atrium,
which lies immediately west of the Church (fig. 84). This
installation comes under the jurisdiction of the Porter
(portarius) and the master of the paupers (procurator pauperum).
It is provided with three porches, in which the
visitors are received and screened for dispersion to their
respective quarters. The first of these three porches faces
west and carries the inscription:

The other two, facing south and north, lie at the ends of the
atrium. The one to the north gives access to the grounds of
the House for Distinguished Guests and the Outer School.
It is inscribed with a distich that reads:

Likewise the noble youth who attend the academic school.
The southern porch opens onto the grounds of the Hospice
for Pilgrims and Paupers and also serves as entryway for
the Monastery's serfs and workmen:

The lodgings of the porter and of the almoner are contiguous
to these porches. That of the porter abuts the
northern aisle of the Church, that of the almoner the
southern.[4]

The principal body of the atrium consists of a covered
semicircular gallery that gives access to the aisles of the
Church. The outer perimeter of this gallery is formed by a
solid wall; its inner perimeter consists of an open arcade
with arches rising from square piers. A hexameter inscribed
into the gallery in capitalis rustica states:

A title entered in the interstices of the arcades that support
the roof of the covered walk ascribes to them an inter-columniary
distance of 10 feet:

The gallery encloses concentrically an open plot of land
covered with grass, whose purpose is explained by another
hexameter, again in capitalis rustica:

II.1.3

TOWERS

Two doors in the outer atrium wall, placed midway
between the outer porch and the two inner porches give
access to two detached circular towers. Their diameter is
30 feet and their closest point lies at a distance of 7½ feet
from the outer atrium wall. Both towers are ascended by
winding stairs, suggested graphically by spirals and verbally
by an inscription in the northern tower (from the hand
of the main scribe) which reads: "Ascent by a spiral
staircase to survey the entire orbit [of the monastery] from
above" (ascensus per c·/·ocleam ad uniuersa super inspicienda).
A title in the southern tower (written by the same hand)
simply states: "another one of the same kind" (alter
similis). The northern tower has in its summit an altar
dedicated to the archangel Michael (in summitate altare sci
Michahelis archangeli), the southern tower, an altar dedicated
to archangel Gabriel (in fastigio altare sci Gabrihelis
archangeli). These last two titles are written by the hand
of the second scribe in such a pale shade of ink that they
are barely legible.[6]

CONNECTION WITH IRELAND?

The purpose of the two detached towers of the Plan of
St. Gall has been the subject of a considerable amount of
controversy. J. R. Rahn suggested a connection with the
round towers of Ireland (fig. 85).[7] But it appears that no
circular towers are known to have existed in Ireland early
enough to have been copied on the Plan of St. Gall.[8] Moreover,
there is nothing else in the architectural layout of the
Plan that would suggest any special ties with Ireland; and
the general trend of the monastic reform movement, to
which the Plan owes its existence, was away from the Irish
tradition rather than toward it.

CALL TOWERS OR FUNERARY LIGHT TOWERS?

Even more tenuous than the suggestion of an Irish
origin for the towers appears to me a theory recently
advanced by Hans Reinhardt,[9] who sketches a developmental
line leading to the towers of St. Gall from the
triumphal columns of Rome through the intermediary
forms of the Mohammedan minaret (fig. 86) and certain
funerary light towers (fig. 87), especially well-attested in
twelfth-century western France. Leaving entirely to one
side the question of the very doubtful connection of all these
disparate architectural entities, it must be stressed that
there is nothing in the Plan itself that would suggest that
the two towers of the Church were used either as call
towers, from which the monks sang their daily vigils and
announced the hours of prayer (in the sense in which this
was done in the Mohammedan ritual), or as light towers on
the top of which a lantern was lit at night in commemoration
of the dead. The author of the Plan is very specific.
The purpose of the towers, he tells us, is "to survey the
entire orbit [of the monastery] from above" (ad uniuersa
super inspicienda); this defines them as places of surveillance
—surveillance in the sense of "watch over approaching
danger." The use of the term uniuersa suggests that the
protective function of the towers was meant to extend
beyond the physical plant of the monastery; and the
patronage of the archangels Michael and Gabriel tends to
strengthen this view. Michael, through his defeat of
Lucifer, became the embodiment of the forces of light
prevailing over the powers of darkness; Gabriel was the
announcer of the human incarnation of the Saviour. Both
angels, through these accomplishments, became in a special
sense the protectors and guardians of the Church. All over
the Western world, St. Michael was venerated in sanctuaries
built on high-lying ground, on mountains, in the
upper stories of the western avant-corps of churches, or in
the steeples of towers. From there he pits himself against
the forces of darkness that rush against the House of the
Lord from the west.[10] On coins and in medieval manuscript
illuminations Rome and Jerusalem, the two terrestrial
counterimages of the City of God, were represented by a
gate flanked by two defending towers.[11] In like manner, on
the Plan of St. Gall, the Church is defended by its two
protective towers against the evil that rushes against it.

BELL TOWERS OR TOWERS OF DEFENSE
AND SURVEILLANCE?

It cannot be stressed with sufficient strength that the
explanatory titles associated with these towers fail to make
any reference to campana, signa, or tintinnabula; and for
that reason they cannot be interpreted as bell towers. On
purely historical grounds this would be a perfectly feasible
assumption. Bells set in motion with ropes, to mark the
various phases of the divine services or other festive events,
are mentioned at various places in the History of the
Franks of Gregory of Tours (d. 593/94). In the course of
the seventh and eighth centuries the evidence in contemporary
sources attesting their existence increases so
markedly that it can safely be assumed that they existed elsewhere.[12]

[ILLUSTRATION]

82. PLAN OF ST. GALL. PLAN OF CHURCH

Shaded areas distinguish parts of the Church accessible to monks,
and to laymen. Approaching by the access road (A) cutting through
the large service yard west of the Church, visiting pilgrims are
received by the Porter in a square porch (B) lying before the
semicircular atrium, and from there are directed through two more
porches (C, D), the poor to the Hospice for Pilgrims and Paupers,
the rich to the House for Distinguished Guests. Two passageways no
more than 7½ feet wide channel entering laymen through the aisles of
the Church, across the transept, to a U-shaped corridor crypt at
the end of which they may kneel before the tomb of St. Gall (E).
Two reserved areas in the nave allow them to hear sermons delivered
from the ambo (F), attend services celebrated at the altar of the
Savior at the Holy Cross (G), and participate in baptismal rites
conducted at the altar of SS John the Evangelist and John the
Baptist (H).

*

The pale red tint                 defines the area of the church proper. This, in
its totality was the province of the monk. Part of it he willingly shared with laymen
so that they also might be touched by mystery and deepened in faith. Those areas of the
church where layman and pilgrim were welcome and to which their movements were
restricted for enjoyment, contemplation, and prayer are indicated in a meandering
vignetted black stipple:

The pattern of circulation began at the Entry Porch, flowed along the aisles of
the church, passed by shrines and nave columns all with carved capitals supporting
arcades and walls above the arcades aglow with the color of painting. Then reaching
the crossing square, the circulation descended by stairs beneath apse and high altar
(dedicated to St. Mary and St. Gall) to the crypt passage where at point of climax,
illuminated by candle light, immersed in vibrant shadow, could be seen the tomb of St.
Gall.

This was moving theater and impressive, even to the sophisticated viewer. In such
a setting the Order of St. Benedict would gather momentum for centuries.

SCALE OF PLAN: 3/10 ORIGINAL SIZE (1:192 × 0.3 = 1:640)

[ILLUSTRATION]

83. PLAN OF ST. GALL

ACCESS ROAD TO CHURCH & MONASTERY GROUNDS

Yet the fact remains that the explanatory titles of
the towers of the Plan of St. Gall do not contain any suggestion
that they were meant to house bells; and there is
some doubt in my mind that any bells suspended in these
towers could have successfully fulfilled their function. The
use of these instruments implies an element of timing
which requires that the brother charged with the task of
ringing them be within sight or hearing of the officiating
priest.[13] Bell ringers stationed in the isolated towers of the
Church of the Plan of St. Gall could have neither seen nor
heard the priest.[14]

THE EIGHT-LOBED ROSETTE:
A STELLAR AND APOTROPAIC SYMBOL

One of the smaller unexplained motifs of the Plan of St.
Gall is the eight-lobed rosette that decorates the area in the
center of the two church towers which corresponds to the
open shaft of its stairs. The same motif appears on the two
poultry houses in connection with a circular "tower-like"
projection.[15] It has been interpreted in various ways, as
"being of no significance,"[16] as "indicating the conical
roof of the building, or its ornamental finial,"[17] and as
representing "the decorative design in the shingles which
cover the roof of the building."[18] None of these explanations
seems convincing. The motif, rather, belongs to an
old and widespread family of stellar symbols, the origins
of which reach back into antiquity. Eight- or six-lobed
rosettes, as symbols of the stellar nature of God, are a
common occurrence in Sumerian, Babylonian, Jewish, and
Roman art (fig. 88). The motif was quickly absorbed into
the Christian cult, as a reference to the celestial nature of
the new god, and subsequently became so closely associated
with the cross of Christ as to be practically interchangeable
with it (figs. 89 and 90).[19] The symbol placed its bearers
under the stellar protection of Christ, and through a
vernacular vulgarization of its original meaning eventually
assumed the role of a charm against lightning and fire, or
against disease affecting the health of livestock. The
symbol appears frequently in monastic medieval tithe
barns (fig. 91),[20] and survives to this very day in the
repertoire of decorative motifs, which are locally referred
to as "hex-signs," on numerous barns in the state of
Pennsylvania, in the United States of America (fig. 92).[21]

II.1.4

WESTERN APSE

ALTAR OF ST. PETER

The western apse (exedra) of the Church is dedicated to St.
Peter. Its floor is raised above the level of the nave by two
steps (gradus) and it is furnished with a wall bench which
follows the apse in its entire circumference. A square in the
center of the apse is designated as the altar of St. Peter by a
hexameter:

This location of the altar of St. Peter at the western end
of the Church, in counterposition to that of St. Paul at the
eastern end, is doubtlessly patterned after the churches of
these two primary apostles in Rome, where the altar of St.

[ILLUSTRATION]

84. PLAN OF ST. GALL, ATRIUM, TOWERS, AND WESTERN PART OF CHURCH

This layout, of consummate beauty and unique in its own period, has only one parallel in Early Christian architecture (fig. 161). The Church of
the Plan is preceded by a semicircular atrium surrounding an open pratellum, which is in turn flanked by two imposing circular towers built for symbolic
rather than functional purposes. There is no façade as in the great Early Christian prototype churches designed to receive huge metropolitan crowds.
The Church of the Plan of St. Gall is constructed for monks and—inward-turned—faces the outside world with a counter apse housing the altar
of St. Peter.

Peter's faced west, while the altar of St. Paul's faced east.[22]
The importance of the cult of St. Peter and St. Paul and the
close association with Rome that it suggests finds expression
in the fact that their altars are installed in the apses,
where they are second only to the high altar. They are
smaller than the high altar but larger than any of the other
altars, including the altar of the Holy Cross in the center of
the nave of the Church.

A further sign of distinction is that their function is
expressed in the form of a verse rather than the simple
word altare by which the altars in the transept and the nave
are designated. Poeschel's suggestion that the squares in the
two apses of the Church should be interpreted as "pulpits"
or "lecterns" rather than as altars appears to me untenable,
both in the light of their inscriptions[23] and in view of their
location. The apse is the place par excellence for altars.[24]
Moreover, the raised floor level, the semicircular wall
bench for the worshiping monks, and the carefully segregated
choir (chorus) in the two contiguous bays of the nave
have distinct eucharistic implications and would be meaningless
were they not connected liturgically with the rituals
performed at an altar (see fig. 84).

II.1.5

AISLES

The apse with the altar of St. Peter would not have been
readily accessible to visiting pilgrims and noblemen; on the
contrary, those who entered the Church at the two extreme
corners of the aisles found their progress blocked in the
nave by the choir of St. Peter, and in each of the aisles by
four altars, forcing them into a narrow passageway along
the arcades, through which they could move eastward to
gain access to the sanctuary in the crypt of the Church. The
altars of the aisles are located at intervals of 40 feet and are
carefully aligned with every second pair of nave columns.
Each of these altars is surmounted by a cross, shown in
horizontal projection. Each altar is enclosed by its own
chancel barrier that extends laterally toward the walls of
the church, thus dividing the floor space of the outer two-thirds
of the aisles into separate stations for worship.

The altars of the northern aisle, as we move west to east,
are dedicated as follows: the first one, jointly to SS. Lucia
and Cecilia (altar s̄c̄ cie & cecilie); the second, to the Holy
Innocents (altare scōr̄r̄ innocent); the third, to St. Martin
(altare sci martini); the fourth, to St. Stephen (altare s̄c̄
stephani mar̄). The dedications of the corresponding altars
in the southern aisle are: the first one, jointly to SS. Agatha
and Agnes (altare sctar agtae & agnet);[25] the second, to St.
Sebastian (altare sci sebastiani); the third, to St. Mauritius
(altare sci maricii); and the fourth, to St. Lawrence (altare
sancti laurenci). The names of these saints are written in
the barely legible pale-brown ink used by the second
scribe. The choice for the patrocinium of these altars, if
Father Iso Müller is correct,[26] was influenced by the layout
of the altars in the Abbey Church of St.-Riquier, and in
certain cases, where parallels with St.-Riquier cannot be
drawn, by the existence in the monastery of St. Gall of
relics not available elsewhere.

II.1.6

NAVE

The nave (figs. 84, 93 and 99) is 40 feet wide and 180 feet
long. Its clerestory rests on nine arcades, with columns
spaced at intervals of 20 feet on center. In three places
the nave is blocked in its entirety by cross partitions which
make it impossible for anyone at any point within the
nave to move in a straight line from the western apse to
the transept. The first of these screens connects the second
pair of columns; the second lies in line with the fifth pair;
and the third, midway between the seventh and eighth pair.
In addition, in three places, the nave is also railed off from
the aisles: in the third arcade, the sixth, and the last one-and-a-half
arcades. The spaces thus segregated isolate the
areas reserved for the monks from those accessible to the
laymen.

CHOIR OF ST. PETER

Between the two westernmost arcades of the nave an area
22½ feet wide and 32½ feet long is screened off to serve as a
choir (chorus) for the monks who chant before the altar of
St. Peter. The railing of this choir has a wide central
opening toward the altar of St. Peter, and two narrow
lateral passages at the opposite end. What such choir

[ILLUSTRATION]

85. MEDIEVAL ROUND TOWER, NORTHWEST CORNER OF CATHEDRAL

VALE OF GLENDALOUGH, WICKLOW, IRELAND

The Old Irish word for these towers, some of which rise to over 100 feet, is CLOIGTHEACH or "bell tower;" but the placement in most of them
of entrances well above ground level suggests they were used as places of refuge during attack. The earliest date from about 900.

screens looked like may be inferred from the surviving
choir and altar railings of the churches of Santa Sabina and
San Clemente in Rome, as well as from numerous fragments
of other screens of this type in Greek, Syrian, and
Palestinian churches. The arrangement is traditional. We
are showing as a typical example a reconstruction of the
presbytery of the Basilica of Thasos, Macedonia (fig. 94),
which also displays the Early Christian prototype for the
semicircular wall benches in the two apses of the Church
of the Plan of St. Gall.[27]

BAPTISMAL FONT AND ALTAR

The space between the first and second cross-partitions
of the nave serves as a baptistery. In the westernmost bay
is the baptismal font of the Church, and in the bay next to
it, an altar dedicated jointly to SS. John the Baptist and
John the Evangelist (altare sc̄ī iohannis & sc̄ī iohī euangelistae).
The baptismal font (fons) is marked by two concentric
circles and the hexameter:

Francis Bond interpreted these two rings as representing
"either a circular piscina or a circular font."[28] The first
proposition in this alternative must, I think, be abandoned.
Baptismal fonts constructed in the form of piscinae sunk
below the level of the pavement were common in Early
Christian times and during the period of conversion of the
barbaric tribes, when the majority of the people to be
baptized were adults. But in Carolingian times (with the
notable exception of the conversion of the Saxons, as Bond
himself points out),[29] the baptism of adults had become
unusual. Babies,[30] unable to stand upright, had to be dipped
into the water by the officiating priest and this could be
done successfully only if the water level were brought
within reasonable range of the priest as he bent over to
perform the ceremonial immersion of the child. The
elevated tub-shaped water font was the logical answer to
this need.

A convention of bishops held at the banks of the Danube
River in the summer of 796 reaffirmed an old ecclesiastical
directive according to which baptismal rites could be held
only at Pentecost and Easter, except in cases of extreme
urgency.[31] This may explain the large dimensions of the
font of the Plan of St. Gall, whose diameter runs over 6 feet.

That same convention took it for granted that the baptismal
rite should be performed "in a font, or some such
vessel, in which one can be immersed thrice in the name of
the Holy Trinity" (in fonte, vel tali vase, ubi in nomine
sanctae trinitatis trina mersio fieri possit).[32]

Baptismal fonts were in general made of stone, but a
directive issued in 852 by Bishop Hincmar of Reims orders
that "if a parish church cannot afford a baptismal font of
stone, it must provide for other suitable substitutes,"[33]
which can only refer to portable wooden tubs. A charming
picture of a baptismal rite performed in such a temporary
contrivance may be found in one of the marginal illuminations
of the Luttrell Psalter (fig. 95).[34] Circular fonts of
stone exist in many places; like the font of the Plan of St.
Gall, they usually are raised on a plinth. I show as typical
examples (fig. 96 and 97) a highly decorated font in the
church of Deerhurst, Gloucestershire, England, of pre-Conquest
date,[35] and a larger cylindrical font of around
1100 now in the possession of Dr. Peter Ludwig, Aachen.[36]

In the Middle Ages the baptismal font usually stood in
the northern aisle of the church close to the western
entrance.[37] The arrangement on the Plan of St. Gall where
the font is placed into the very axis of the church is unusual[38]
and probably owes its existence to the desire to
restrict the services for the laymen to the nave in order to
keep the aisles clear for the passage of the pilgrims who
wished to visit the tomb of St. Gall.

ALTAR OF THE SAVIOR AT THE CROSS & THE
PLACE OF WORSHIP FOR LAYMEN

The space between the second and third transverse partitions
of the nave serves as the parish church for the monastery's
serfs and tenants and as the place of worship for the
pilgrims and visitors. It contains between the sixth pair of
columns the altar of the Saviour at the Cross (altar
scī saluatoris ad crucem). This altar is surmounted by a large

[ILLUSTRATION]

86. TABRIZ, IRAN. RECONSTRUCTION AFTER PASCAL COSTE [after Saare, Denkmäler Persischer Baukunst, Berlin, 1901, 29, fig. 26]

The masjed i Kebud or Blue Mosque was built by Jehan Shah of the Kira Kuyumli dynasty (1437-1467). The mosque, now in ruins, is of a
type reaching far back to the early centuries of Mohammedism.

cross shown in horizontal projection, and has ascribed to it
the hexameter:

The cross rises 10 feet above the altar, and has a spread of
7½ feet. Altars in honor of the Holy Cross existed in the
abbey churches of Centula, Fulda, Corvey-on-the-Weser,
St. Vaast at Arras, the Cathedral of Le Mans, and at many
other places.[40] As in the Church of the Plan of St. Gall,
they were located in the axis of the church at a point lying
midway between the eastern and western ends of the
church.

AMBO

The last 1½ bays of the nave are again completely
screened off by railings. In the center of this enclosure,
which is accessible by two lateral passages from the west
and a central passage from the east, there rises a circular
pulpit (ambo) on a concentric plinth 10 feet in diameter,
from which "is recited the lesson of evangelic peace" (hic
euangelacae recitat' lectio pacis).

The Plan does not tell us from what side the ambo was
entered. But since it was from here that the abbot or
visiting bishop addressed the crowd congregated around
the altar of the Holy Cross, the lectern side of the ambo
must have been at the west, the entrance side at the east.
Pulpits of this kind were in use in Early Christian churches
from the fourth century onward.[41] They were of circular,
ovoid, or polygonal shape. A typical example from the
church of Hagia Sophia, in Salonica, now in the Museum
of Constantinople, is shown in figure 98.[42]

LECTERNS FOR READING

Further east of the ambo, yet within the same enclosure,
are "two lecterns for reading" (analogia duo ad legendū),
one to be used "at night" (in nocte), the other, by implication,
in the daytime. They are built against the railing that
separates the nave from the crossing and must have faced
eastward toward the place where the monks congregated.
The existence of these two lecterns suggests that the service
books which they supported were so large that they could
not be easily held in the hand. This holds true, practically
without exception, for the Carolingian Bibles and Psalters.[43]

II.1.7

TRANSEPT

The transept (fig. 99) is separated from nave and aisles by
screens that run across the entire width of the Church. It is
also divided internally into separate compartments by
means of longitudinal screens that separate the crossing
from the transept arms, and within the latter there is a
further separation of the areas reserved for the monks from

the passages that take the pilgrims through the transept into
the crypt. The monks and priests who seek access to the
crossing and to the presbytery must cross these passages.

The layout of the transept and the choir that adjoins it
in the east is complex and, sometime after the Plan was
drawn, someone—perhaps the author of the Plan himself—
considered it desirable that the boundaries of the constituent
spaces of this part of the Church be made more conspicuous.
He put them into visual prominence by redrawing
them in a dark brown ink, thus distinguishing the principal
architectural partitions from the furnishings shown in the
interior of these spaces. In consequence all the transept
walls, as well as the boundary lines between the crossing
and the transept arms, as well as the two lateral walls of the
presbytery, were rendered twice, first in red, and subsequently
in brown ink.

THE CROSSING SQUARE AND ITS FURNISHINGS

The crossing is the "choir for the psalmodists" (chorus
psallentium). It is furnished with four "benches" (formulae).
Schmidt's interpretation of formulae as lecterns (Pulte)
appears to me untenable. In the ninth century only the
directing monk held an antiphonary in his hands; and this
was too small to require even one lectern,[44] let alone four
of the size of the formulae on the Plan of St. Gall which are
10 feet long and at least 2½, probably 3¾, feet wide.
Moreover, the scribe's term for "lectern" is not formula but
analogium and in the three places where lecterns are shown
on the Plan, they are rendered either as simple squares (the
two lecterns by the rail that separates the crossing from the
nave of the Church; see end of preceding paragraph) or as
a square with a circle inscribed (the Reader's lectern in the
Refectory; see below, p. 268f). Formula, a diminutive of
forma[45] (used in the same sense) is the common medieval
designation for "bench" or "choirstall" as well as for those
wooden supports that are used for kneeling in prayer (prieDieu—kneeling
chair—Betstuhl) or to be leaned upon in the
act of inclination (hence also called inclinatoria) to preclude
excessive physical strain during the long hours of religious
devotion, a problem that had been of considerable concern
to the fathers of early monasticism.[46] In the choir stalls of
later monastic churches (and to an even higher degree the
large cathedral churches) both of these appurtenances are
combined into a single piece of furniture, consisting of a
wooden range of seats with panelled lean-to's in the back
and a solid range of supports for kneeling and prayer in
front.[47] The formulae in the crossing of the Church of the
Plan may have been an early variant of this type of seat. In
their simplest form, one might imagine them to have looked
like the church bench from Alpirsbach (fig. 100) with
supports for kneeling and bending either physically
attached to them or placed separately in front of them. The
reader may have observed that the formulae of the crossing
are a little wider than the corresponding benches in the two
transept arms (also called formulae). The latter have the
standard width of 2½ feet used by the designer for benches
wherever they appear on the Plan. The former look as
though they were meant to be 3¾ feet wide (1½ standard
modules). I think that this distinction is intentional, i.e.,
that the designer used this variation in size to emphasize the
greater liturgical importance of the formulae of the crossing
square.[48]

In two essays published in 1965 and 1967/68[49] Father
Corbinian Gindele expressed the view that the location of
the formulae in the crossing square (all at right angles to the
longitudinal axis of the Church) indicates that the entire
choir of monks when seated faced the altar in an easterly
direction (versus or contra altare) in compliance with a
custom which he claims was common in Early Christian
times, rather than facing each other transversely across the
altar from two opposite rows of seats ranged longitudinally
along the walls of the altar space, as became the rule in later
Cluniac monasteries. This is incorrect visual exegesis. The
four formulae in the crossing square when fully occupied
could seat no more than four monks each, altogether sixteen
(counting as normal requirement a sitting area 2½ feet
square per person). The full contingent of monks attending

[ILLUSTRATION]

88. ALTAR OF MITHRAS. WIESBADEN,
ALTERTUMSMUSEUM

FROM THE MITHRAS SANCTUARY, HEDDERNHEIM

[photo: Horn]

The six- or eight-lobed rosette (a misnomer, since it is by origin a
symbol of stellar, not chthonic forces) appears in Near Eastern
imagery as an attribute of gods and royalty from the 3rd millennium
onward. It became associated with Mithras after his cult was
established in the Euphrates Valley. It spread westward into Rome
as Rome increased its hold on Asia, finding a stronghold in the army
among tradesmen and slaves, mainly Asiatics. Christian antagonism
to Mithraism prevented the rosette from becoming one of Christ's
personal attributes along with the halo, globe, and canopy
(cf. figs. 102-103), all of which Christ inherited from pagan deities.
Despite official antagonism, the rosette was nevertheless widely
diffused in the Christian communities of Syria and North Africa and
with fervor adopted by the Germanic invaders of Rome.

[ILLUSTRATION]

89. MORTUARY LANTERN

Pers, deux-sevres, france

[Archives photographiques d'art et d'histoire:
Monuments historiques, Sept. 1890]

"Lanterns of the Dead" are tall, hollow columns of stone, often of
considerable height, with entrances at the bottom and small pavilions
at the top, where the light of a lamp during the night signaled
existence of a cemetery or seigneurial tomb. The specimen here shown
is one of the finest of its kind.

the daily services ranged between 100 and 110 (see below,
p. 342). These could not under any circumstances have
been accommodated by the four free-standing benches of
the crossing square. The Plan shows with unequivocal
clarity where the main body of monks was seated: on the
long bench that runs along the walls of the presbytery and
through the round of the apse, as well as on supplementary
benches ranged along the walls of the two transept arms.
If in the course of the development that led from Early
Christian to medieval monasticism, the seats of the monks
were shifted from an eastward-facing position to one in
which the monks faced each other transversely from either
side of the altar, this shift must have been undertaken before
the Plan of St. Gall was drawn. The seating arrangement
for the monks shown on the Plan of St. Gall, however, in
fact follows a pattern that had already been firmly established
for the bishop and the secular clergy in the days of
Constantine the Great (fig. 104) and in the course of the
fifth and sixth centuries become standard for the great
episcopal churches, both in the eastern and western part of
the empire.[51]

The four free-standing benches in the crossing square
must have had a function distinct from that of the wall
benches in the presbytery, the apse and the transept arms.
I am inclined to assume (accepting a suggestion made by
my colleague, Richard L. Crocker) that they served as seats
for the specially trained singers who chanted the more
difficult sequences of the psalms in alternation with the
regular monks. A magnificent twelfth-century example of
the type of bench we might expect to have found in the
crossing of the Church of the Plan is shown in figure 100.[52]

On the eastern side of the crossing, two flights of stairs
of "seven steps" (septem gradus, similit) lead up into the
fore choir. Halfway up these steps, against the crossing
piers, there is, to the left, the "altar of St. Benedict" (altar̄
sc̄ī benedicti), to the right, the "altar of St. Columban"
(altar̄ scī colūbani).

The presence of the altars of St. Benedict and St.
Columban in such a prominent place is not surprising.
They are the representatives of the two great monastic
traditions, the Irish and the Benedictine, which shaped the
history of the monastery of St. Gall.[53]

SOUTHERN TRANSEPT ARM

In the southern transept arm, against the east wall on a
platform raised by two steps (gradus), is the "altar of St.
Andrew" (alt̄ scī andreae). It is a little larger than the altars
in the aisles of the Church, but smaller than the altars of
St. Paul and St. Peter in the apses. The three remaining
walls of this transept arm are lined with benches providing
sitting space for twenty monks. A freestanding bench
(formula) in the center of the floor can accommodate five
more monks. Like the corresponding benches in the crossing,
this bench must have been reserved for the trained
singers. The layout suggests that in such cases where
professional celebrations required that the full choir of
monks be split into smaller segments officiating simultaneously
in different parts of the Church, each transept
arm was so laid out as to be capable of serving as a liturgically
autonomous station.

The southern transept arm has entrances which make it
possible for the monks to enter it directly from the Dormitory
for night services (Matins) and at daybreak (Lauds),
and from the northeastern corner of the Cloister for the day
offices. A door in the east gives access to the Sacristy. From
the Dormitory the southern transept arm could only be
reached by a "night" stairway. The draftsman does not
tell us anything about the course or the landing of this
stairway, but stairways just like this exist in the corresponding
places in the abbey churches of Fontenay (Côted'Or)
and Noirlac (Cher), France, and in the Priory
Church of Hexham (Northumberland), England (fig. 101).[54]
The traces of others, not quite as well preserved, may be
found in the abbeys of Tintern (Monmouthshire),
Beaulieu (Hampshire), Hayles (Gloucestershire), and at
St. Augustine's in Bristol.[55]

NORTHERN TRANSEPT ARM

The layout of the northern transept arm is identical with
that of its southern counterpart. Its altar is dedicated
jointly to SS. Philip and James (alt̄ scī philippi et iacobi). A
door in the north wall communicates with the Abbot's
House, another one in the east wall leads into the Scriptorium.

II.1.8

PRESBYTERY

HIGH ALTAR: ST. MARY AND ST. GALL

Raised as it is by seven steps above the level of the transept,
the presbytery with its high altar dominates the entire
Church. The liturgical pre-eminence of this part of the
building is emphasized by a hexameter in capitalis rustica:

The "holy structures" are the high altar of the Church,
dedicated jointly to St. Mary and St. Gall (altare sc̄ē mariae &
scī galli) and the tomb of the holy body (sacrophagū scī

[ILLUSTRATION]

89. MEROVINGIAN CARVED STONE

POITIERS, MUSÉE DU BAPTISTÈRE, FRANCE

[photo: Photomecaniques]

The stone may have come from the
church of Notre-Dame l'Ancienne.

[ILLUSTRATION]

90. MARBLE SLAB WITH CROSS
& SIX-LOBED ROSETTES (8TH CENT.)
LUCCA, MUSED DI VILLA GRININI

Associated with the cross, as in many
Syrian, North African and Visigothic slabs
of earlier periods, the six-lobed rosette
probably retained its original meaning as a
symbol of light overcoming evil forces allied
with darkness. In the Middle Ages the
symbol went underground.

[after Arte Lombarda, suppl. vol. 9:1]

[ILLUSTRATION]

92. HEX SIGNS

On Pennsylvania Dutch barns, they often are several feet in diameter

[after Sloane, 1954, 67]

[ILLUSTRATION]

91. SIX-LOBED ROSETTE IN MASONRY OF
MONASTIC BARN (1211-1227) PARCAY-MESLAY, FRANCE

[photo: Horn]

The rosette was cut into masonry or timber work of many medieval
tithe barns as a spell to ward off harm to livestock or harvest.

corporis) which on the Plan is located immediately behind
the altar.

The joint patrocinium of Mary and St. Gall has its
explanation in the fact that Mary was the patron of the
original oratory of St. Gall. The deeds of the Monastery
disclose how in the course of the eighth century the name
of St. Gall began to be associated with that of Mary with
increasing frequency until it eventually replaced it entirely
and became the local place name (coenobium sancti Galli, or
sancti Galloni).[56] The altar is raised on a plinth, a distinction
not accorded any other altars in the Church. We must
expect it to have been surmounted by a canopy. A capitulary
issued by Charlemagne in 789 directs that altars should
be surmounted by such superstructures (Ut super altaria
teguria fiant vel laquearia).[57] An ancient symbol of the
celestial dome and hence, by implication, of universal
rulership, this motif had been transmitted from the Roman

gods (fig. 102.A)[59] to the Roman emperor, as he rose into the
rank of the gods (fig. 102.B),[60] and from the emperor to Christ
as Christ acquired the status of a Roman state god. It was
no lesser person than Constantine the Great who set a
conspicuous precedent for this transmission of celestial
prerogatives to the new God of Heaven when he adorned the
high altar of the latter's prime apostle with a pedimented
canopy richly revetted with silver and gold, in the Church
of St. Peter's in Rome (fig. 104).[61]

WALL BENCHES

Wall benches lined both sides of the fore choir and
continued into the round of the apse. The monks faced
each other vultus contra vultum from either side of the
altar, except for those who sat in the curving parts of the
apse, and faced the altar westward. The abbot presumably
sat at the apex of the apse and had a counterpart in the
choir master, who occupied a position of comparable
centrality in the middle of the crossing square. The layout
of the benches discloses that crossing and presbytery—
despite their different levels—formed liturgically a unitary
space; and a count of the sitting places available for the
monks in the areas screened off for their exclusive use in the
eastern parts of the Church suggests that when the entire
community participated at a common service, even the
benches in the transept arms were occupied by monks
attending the service,[62] . On the north side "an upper
entrance leads into the library above the crypt" (introitus
in bibliothecā sup criptā superius). The qualifying adjective
"upper" implies the existence of a "lower" entrance, which
must have made the library accessible from the Scriptorium
below it. The prototype for the raised platform of the
presbytery and the apse of the Church of the Plan of St. Gall
was the raised presbytery that Pope Gregory the Great had
installed in Old St. Peter's in Rome between 594 and 604
(fig. 104) by lifting the pavement of the new choir 5 feet
above the original floor of the church and establishing
below this platform a crypt that incorporated directly
beneath the new altar the old shrine of St. Peter, which
before this alteration had been exposed to view.[63]

TOMB OF ST. GALL AND ITS RELATION
TO THE CRYPT

There has been considerable discussion on whether the
tomb of St. Gall should be interpreted as standing in the
presbytery above, or in the crypt below it; and whether, if in
the crypt, it should be thought of as standing behind or
underneath the altar.[64] It should be remarked that on the
Plan the tomb is entered on the east side of the altar, and
that the plurality of "holy structures" referred to in the
affixed hexameter as "shining above the crypt" should
lead one to think that the sarcophagus stood in the upper
sanctuary.

Despite these facts, it has generally been assumed that
the tomb of St. Gall was meant to stand in the crypt underneath
the presbytery, and for good reason, since it was the
desire to find appropriate protection for the relics, in the
first place, that had led to the invention of crypts. The
proper solution to this puzzle may have been found by
Willis when he speculated, "It is not impossible that
although the real sepulchre of the saint was in the confessionary
or crypt below, a monument to his honour may
have been erected above the altar."[65] That such a double-storied
structure actually existed in St. Gall is suggested by
two tales reported in the Miracles of St. Gall. One of these
tales speaks of a cripple who was taken by his friends to the
memoriam B. Galli and daily "laid close to the sepulcher in
the crypt" (cottidie juxta sepulchrum in crypta collocatus).
Another tale mentions "a lamp which burned nightly
before the upper altar and tomb and which also threw some
light through a small window upon the altar of the crypt"
(lumen quod ante superius altare et tumbam ardebat per
quandam fenestrum radios suos ad altare infra cryptam
positum dirigebat).[66] Some further information concerning
the topographical relation of tomb and altar at St. Gall can

[ILLUSTRATION]

93. PLAN OF ST. GALL. NAVE AND AISLES OF CHURCH

In the axis of the nave, west to east: baptismal font, altar of SS John the Baptist and John the Evangelist, altar of the Saviour at the Holy
Cross, ambo; and midway between the two latter, two crucial inscriptions designating the nave as 40 feet wide, and each aisle, 20 feet wide.

In the north aisle, west to east: altars of SS Lucia and Cecilia, The Holy Innocents, SS Martin and Stephen. In the south aisle: SS Agatha and
Agnes, St. Sebastian, SS Mauritius and Lawrence.

be extracted from the Life of St. Gall. The author of this
work informs us that on his death at Arbon, October 16,
about the year 646, the body of the Saint was taken to his
oratory at St. Gall and buried in a grave dug between the
altar and the wall.[67] Forty years later, his sepulcher was
violated by plunderers who mistook the coffin for a treasure
chest, but Boso, Bishop of Constance, replaced the coffin
"housing the relics of the sacred body, in a worthy sarcophagus
between the altar and the wall, erecting over it a
memorial structure congruent with the merits of the God-chosen."[68]
The chronicles of St. Gall report no further
translation of the Saint, and from this fact, as Willis concluded
correctly, it has to be inferred that the location of
the tomb remained the same, even in Gozbert's church.[69]
Nowhere in any contemporary allusions to the sepulcher of
the Saint, is the tomb reported to stand underneath the altar.

II.1.9

EASTERN APSE

ALTAR OF ST. PAUL

The eastern apse (exedra) houses the altar of St. Paul,
which is designated with the hexameter:

It has been argued that St. Paul was given this prominent
position in the Church of St. Gall because he was the
patron saint of an earlier church torn down in 830 to make
room for Abbot Gozbert's new building. This contention
has no base in fact. In the entire historical tradition of the
Abbey of St. Gall there is no source that would attest the
existence of a sanctuary dedicated to St. Paul.[70]

SYNTHRONON

The apse has the full width of the fore choir and is
furnished in its entire circumference with a wall bench that
continues the course of the fore choir benches. Together,
this range of benches offers sitting space for forty-eight
monks and the abbot. Its curved portion in the apse is
broader than the two straight arms in the presbytery. The
latter are 2½ feet wide (1 standard module); whereas the
former look as though they were meant to have a width of
3¾ feet (1½ standard modules). Again I think that this dimensional
differentiation is deliberate and that the designer
used it to stress the hierarchical prominence of that portion
of the bench on which the abbot and the senior monks
were seated, thus distinguishing it from the seats where
monks of lesser status were placed westward in sequence of
decreasing seniority. The designer had used the same
device in stressing the greater liturgical significance of the
benches for the specially trained singers (formulae) in the
crossing square in relation to those located in the transept
arms.

To seat the highest dignitaries of the ecclesiastical
community on a semicircular bench raised against the wall
of the apse (synthronon) is not a monastic invention, but a
transference to monastic ritual of a custom established in
the secular church. In Palestine this arrangement is
attested, as early as 314 A.D., for the basilica of Tyre
(fig. 104), built by Bishop Paulinus (known through an
unusually accurate and detailed description by Eusebius)
and such later fourth-century buildings as the Constantinian
Nativity Church in Bethlehem (333 A.D.), the
basilica of Emmaus (first half of the fourth century), the
cathedral of Gerasa (third quarter of the fourth century),
and the Church of the Multiplication of the Bread at
et-Tabgha (end of the fourth century). Toward the turn of
the same century it also appears at the coast of Istria in the
so-called Chiesetta at Grado and Santa Maria delle Grazie
at Grado. By the middle of the fifth century the layout is
standard in most Near-Eastern countries, and above all in
Greece. Frequently the semicircular benches in the apse
are prolonged by two straight arms reaching westward into
the bema. Good examples of this arrangement are the
basilica of Thasos (figs. 94 and 144) and the magnificent
church of Corinth-Lechaion (fig. 161). The Constantinian
basilicas of Rome do not appear to have been provided with
this type of bench for Bishop and clergy—unless they
were built in wood, leaving no traces for posterity—but
toward the end of the sixth century a synthronon of
impressive monumentality was set up by Pope Gregory the
Great in the apse of the most venerable church of western
Christendom, Old St. Peter's (fig. 103) forming a sight of
inescapable impressiveness to every transalpine visitor of
Rome, layman or clergyman, and inter alia the physical
stage for Charlemagne's coronation on Christmas day of
the year 800.[71]

At what time precisely this seating arrangement was
adopted by the monks is an unsolved historical problem.
But it is not unreasonable to conjecture that its acceptance

[ILLUSTRATION]

94. THASOS, MACEDONIA

Presbytery of the basilica, perspective reconstruction [after Orlandos, II, 1954, 528]

in the monastic ritual was associated with the ascendancy
(if not victory) of Benedictine monasticism over the more
individualistic forms of Irish and Near-Eastern monachism.
The earliest monastic example known to me is the synthronon
of the royal abbey of St. Denis (fig. 167) consecrated
in 775. Here the Abbot-father took his seat on a
throne of bronze placed into the apex of the apse at the very
spot where the bishop had his cathedra in episcopal
churches. The seat, of Roman workmanship and known as
"the throne of Dagobert" is still preserved, forming one
of the treasures of the Cabinet des Médailles in Paris.

Was it the close alliance between regnum and sacerdotium
in the life and administration of the Abbey of St. Denis
that gave the historical impetus for the transfer to the
abbot of a liturgical prerogative formerly exclusively
associated with episcopal churches? Is this another
Carolingian innovation, foreshadowing the powerful role
the monastery was to play as a supportive agency in the
government of this great statesman and ruler?

II.1.10

CRYPT

OUTER CRYPT

The crypt is composed of two parts: an outer corridor
crypt, by which the visiting laymen gain access to the tomb
of St. Gall, and an inner confessionary, reserved for the
worship of the monks. The corridor crypt consists of two
barrel-vaulted subterranean shafts (inuolutio arcuum) which
run outside along the foundation walls of the fore choir and
terminate in a transverse shaft a short distance west of the
apse. The arched entrances to these shafts lie next to the
eastern crossing piers. They are designated in the south, in
criptā ingressus ʈ egressus ("ingress into or egress from the
crypt") and in the north, in criptā introitus ʈ exitus ("entrance
into or exit from the crypt") which suggests that
although the tomb could be approached from two different
sides, the pilgrims generally returned on the same side on
which they had entered. There can be no doubt about the
purpose of this outer crypt. It forms the continuation of
two long passageways which lead the pilgrims in a straight
line from the entrances in the west to the transverse shaft
under the presbytery, bringing them right up to the tomb
of St. Gall itself (fig. 82).

INNER CRYPT

On the other hand, it is equally clear that the inner crypt
must have been used for the services the monks conducted
before the tomb of St. Gall. Its entrance, between the two
flights of stairs that lead from the crossing to the high altar,
is in an area entirely set aside for the monks. It is designated
with the title, "access to the confessio" (accessus ad confessionem).
That such private oratories should be constructed
"near the place where the sacred bodies rest, so
that the brothers can pray in secrecy" (ut ubi corpora
sanctorum requiescunt aliud oratorium habeatur, ubi fratres

secrete possint orare), was ordered by Charlemagne in a
capitulary issued in 789.[72]

II.1.11

SACRISTY AND VESTRY

In the corner between the fore choir and the southern
transept arm, and directly attached to them, there is a
double-storied structure, 40 feet square, which contains
"below, the Sacristy, above, the repository for the church
vestments" (subtus sacratorium, supra uestiū ecʈae repositio).
The Plan gives the layout of the Sacristy. In the center a
large square table for the sacred vessels (mensa scōr̄ uasorum)
is raised on a plinth. Benches and a chest or table are set
against the walls, and the room is heated by a corner fireplace.
The Plan does not disclose the location of any stairs
connecting the Sacristy with the Vestry, but it is reasonable
to assume that they were located above the arm of the
corridor crypt that lies beneath the Sacristy.[73]

The custodianship of Sacristy and Vestry was the
responsibility of the Sacrist (custos ecclesiae)[74] who also was
in charge of the preparation of the host and the holy oil.
This task was performed in a separate building, as the title
indicates: the building where the holy bread is baked
and where the oil is pressed (domus ad pparandū panē scm̄ &
oleum exprimendum.); this building measures 22½ × 37½
feet and is connected to the Sacristy by a covered passageway
that is bent twice at right angles. The room contains
a press, a table, and an oven as well as benches all along
the remaining parts of its walls.

II.1.12

SCRIPTORIUM AND LIBRARY

Alcuin's poem On the Scribes offers a metrical inscription
intended to decorate the entrance of a monastic scriptorium,
perhaps the scriptorium of the Monastery of St. Martin's
at Tours.[78]

[ILLUSTRATION]

95. LUTTRELL PSALTER, LONDON, BRITISH MUSEUM. Add. Ms. 42130, fol. 37

Baptismal scene [by courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum]

[ILLUSTRATION]

97. AACHEN, COLLECTION DR. PETER LUDWIG

Baptismal font, around 1100

[ILLUSTRATION]

96. DEERHURST, GLOUCESTERSHIRE, ENGLAND

Priory church, Saxon baptismal font

LAYOUT

On the northern side of the Church of the Plan, in a
position corresponding exactly to that of the Sacristy and
Vestry, there is a double-storied structure of like design,
which contains "below, the seats for the scribes, and above,
the library" (infra sedes scribentiū, supra bibliotheca). From
a purely functional point of view the location of these two
important cultural facilities is ideal. Their situation at the
northeast corner of the church, in the shadow cast by
transept and choir, protected the scribes from the glare of
the sun as it travelled through the southern and western
portion of its trajectory and allowed them to work in the
more diffused light made available by their east and north
exposure.

The Scriptorium is accessible by a door from the northern
transept arm of the Church. The Library is reached from the
presbytery by a stairway or passage designated the "upper
entrance into the Library above the crypt" (introitus in
bibliothecā sup criptā superius). This implies that there was
another lower entrance, not shown on the Plan, presumably
an internal stair connecting Library and Scriptorium
directly. The Plan depicts the layout of the Scriptorium.
This has in its center a large square table, identical in size
and shape with that for the sacred vessels in the Sacristy
and like the latter, it, too, is raised on a plinth. Along the
north and east walls of the room, there are seven desks for
writing, and seven windows[79] placed to provide the scribes
with adequate lighting. This, incidentally, is one of the
only two instances where windows are marked on the
Plan.[80] Unquestionably they owe this distinction to the
fact that they were of vital importance for the work performed
in this room. The windows must have been glazed.
Glass windows, although still a considerable luxury in
Carolingian times, were indispensable in a monastic scriptorium.
That they were actually in use in Carolingian times
is attested in the chronicles of the Abbey of St. Wandrille
(Fontanella) for the period of Abbot Ansegis (823-833) and
by sources pertaining to the cathedral of Reims, for the
time of Bishop Hincmar (845-882).[81] Also to be mentioned
in this context is a passage in the Casus sancti Galli of
Ekkehard IV, where we are told that Sindolf the Maligner,
while eavesdropping on a conversation carried on in the
scriptorium of St. Gall, pressed his ear at night "to the
glass window where Tutilo was seated" (fenestrae vitreae
cui Tutilo assederat).[82] The tale, written around 1050, is
almost certainly fictitious, but may in fact reflect the
architectural conditions of the Carolingian scriptorium of
St. Gall, which was rebuilt by Abbot Gozbert, when he
reconstructed the monastery church between 830 and 837.
One observes, not without surprise, that the scriptorium is
not furnished with any facilities for heating.

LOCATION

The position of the sacristy "to the right of the apse" (a
dextra absidae) and of the library in a corresponding place
"to the left" (a sinistra eiusdem) is traditional. It existed, as
George H. Forsyth has pointed out, as early as the fifth
century, in the church which St. Paulinus had erected at
Nola near Naples.[83] Forsyth also drew attention to the
interesting fact that the double-storied side chambers of
the kind found on the Plan of St. Gall were common in
many Early Christian churches of the Near East. The most
striking parallel is to be found in the church of St. John of
Ephesus where this motif is combined with the centralized
Latin-cross plan exactly as in the Church of the Plan of St.
Gall.[84]

ADMINISTRATIVE ORGANIZATION

The Scriptorium and the Library were the intellectual
nerve centers of the monastery. Without the cultural
activities carried on in these spatially relatively modest
facilities, western civilization would not be what it is today.
A substantial portion of what is known to us of classical
learning was transmitted in manuscripts copied in monastic
scriptoria and rescued for posterity in the carefully protected
bookcases (armaria) of monastic libraries (fig. 105).

By the time the Plan of St. Gall was drawn these two
institutions had already developed internally into a fairly
complex organization. Their management was in the hands
of an official who received his orders from the abbot. In
pre-Carolingian times this was, in general, the choirmaster
(cantor) whose leading role in the performance of the daily
choral services made him a natural candidate for this position.[85]
Under the impetus of the Carolingian renaissance,
scriptorium and library were placed in the care of a special
official, the bibliothecarius or armarius (from armarium, the
"press" or "wardrobe" in which the books were kept).[86]
This official became responsible for the maintenance and
administration of an entire system of different collections
of books: the main collection (kept in the central library),
the liturgical collection, i.e., the books used in the divine
services (often chained to their places of use in the church;
otherwise, kept in the Sacristy), and several branch
libraries: viz., a reference library of school books needed

[ILLUSTRATION]

98. AMBO, HAGIA SOFIA AT SALONIKA

ISTANBUL ARCHAEOLOGICAL MUSEUM

[redrawn from Orlandos, 11, 1954, fig. 11]

for the training of the novices (by necessity kept in the
Novitiate), another one needed for the teaching in the
Outer School (by necessity kept in that location), and a
third collection used for the daily readings of the monks,
the lectio divina established as a primary monastic occupation
by St. Benedict, for which each monk was allowed in
the aggregate some four hours per day.[87]

READING COLLECTION

The reading collection was of substantial size and must
have been composed of at least as many books as there were
monks in the monastery, since the Rule prescribes that
each monk be handed a book at the beginning of Lent
which as the year went by he was bound "to read it in
consecutive order from cover to cover."[88] The selection
and distribution of this material was one of the duties of the
provost. A directive issued at the synod of 816 allowed him
to augment the regular annual allotment at his discretion.[89]

The titles of the books loaned out in this manner were
entered in a check-out list (breve) to facilitate their return
and assure control over the holdings.[90] Hildemar, in his
commentary to the Rule, written around 845, provides a
detailed, here abridged, description of this procedure:

The librarian (bibliothecarius) with the aid of the brothers
takes all the books to the chapter meeting. There they
spread out a rug, upon which the books are placed. After
the regular business of the chapter meeting has been concluded
the librarian announces from the check-out list
(breve) the titles of the books and the names of the monks
to whom they had been lent in the preceding year. Thereupon
each brother deposits his book on the rug. Then the
provost, or anyone else to whom he may have delegated this
task, collects each book, and as it is being returned, he
probes the brother with questions whether he has diligently
studied his assignment. If the response is satisfactory, he
inquires of the brother which book he considers to be of
use to him in the coming year and provides him with the
desired book. However, if the abbot finds that a book is not
suited for a brother who asked for it, he does not give it to
him but hands him a more suitable one. If the interview
establishes that the brother was derelict in his study, he is
not given a new book, but asked to study the old one for
another year. If the abbot finds that the brother has studied
with diligence, but is nevertheless not capable of comprehending
it, he gives him another one. After the brothers
have left the chapter meeting, the abbot sees to it that all
books that have been entered in the check-out list are
accounted for, and if they are not on record, searches until
they are found.[91]

The books disposed of in this manner were obviously
not kept in the central library, but were in permanent
circulation, each monk retaining his own copy, which he
probably kept on a shelf or locker under or near his bed,
together with the other modest supplies that the Rule
allowed him.[92]

MAIN LIBRARY

In his Renaissance of the Twelfth Century Charles Homer
Haskins made the remark that "when men spoke of a
library in the Middle Ages they did not mean a special
room, and still less a special building" but rather thought
of a "book press" or wardrobe, as is suggested by the word
armarium commonly used for libraries.[93] I do not know
whether this assessment is tenable for the later Middle
Ages. It is certainly not what the framers of the Plan of St.
Gall had in mind for a monastic library of the time of
Charlemagne or Louis the Pious. The Plan provides for a
central library of a surface area of 1600 square feet, located
over a scriptorium of identical dimensions, the two together
totaling 3200 square feet. We know at least of one
other Carolingian library that was installed in a separate
building: that of the monastery of St. Wandrille (Fontanella).
It stood in the cloister yard in front of the Refectory,
and opposite it, on the other side of the yard, was a
twin building which served as charter house.[94] In the
monastery of St. Emmeran there must have been a special
library, for it is said of Bishop Wolfgang (972-94) that he
had it decorated with metrical inscriptions of his own composing.[95]
If Haskins infers from Lanfranc's description of
the annual distribution of the daily reading matter that "all
of the books of a monastery can be piled on a single rug"
this cannot be taken as referring to the whole of the
monastic library, but only to that portion of it that was
checked out to the monks at the beginning of Lent.[96] In
such monasteries as St. Riquier and Corbie, which housed
as many as 350 to 400 monks, even this circulating portion
of the general library holdings must have been of substantial
bulk.

WRITING POSTURE AND VARIOUS
CLASSES OF SCRIBES

All of these books were written by the monks themselves
in the scriptorium. The scriptorium served not only as
work room for copying scribes, it was also the monastery's
chancellery, where letters, deeds, and documents were
written. The scribes sat upon stools before tables or desks,
the writing surface of which rose at a sharp angle so that
the scribe wrote almost in a vertical plane. The book from
which a new text was copied was held in a firm position by
a reading frame. This is a posture quite distinct from that
which was in use in ancient times, when the scribes wrote
either standing (as seems to have been the rule in court
procedure) or seated held their writing materials in their
lap, as is shown in the illumination of prophet Ezra, on fol.
5r of the famous Codex Amiatinus (fig. 105), that was
copied, early in the eighth century, in the monastery of
Jarrow and Monkwearmouth in Northumbria from an
illustration of the same subject in the sixth century manuscript
of the Institutiones of Cassiodorus. The transition
from this ancient custom of holding on one's lap the scroll or
codex on which one was writing to the medieval custom of
writing on a desk (fig. 106) was made in the course of the
eighth century, as a recent study has disclosed. It has two
probable causes: for one the growing popularity of large
deluxe codices, which it was well nigh impossible to cover
with writing without the use of some firm support to steady
the hand of the scribe, and second, the fact that the craft of
writing (in ancient times essentially in the hands of slaves),
in the monastic scriptoria in the north had become the
prerogative of an intellectual elite, whose high social
standing called both for greater comfort and greater efficiency.[97]

Medieval sources in referring to scribes distinguish
between antiquarii, the experienced writers whose skills
were reserved for the making of liturgical books; scriptores,
the less trained but still reliable writers; rubricatores,
writers who specialized in the insertion of decorative letters
rendered in different colors, usually in connection with
opening words; miniatores, the highly skilled scribes who
embellished the manuscript with its pictorial illuminations;
and last, but not least, the correctores, the proof

[ILLUSTRATION]

99. PLAN OF ST. GALL. TRANSEPT, PRESBYTERY, EASTERN APSE AND PARADISE

From the crossing two flights of stairs, each of seven steps, lead to the Presbytery, leaving between them a passage to the CONFESSIO where monks
can pray in privacy near the tomb of St. Gall. Presbytery and Crypt are one of two places on the Plan where different levels are shown in the
same plane: above, the high altar dedicated to SS Mary and Gall; and below, a u-shaped corridor leading laymen to the tomb of St. Gall. In the
two-storied spaces located between Presbytery and transept arms the draftsman delineates the plan of just one level. He identifies another level only
by an inscription—his standard method of indicating a superincumbent level.

readers. The latter were among the most experienced and
most learned monks. The manuscripts of the Abbey of St.
Gall as well as those of many other writing schools abound
with marginal or interlinear annotations that testify to the
care with which this work was done.[98] At Reichenau this
task was performed by Reginbert (d. 847), librarian under
four successive abbots—that same Reginbert who seems to
have supervised the writing of the explanatory titles of the
Plan of St. Gall.[99] At St. Gall this work was done by such
famous teachers as Ratpert, Notker, and Tutilo. Purity and
correctness of the sacred texts was a primary concern of the
period (as Alcuin's poem attests) and of sufficient interest
even to the emperor to be singled out as a matter of
statewide importance in a capitulary issued in 789, or 805,
in which it is stipulated that the copying of such sacred
texts as the Gospels, the Psalter, and the Missal should
only be entrusted to men of superior intellectual attainment
(et si opus est evangelium, psalterium et missale scribere,
perfectae aetatis homines scribant cum omni diligentia).[100]

METHOD OF CATALOGING AND SHELVING BOOKS

Once a manuscript was written and corrected, its title
was entered in the catalogue that listed the monastery's
holdings in books—not in alphabetical sequence, but
according to subject matter, and probably in the same
order in which the books were shelved in their wooden
cases.[101] A splendid example of this kind of furniture is
shown in the illumination of Prophet Ezra on fol. 5R of the
famous Codex Amiatinus (fig. 105).[102] Another one of
practically identical design is depicted on the mosaic of St.
Lawrence in the mausoleum of Galla Placidia (424-450).[103]
The books, as these works disclose, lay on their sides, and
did not stand. This is confirmed by the fact that their titles
are, in general, entered lengthwise, not crosswise, on the
back of the book.[104] To judge by the number of volumes
listed in extant monastic catalogues, Carolingian libraries
must have been equipped with a considerable number of
such wooden "wardrobes" for the shelving of books. A
catalogue compiled by Reginbert of Reichenau enumerates
415 manuscripts.[105] The holdings of the library of St. Gall,
according to a catalogue compiled at the time of Abbot
Grimald (841-872), lists 400 volumes.[106] Grimald himself
had a private collection of 34 volumes that after his death
went to the general library.[107] His follower, Hartmut (872883)
collected for himself another 28 volumes. These, too,
were bequeathed to the general library on his death.[108]
The longest title list found for any Carolingian monastery
appears to be the list of the library of the monastery of
Lorsch. It amounted to 590 titles.[109]

NUMBER OF SCRIBES & COLLABORATION

The number of monks who sat at work in the scriptorium
must have varied greatly. The layout of the Scriptorium on
the Plan of St. Gall would allow fourteen monks to write
simultaneously, if we assume that each writing desk was
manned by two scribes. Since there are ten feet of space
between each window, two scribes could have worked in
comfort at a single desk. But the total number of scribes at
work each day in the Scriptorium could have been considerably
increased if the scribes worked in shifts.

A. Bruckner, on the basis of an actual count of the hands
at work in individual manuscripts, has calculated that the
monastery of St. Gall, between 750 and 770, employed
some twenty-five scribes for copying manuscripts and
around fifteen more for writing documents—a total of
forty.[110] Under Abbot Waldo and shortly after him (770790)
the number of scribes rose to about eighty;[111] under
Abbot Gozbert (816-836) to about a hundred.[112] Some of
these may have worked in carrels, in one of the cloister
walks, as was customary in Tournai in the eleventh
century[113] and to be found later on in many other places.[114]

A codex was rarely written entirely by a single hand. At
the scriptorium of St. Martin's at Tours, in the first half of
the eighth century, more than twenty scribes collaborated
in a copy of Eugippius.[115] The texts of other manuscripts
copied at that same school were written, variously, by five,
seven, eight, or twelve different hands.[116] Fourteen scribes
listed by name in manuscripts of St. Martin appear in a
register drawn up in 820.[117]

[ILLUSTRATION]

ROMANESQUE CHURCH BENCH, MONASTERY OF ALPIRSBACH

100.

100.X

FORMERLY STUTTGART, SCHLOSSMUSEUM

(DESTROYED IN WW II.) After Falke, 1924, pl. 1

Although probably not antedating the thirteenth century, this medieval church bench with its simple carpentry embodies a type one
would expect to have been in use centuries earlier. The drafter of the Plan referred to this type of bench as FORMULA (see above
p. 137 and Glossary, III, s.v.). Four such benches, each with a seating capacity of not more than four people, would have been
set up in the crossing of the Church probably for use by a specially trained choir singing in antiphon.

[ILLUSTRATION]

HEXHAM, NORTHUMBERLAND, ENGLAND

NIGHT STAIRS, PRIORY CHURCH

Unquestionably one of the finest extant medieval night stairs, located in the southern transept arm, it leads directly from dormitory into church.
In general such stairs provided the only connection between dormitory and cloister. In the 12th and 13th centuries, they were invariably made of
stone; in earlier times perhaps of timber. Except for those in the Church, the author of the Plan of St. Gall omits stairs from it.

[ILLUSTRATION]

102.A GOD JANUS UNDER A CELESTIAL CANOPY

Roman medal of A.D. 187, more than twice original size
[after Gnecchi, II, 1912, pl. 84, fig. 5]

[ILLUSTRATION]

104. TYRE, PALESTINE (LEBANON)

Basilica built by Bishop Paulinus in A.D. 314. Reconstructed plan [after
Nussbaum, 1965, II, 24, fig. 1]. The reconstruction is based on a
description by Eusebius, History of the Church (X, 4, 44) where
the layout of Synthronon and Bema is referred to:

"after completing the great building he [Constantine] furnished it with
thrones high up, to accord with the dignity of the prelates, and also with
benches arranged conveniently throughout. In addition to all this, he placed
in the middle the Holy of Holies—the altar—excluding the general public
from this part too by surrounding it with wooden trellis-work wrought
by the craftsmen with exquisite artistry, a marvellous sight for all who
see it."

[ILLUSTRATION]

102.B EMPEROR DOMITIAN ENTHRONED
UNDER CELESTIAL CANOPY

Sestertius, nearly three times original size [after Mattingly, II, 1930, pl. 77,
fig. 9]

[ILLUSTRATION]

103. ROME. OLD ST. PETER'S

Presbytery, as rebuilt by Gregory the Great between 594-604. Drawing by
S. Rizzello [after Toynbee and Ward-Perkins, 1956, 215, fig. 22]

DAILY WORK SPAN

The daily work span of a medieval scribe, to judge by an
anonymous writer of the tenth century, was six hours.[118]
In Cluny, in the twelfth century, the scribes were exempted
from certain choir prayers;[119] but in the ninth century,
according to Hildemar, a scribe was not allowed to complete
a verse "once the bell for the divine service was rung,
not even a letter which he had started, but must instantly
set it aside unfinished."[120] The same author lists as the
indispensable tools of the scribe: the pen (penna), the quill
(calamus), the stool (scamellum), the scraping knife (rasorium),
the pumice stone (pumex), and the parchment
(pergamena).[121]

In general, writing was a daytime activity but occasionally
we hear of a monk being at this task before or after
sunset, as in a marginal annotation to a ninth century copy
of a text by Cassidorus, made in a monastery at Laon,
which reads: "It is cold today. Naturally, Winter. The
lamp gives bad light."[122] From Ekkehart IV we learn that
Ratpert, Notker, and Tutilo had permission from the abbot
to convene at night in the scriptorium for collating and
correcting texts.[123]

But there were also those more joyous occasions in the
spring or early summer when a monk would do his writing
outdoors under the shade of a tree, as evidenced in a
charming marginal gloss of an Irish manuscript of an
eighth- or ninth-century Priscian in the Library of St. Gall
(ms. 904), which reads:

A NOBLE OR BACKBREAKING TASK?

The work in the scriptorium was conducted in silence
and during the hours assigned for that purpose no monk
could leave the scriptorium without permission of the
abbot. Apart from the scribes themselves, only the abbot,
the prior, the subprior, and the librarian had access to the
scriptorium.[125] The writing of sacred texts was held in high
esteem and in general considered a more noble task than
such physical labors as working in the fields. This is expressed
in unmistakable terms in Alcuin's poem about the
scribes.[126] In Ireland where the art of calligraphy had risen
to unprecedented heights the life of a scribe was held in
such high regard that the penalty for killing a scribe was
made as great as that for killing a bishop or abbot.[127]

Yet there is no dearth of evidence that, Alcuin notwithstanding,
writing was also bemoaned as an arduous physical
task, as witnessed by such marginal annotations as:

Writing is excessive drudgery. It crooks your back, dims
your sight, twists your stomach and your sides. Three
fingers write, but the whole body labors.

II.1.13

EASTERN PARADISE

Like the western apse of the Church, the eastern apse is
enclosed by a paradise. This repeats the general dispositions
of the western paradise, but is shorter in radius and
lacks the latter's covered gallery. The inscription is rendered
in capitalis rustica:

The eastern paradise does not communicate with the interior
of the Church. It is accessible by means of two triangular
vestibules from the side of the Novitiate and the
Infirmary, respectively. This suggests that it may have
served as an outdoor space of recreation for the Novices
and the ill.

[ILLUSTRATION]

105. CODEX AMIATINUS I, FOL. 5R. PROPHET EZRA WRITING

FLORENCE, BIBLIOTHECA LAURENZIANA

This illumination was copied at the beginning of the 8th century by a Northumbrian monk. The same subject was shown in a 6th-century
manuscript (no longer preserved) of the Institutiones of Cassiodorus (ca. 490-585). Ezra, seated on a cushioned chair, legs crossed and feet
on a stool, holds a large codex in which he writes in the ancient manner, i.e. without aid of a lectern. To his left stands a low table with writing
utensils, in the background, a magnificent chest with five shelves on which books are stored horizontally. The perspective of chair, stool, table,
and chest with open hinged doors is typical of late Antiquity. For a bookchest of identical design compare the detail from a mosaic of the
mausoleum of Galla Placidia in Ravenna, dating from ca. 450. (See F. W. Diechmann, Frühchristliche Bauten und Mosaiken von
Ravenna, Weisbaden, 1958, Pls. 5, 6; cf. above, p. 151.)

[ILLUSTRATION]

106. IVORY BOOK COVER. SCHOOL OF METZ, CA. 960-980

VIENNA, KUNSTHISTORISCHES MUSEUM, SAMMLUNG FÜR PLASTIK UND KUNSTGEWERBE, INV. NO. 8399

[by courtesy of Bildarchiv der Österreichischen Nationalbibliothek]

The relief shows Pope Gregory the Great (ca. 540-604) writing the Vere dictum of which he is presumed author, inspired by the Dove of the
Holy Spirit, into a lectern-supported codex. Beneath, three scribes write in the ancient manner, books on legs or held in arms. The cover is the
work of a distinguished Ottonian ivory carver whose hand can be identified in other ivories. The classicism of the acanthus frame, as well as
the entire figurative and architectural composition, suggests a late Antique model of high quality. (Also see Rhein und Mass, Kunst und
Kultur, 800-1400, 1974, 180).

[ILLUSTRATION]

107. PLAN OF ST. GALL
CHURCH AND CLAUSTRUM

AUTHORS' INTERPRETATION

The Plan opposite demonstrates how the Church and claustral
buildings would have appeared had they been rendered with all of
their wall thickness.

On the Plan itself the walls of all buildings are rendered as simple
lines (see above, pp. 57ff)—a procedure which even today an architect
follows, if faced with designing a project of similar complexity
drawn at a similar scale. (Even the Romans used this method in
comparable cases; see above p. 58.) This mode of rendering presents
no difficulties where buildings stand separately on their sites, because
necessary space allowance for wall thickness is, in construction,
available from outside and need not be subtracted from the proposed
structure's interior.

The author of the Plan was aware that where several buildings
shared common walls (as in the case of Church and Cloister, or
Church and lodgings built against it in the north), severe deficiencies
of interior space might occur in construction unless special provisions
were made for wall thickness from the very outset. For this reason
he allotted to each aisle of the Church a width of 22½ feet although
an explanatory title states explicitly that it should be 20 feet (see
above, pp. 97ff).

In rendering interiors on the Plan, the drafter insured against
potential congestion by another precaution. Wherever normal
dimensions of furniture could not be accurately expressed by the
standard module 2½ feet, he invariably chose the larger, never the
smaller module. He thus accumulated extra interior space in
numerous small increments that eventually provided for the wall
thickness not explicitly drawn.

Because all these precautions were taken by a designer whose acuity
in planning has been unjustly underrated for more than a century of
modern scholarship, we encountered no difficulty, when preparing
the Aachen model, in furnishing its builder with working drawings.
He was able to build without distortion the buildings of the Plan
including their full-scale wall thickness, at four times the surface
area of the Plan. These working drawings are so true to the idea
embodied in the Plan that with their aid, the entire monastery
might actually be erected at the monumental scale intended by its
originator, when supported by appropriate large-scale detailed
construction drawings.

Essentially the Plan of St. Gall depicts a ground-level plan.
Consequently the bed layout of the Monks' Dormitory (which
occupies the upper level) is shown in dotted line in the authors'
interpretation, as explained by the inscription within the space
designated Monks' Warming Room.

It will be seen that the Warming Room had access on the south to
the Monks' Laundry and Bathhouse, and on the west opened onto
the east cloister walk.

The Monks' Privy above, at Dormitory level, likewise renders the
toilet layout in dotted line (see fig. 192, p. 244). Location of the
stair access from ground floor Warming Room to Dormitory and
Privy is not shown.

II. 2

RECONSTRUCTION

II.2.1

THE CHURCH
AS DEFINED IN THE DRAWING

MATERIAL AND WALL THICKNESS

It is obvious that the Church of the Plan of St. Gall was
meant to be a masonry structure (figs. 107-113). Semicircular
apses, circular towers, spiral stairs, the columnar
order of the arcades of the nave—which, because of the way
they were spaced must have been surmounted by arches—
the barrel-vaulted corridors of the crypt, the arched galleries
of the abutting paradise—all these are features
germane to stone construction. Although there is abundant
evidence that in the ninth century a high percentage of the
smaller transalpine parish churches were built of timber,[129]
it is equally clear that an abbey church, intended to serve
as a model, could only have been constructed in stone. All
the major Carolingian churches were built in stone.

Some of the more hallowed parts of the Church, such as
the crypt or the interior of the apse and the fore choir, may
have been built in ashlar, but all the principal walls of the
Church were unquestionably built in roughly coursed
rubble. We have good parallels for both these techniques
in the Palace Chapel at Aachen (798-805), the Abbey
Church of Corvey-on-the-Weser (873-885), and the
Church of Germigny-des-Prés (799-818), in all of which
the external work was built in rubble, while most of the
structural parts of the interior were constructed in dressed
stones.[130] Other examples of Carolingian ashlar construction
are found in the crypts of St.-Germain of Auxerre (841859)
and Flavigny (864-878).[131]

It is reasonable to assume that a church of the dimensions
of that of the Plan of St. Gall rested on foundations
about 5 feet wide. This is suggested by the dimensions of
the bases of the nave columns, and by the dimensions of
the supports which stand at the point where the aisle walls
meet the walls of the transept. It is equally reasonable to
assume that the full thickness of the foundation walls was
not retained in the walls themselves. A thickness of 3¼ feet
or 40 inches (one and one-half standard units) would
appear to be a reasonable assumption for both the aisle
walls and the clerestory walls.

ELEVATION

The elevation of the Church (figs. 108-113) must by necessity
remain a matter of conjecture. We have calculated it on
the assumption of certain minimal heights for consecutive
parts of the Church, moving in additive progression from
the lower to the upper portions of the building. The
aggregate of the estimates thus obtained produces a fairly
convincing picture.

The arcaded walls of the cloister, the northern wing of
which is built against the southern aisle of the Church,
must have been at least 10 feet high to give head clearance
to the monks who walked in this wing. The arched exits, in
the center of each cloister walk, are shown on the Plan
itself as being 7½ feet high. They must have had above
them a small amount of masonry to carry the timbers of the
roof which covered their walks. To this we have assigned a
height of 2½ feet.

The roof which covered the northern cloister walk—
assuming that it rose at an angle of about 30 degrees—
would have connected with the wall of the southern aisle
of the Church at a height of 17½ feet above the ground.
Beyond that point the aisle walls must have continued for
at least another 12½ feet in order to give clearance for the
windows (to which we have assigned an estimated height of
7½ feet). This would bring the top of the aisle walls to a
height of 30 feet. The aisle walls of the Abbey Church of
Fulda rose to a height of 8.75 m., which comes close to 30
Roman feet.[132] The aisle walls of St. Gall cannot have been
any lower than that, since the tie-beams that supported the
aisle roofs had to clear the arches over the nave arcades.
These beams could not have cleared the arches at a level
lower than 30 feet, as will be shown presently.

The columns of the arcades of the nave are spaced at
intervals of 20 feet on center. The apex of the extrados of
the arches that rose from these columns cannot have been
any lower than 30 feet, without resulting in inordinately
depressed arcade proportions. Above the extrados of these
arches there must have been some 15 feet of clearance for
the aisle roof, and above the level of the aisle roof another
15 feet of clearance for the clerestory wall and its windows.

[ILLUSTRATION]

PLAN OF ST. GALL

108. CHURCH AND CLAUSTRUM, TRANSVERSE SECTION

The sections and elevations, as well as the perspective view of the
interior of the Church shown on the opposite and on subsequent
pages are our attempt to show what the Church of the Plan would
have looked like had it been built in full three-dimensional reality.
There is nothing mysterious about our conjecture. The nave of the
Church, as we are told by an unequivocal explanatory title, had a
width of 40 feet, each of its aisles a width of 20. We have assigned
to each component of the elevation of nave and Claustrum a
comfortable height required by its function and in this manner
arrived at a height of 30 feet for the aisle walls, and of 60 feet for
the nave walls. This is in full harmony with the decimal thinking
that controls the Plan in the planimetric sense, as our analysis of
its scale and construction has shown (above, pp. 77ff).

109. CHURCH, LONGITUDINAL SECTION

It is in longitudinal section that the pristine modular quality of the
proportions of the Church (cf. fig. 173) finds its strongest expression.
All measurements are related to the controlling module
of the crossing, a 40-foot square. The columnar interstices
(measured on centers) are exactly half that value. This condition
is responsible for the magnificent width and height of the
arcades—a concept fundamentally different from the low, narrow
intercolumniation of the great Early Christian prototype churches
from which the Church of the Plan is typologically derived (for
good examples see figs. 81, 141, 170, 174, and 177).

Although nave and transept were of equal width we cannot be
certain that they also were of equal height. Yet even if the transept
was lower, it is reasonable to assume that the crossing was
disengaged, i.e. framed by boundary arches on all four sides. There
are good contemporary parallels for either alternative (cf. fig. 15,
a low transept with boundary arches of unequal height; and figs.
116 and 117, high transepts with boundary arches of equal
height.)

---

[ILLUSTRATION]

110. PLAN OF ST. GALL. CHURCH INTERIOR. VIEW TOWARD EAST APSE

AUTHORS' INTERPRETATION

The Church of the Plan—its interior appearance here recreated by Ernest Born—was never built. Yet being conceived, it became a historical
reality, and our reconstruction for that reason, if correct in its principal lines, is a significant contribution to the visual history of medieval
architecture. The underlying compositional scheme (nave, two aisles and transept) is Early Christian. But none of the great metropolitan
basilicas of the West had arcades so wide and high, or proportions so rationally coordinated with a spatial master value, by the alignment of
the columnar interstices with the 40-foot module of the crossing square.

Thus we would arrive at a height of 60 feet for the clerestory
walls. The clerestory walls of the Abbey Church of
Fulda were 21.10 m. high, which corresponds roughly to
60 Roman feet.[133] The relation of the width to the heights
of the nave of the Church of the Plan would then be a ratio
of 1:1½ (40:60 feet), which is in harmony with the ratio of
1:1½ obtained in calculating the corresponding proportions
of the aisles (20:30 feet). From the floor to the ridge of its
highest roof, the Church of the Plan would probably have
measured 75 feet.

Admittedly these calculations are schematic, yet they are
based on constructional assumptions which are reasonable.

COLUMNS

The profiles of the bases, shafts, and capitals of the arcade
columns in our reconstruction (figs. 108-110) of the Church
of the Plan of St. Gall are based on the surviving Carolingian
columns of the church of St. Justin in Höchst-on-the-Main[134]
dating from shortly after 834 (fig. 114) and on
the surviving Carolingian columns of the Abbey Church of
Corvey (873-885).[135] Had we known at the time our drawings
were made of the recently excavated capitals from the
church which Abbot Gozbert built in the monastery of St.
Gall with the aid of the Plan (fig. 115), we might have used
them as a model for the capitals of the Church of the Plan.
The height of the shaft of the columns at Höchst amounted
to about four times the height of its capitals, not counting
the imposts. In our reconstruction of the columns of the
Plan we have used about the same proportion. In Höchst
the relation of width to height of the arcade opening is
1:1.7; in the Church of the Plan, it is 1:1.5.

CROSSING

The reconstruction of the crossing (figs. 108-112) has been
a matter of some controversy and, in fact, permits different
interpretations. Two basic questions present themselves
immediately: first, was the crossing surmounted by a
tower; and second, were the roofs of nave and transept of
equal height? The first of these two questions must, I
think, be answered in the negative. The second does not
admit a clear-cut answer.

Crossing towers have been assumed in Fiechter-Zollikofer's
and Gruber's reconstructions of the Church of
the Plan (figs. 277 and 282).[136] Historically, this is a perfectly
feasible solution. Square towers, rising from crossings
produced by the interpenetration of two volumes of space
of essentially equal height, existed in the Abbey Church of
St.-Denis, constructed under Abbot Fulrad, 750-755;[137]
in the basilica of Neustadt-on-the-Main after 768/69[138]
(fig. 116); in the Abbey Church of St. Mary's on the island
of Reichenau, consecrated by Bishop Haito in 816[139] (fig.
117); and in the church of St. Martin at Angers, end of
ninth century.[140] But the Plan of St. Gall does not call for a
tower. In any of the other buildings, wherever a structure
was composed of two stories, the maker of the Plan indicated
this by an explanatory title, defining the function of
the lower story with a phrase that begins with the adverb
infra, "below," and that of the upper story by a phrase
that begins with the adverb supra, "above."[141] Had he
meant the crossing to be surmounted by a tower, he could
have expressed his intention with a statement such as infra
chorus, supra turris—"below, the choir; above, a tower."
The fact that he did not do this suggests that a crossing
tower was not intended.

With regard to the respective heights of nave and transept,
the traditional view has been that they were of equal
height and that the crossing was framed by boundary
arches on all four sides, rising from wall pilasters and from
cruciform piers (figs. 107-110). It is in this manner that
the crossing unit was interpreted by Friedrich Seesselberg
(1897), Georg Dehio (1901), Wilhelm Effmann (1899 and
1912), Friedrich Ostendorf (1922), Joseph Hecht (1928),
Ernst Gall (1930), and Edgar Lehman (1938).[142] It is also
the view that underlies the graphical reconstructions of the
Church, published by J. R. Rahn (1876), Joseph Hecht
(1928), H. Fiechter-Zollikofer (1936), and Karl Gruber
(1937 and 1952).[143]

However, this explanation of the Plan was questioned by
Hermann Beenken and by Samuel Guyer,[144] who felt that
to interpret the supports in the corners of the crossing of
the Church as piers and pilasters was not permissible,
because the symbol used for these members (a square with
a circle inscribed) is identical with that which is used for
the nave columns. Beenken's and Guyer's criticism is based
on the arbitrary assumption that the square with the
inscribed circle could only have had the exclusive meaning
of "column." A more circumspect analysis of the use and
distribution of this symbol discredits this view. In the
Monks' Refectory, the House for Distinguished Guests,
and the Abbot's House, the same sign is used to designate

a cupboard (toregma). In the Monks' Refectory it is also
used to designate a lectern (analogiu). In the room for the
preparation of the holy bread and the holy oil it stands for
"oil press," in the Monks' Privy, for "a table with a
lantern" (lucerna), and in the hypocausts of the Monks'
Warming Room, the Novitiate and the Infirmary, it stands
for "chimney stack" (euaporatio fumi). It seems absurd to
persist on a course of reasoning which is based on the
supposition that the designer of the Plan of St. Gall was
unaware of the distinction between a pier and a column
because he used the same symbol for both of these structural
members. To do so would be no less incongruous than
to accuse him of having designed a clerestory wall whose
arcades rested on cupboards, lecterns, oil presses, lantern-carrying
tables, or chimney stacks.[145]

It is obvious that in drawing the structural members of
his church, the architect availed himself of a symbol whose
meaning was not limited to "columns," but could be understood
in the more general sense of "arch-support," leaving
it to the builder of the Church to interpret this sign as its
architectural context required, either as a freestanding
column (as in the nave arcades) or as an engaged half column
(wherever it is shown as being part of a wall), or as cruciform
piers (as in the four corners of the crossing). In order
to preclude any further misunderstandings I should like to
pursue more closely the evidence furnished by the Plan
itself.

The Plan indicates clearly that the supports which stand
in the western corners of the crossing must have been
shaped in such a way as to receive the arches of the easternmost
arcade on either side of the nave, as well as the arches
of the openings which connect the aisles with the transept.
Furthermore, they must have been able to receive on a
higher level the springing of the triumphal arch. The
existence of the triumphal arch cannot be proven on the
basis of the linear layout of the Plan, but its presence is
mandatory in a building of this size for obvious constructional
reasons.

The square symbols with the inscribed circles in the two
eastern corners of the crossing postulate the existence in
these places of engaged pilasters on columns, that make
sense only if we assume that they served as footing for
either a transverse arch, which separated the crossing from
the fore choir, or two longitudinal arches thrown across the
transept arms in prolongation of the nave walls. One of these
two assumptions is obligatory, but the fact that only one
of them can be established compellingly does not preclude
the other. The Plan does not provide us with any evidence
that would warrant dismissing the possibility that the
Church was meant to have had an arch-framed crossing
(fig. 110).

As for the elevation of this crossing unit of the Church of
the Plan, it is futile to speculate whether it belonged to the
fully developed type with arches of equal height, which
became a standard feature of western architecture at the
period of the Romanesque, or whether it belonged to any

[ILLUSTRATION]

PLAN OF ST. GALL

111.A CHURCH. NORTH ELEVATION

111.B CHURCH. SOUTH ELEVATION

Because of the surrounding buildings, no one standing on the
monastery grounds would have been able to entirely encompass
these two magnificent views of the Church. They strikingly
portray the antinomy and balance between directional thrust and
inward-turning that characterizes Carolingian double-apsed
churches of this type.

One may feel perplexed by the aesthetic kinship of these two-apsed
Carolingian churches—not so much by such unidirectional classics
of Early Christian architecture as Old St. Peter's (fig. 141) or
St. Paul's Outside the Walls (fig. 81) upon which their layout is
based (cf. below, p. 187ff); but rather with the pagan imperial
prototypes of these great palaeochristian transept churches, the
Roman market halls, many of which had apses at each end; and
most of which had attached to one broad side (as in the case of the
Church of the Plan of St. Gall) an open, galleried court through
which the building was entered laterally rather than on axis
(basilica of Trajan, fig. 239; Severan basilica at Lepcis Magna,
fig. 159; basilica of Silchester, fig. 202).

The Church of the Plan of St. Gall is a sophisticated combination
of both concepts. It is directional like the churches of the two
prime apostles, because the transept and presbytery, in the
heaping-up of their spatial masses, make it clear that the architecturally
most prominent part of the church, and its liturgical
focus, is its cruciform eastern end. This effect is emphasized in the
interior, through the raising of the floor level of the Presbytery
over the level of all of the other parts of the church; and on the
exterior, through the attachment to the two transept arms, on
either side of the Presbytery, of two double storied lean-to's, one
containing Sacristy and Vestry (south side) the other Scriptorium
and Library (north side).

Yet this directionalism has no starting point, because the church
has no façade. Instead it faces the outside world with a counter
apse which binds its spatial energies inward, blocking access to the
nave, and channeling visiting laymen in a semicircular movement
around it to aesthetically insignificant secondary entrances in the
aisles (cf. caption to fig. 82).

Double apsed-churches (cf. below, pp. 199ff) were common in the
palaeochristian architecture of North Africa, but rare in the
Italian homeland. Recent studies have shown that they also were
very common in Visigothic Spain (for a brief review see the
article Hispania in Reallexikon zur Byzantinischen
Kunst) which may have played a more important role in transmission
of this motif to the Carolingian world than has hitherto
been admitted or recognized.

---

165

[ILLUSTRATION]

112. PLAN OF ST. GALL. CHURCH SEEN FROM THE NORTH LOOKING SOUTH

AUTHORS' INTERPRETATION

This broadside view of the Church displays with great pictorial strength the magnificent grouping of its slender longitudinal masses, intercepted
in the east by a monumental transept.

The Church has no façade, but its entrance side has, instead, a counter apse encircled by a semicircular atrium through which visitors are
channeled sidewards into the aisles of the building (cf. fig. 82). We have reconstructed the transept as being equal in height to the nave of the
Church, although this dimension is not certain. The double-storied lean-to attached to the northern transept arm in the east contains the
Scriptorium (on the ground floor) and the Library (above). The extended lean-to attached to the northern aisle of the Church in its entire
length accommodates the Lodging for the Visiting Monks (next to the transept), the Lodging of the Master of the Outer School (in the middle,
and Lodging of the Porter next to the entrance of the Church).

In the monastery itself this view of the Church could never have been seen in totality because of the adjacent buildings whose ridge reached to
the sill level of the nave windows. They are from left to right: the Abbot's House (co-axial with the transept), the Outer School (next to the
Lodging of its Master) and the House for Distinguished Guests (next to the Lodging of the Porter).

[ILLUSTRATION]

113. PLAN OF ST. GALL. CHURCH SEEN FROM THE WEST LOOKING EAST

AUTHORS' INTERPRETATION [after the model displayed at Aachen in 1965]. ELEVATION TAKEN ON SECTION X-X

This is the only example of a Carolingian church with detached circular towers. The motif is unique and does not appear in later medieval
architecture. Explanatory titles denote that its towers carried at the top of one the altar of Michael, of the other, the altar of Gabriel. There is
no indication of the presence of bells, and, because of the distance from the high altar, their sound in any case could not have been coordinated
with the liturgy. Gabriel and Michael are the celestial guardians representing forces of light against those of darkness and evil. The towers have
no practical function, but symbolically might announce from afar to travellers (and at close range almost threateningly) that they approach a
Fortress of God.

[ILLUSTRATION]

115.X REICHENAU-MITTELZELL

HAITO'S CHURCH OF ST. MARY
(806-816)

This capital from the main
arcades was re-used in a
column ascribed to Witigowo
(985-997). Its floral motifs,
although distantly based on
classical sources, represent in their
simplicity and flatness of relief
an early, rather than a high
Carolingian tradition. One is
reminded of developmental
stages of the Godescale Gospels
or the Genoels-Elderen diptych
(Fig. 190.X).

[ILLUSTRATION]

114. HÖCHST-ON-THE-MAIN. ST. JUSTINIUS, CAPITAL, CA. 834

This superb piece of Carolingian architectural sculpture combines a Greco-Roman acanthus capital with a strigilated Byzantine impost, plus a
refreshing touch of medieval abstraction. It embodies a synthesis of style, the historical ingredients of which are found in similar combinations in
some of the most accomplished illuminations of the period, such as the portrait of St. Luke in the Ada Gospels (fig. 184.A)

[ILLUSTRATION]

115 ST. GALL CAPITAL.

EXCAVATED BELOW THE PAVEMENT OF THE PRESENT CHURCH

CAPITAL FROM GOZBERT'S ABBEY CHURCH (830-837)

[after Sennhauser, "Zu den Ausgrabungen in der Kathedrale, der ehemaligen
Klosterkirche von St. Gallen," Festschrift zum 70. Geburtstag von Architekt
Hans Burkard, Gossau 1965, 109-116.]

More classicizing in the detail of its design than the capital of Höchst,
opposite, this one nevertheless seems to project a touch of weariness with
the classical tradition, clearly lacking stylistic firmness and sophistication
of the Höchst capital.

The capital, presumably from the columnar order of the nave arcades of
Gozbert's church, was re-used in the masonry of the foundations of the
Gothic choir built by abbots Eglolf and Ulrich VIII, between 1439 and
1483 (II, p. 326). It was discovered by R. H. Sennhauser in 1964 when
the south wall of the choir was breached to accommodate a modern
heating duct. For other discoveries made during these operations, see
preliminary report on Sennhauser's findings (II, 358-59).

*

Figure 115 shown above is reproduced from an original drawing executed in carbon
pencil, size, 8.5 × 10 inches (215 × 25.5cm). The drawing is based on a document
not adequate for direct photographic reproduction but possessing legibility features
of sufficient clarity and definition of form and detail to permit a drawing to be
developed with reasonable fidelity to the original artifact and satisfactory for the
purpose here.

of the precursor types, which Beenken designated with the
term "abgeschnürte Vierung."[146] It is true that a great
many Carolingian churches had low transepts, but it is
equally true that high transepts with arch-framed crossing
units existed in St.-Denis, as early as 750-755; in Neustadt-on-the-Main,
shortly after 768/69 (fig. 116); in the Abbey
Church of St. Mary's in Reichenau, before 816 (fig. 117).
The low transept may have been more common, but a
square crossing produced by the interpenetration of two
volumes of space of equal height, and framed by arches on
all four sides, was entirely within the realm of possible
solutions open to a Carolingian architect. Advanced and
superior as he was in so many other respects, the designer
of the Church of the Plan of St. Gall may also, in this
instance, have anticipated a development which had as yet
not found a widespread application in Carolingian architecture.

In our reconstruction of the Church of the Plan (figs.
108-112) we have chosen to emphasize this possibility. Had
we had more leisure and space, we would have supplemented
this solution with an alternate drawing that showed the
Church with a low transept. A reconstruction in which the
Church is furnished with a low transept will be found in
Emil Reisser's study of the Abbey of St. Mary's in
Reichenau-Mittelzell.[147]

CRYPT

Crank-shaped corridor crypts consisting of two straight
longitudinal arms connected in the east by a straight transverse
arm, existed in St.-Germain of Auxerre (841-859;
fig. 157)[148] and in St.-Pierre at Flavigny (864-878; fig.
158).[149] In both these churches the space between the surrounding
arms of the corridor crypt was taken up by a
hall crypt. The earlier students of the Plan of St. Gall
overlooked the title which refers to an inner confessio
(accessus ad confessionem) and, misled by this oversight,
reconstructed the crypt incorrectly as a small rectangular
chamber beneath the high altar, accessible only from the

[ILLUSTRATION]

116. NEUSTADT-AM-MAIN

SAVIOR'S CHURCH, AFTER 768-769

[after Boeckelmann, 1954, 105, fig. 41a]

In Neustadt, as well as in Reichenau-Mittelzell which had naves and
transepts of equal width and height, the masonry of the Carolingian
crossing arches survives in its original form and to full arch height.
In the churches of St. Riquier (fig. 196) and Cologne (fig. 15), both
of which had low transepts, the crossing arches were of unequal
height. In Early Christian architecture arch-framed crossings
occurred only in the highly specialized context of the quincunx
church (see below, pp. 190ff and figs. 145-46, 148-49, and 152), and
a small group of Near Eastern churches of minute dimensions, all
with nave and transept of equal width—but never in any of the
great metropolitan basilicas. The transfer of this motif to churches of
basilican plan and its incipient use, in this new context, as a modular
prime cell for the dimensional organization of the other component
spaces of the church is one of the great innovations of the Age of
Charlemagne.

[ILLUSTRATION]

117. REICHENAU-MITTELZELL. HAITO'S CHURCH OF SS MARY, PETER & PAUL (816)

ELEVATION [after Reisser, 1960, fig. 296]

If its system of alternating supports was influenced by St. Demetrios in Thessalonica (see below, fig. 188), this church could not have been
started until after Haito returned in 811 from Constantinople (on his way there he doubtless would have visited the famous sanctuary of St.
Demetrios) "with artists and workmen." For sources see Erdmann, 1974a, 501; for elevation and modular system see figs. 134 and 171.

east by a short axial passage (Seesselberg, Dehio, Effmann,
and even Gall).[150]

As a correction of this error, Ostendorf[151] and Hecht[152]
offered two solutions: the former suggested a straight
passage extending from the middle of the transverse shaft
of the corridor crypt to the crossing (fig. 118); the latter, a
small hall crypt around the tomb of the Saint, accessible
both from east and west (fig. 119).

Hecht was on the right track, in my opinion, in suggesting
a hall crypt, but a hall crypt about 13 feet square is not
commensurate with the generous proportions of the other
parts of the Church. Had the designer intended a crypt
either of the type suggested by Ostendorf, or of that suggested
by Hecht, he could have expressed his intention
easily by the addition of only a few more lines. The fact
that he did not do this suggests that he had in mind a crypt
that extended over the entire width of the fore choir and as
far outward as the safety of its foundation walls permitted.
That groin-vaulted hall crypts of these dimensions were
fully within the technical competence of a Carolingian
architect may be inferred from the vaulted ground stories
of Carolingian westworks, a remarkable example of which
survives in the Abbey of Corvey (fig. 120).[153] The excavations
of Joseph Vonderau at Fulda brought to light an
aisled hall crypt of approximately 30 × 30 feet, which was
built by Abbot Eigil between 820 and 822 under the east
choir of Ratger's church (802-817).[154] It had nine groin
vaults resting on six freestanding piers or columns and nine
corresponding wall supports (fig. 122). The earliest
surviving hall-crypt of this type, as far as I know, is the
crypt of the Church of St. George in Oberzell on the island
of Reichenau (fig. 121), built by Abbot Haito III between
890 and 896 in an oratory that had been founded by
Bishop Haito (d. 823).[155]

By analogy with these parallels we have reconstructed
the confessio of the Church of the Plan of St. Gall as a hall
crypt having a surface area of 20 × 32½ feet, covered by 6
groin vaults, each 10½ feet square (fig. 123).[156] The corridor
crypt may have been covered either by a simple barrel
vault, as in St.-Germain of Auxerre (fig. 157). or by a continuous
series of groin vaults, as in Flavigny (fig. 158).

Richard Krautheimer, in an exchange of letters devoted
to this subject, questioned the tenability of my interpretation
of the confessio of the Church of the Plan as an inner
hall crypt and, as we failed to arrive at any agreement on
this point, allowed me to discuss our variances of opinion
in print. Krautheimer feels convinced that the tomb of St.
Gall should be assumed to have had its place, not behind the
altar (as shown on the Plan) but beneath it. This was its
traditional place in Early Christian times from the fourth
century onward, as is exemplified by such churches as St.
Peter's, Santa Prassede, San Giorgio in Velabro, Santa
Cecilia, and many others.[157] By analogy with these churches
Krautheimer suggests the entrance designated accessus ad
confessionem should not be interpreted as a gate giving
access to a hall crypt, but as a window fenestella opening into
a small rectangular chamber located in front or around
the tomb of the Saint.

Coming from a man whose knowledge about Early
Christian and Early Medieval Architecture is matched by
none, these views must be given the most careful consideration.
They are bound to be shared by others and have, in
fact, already been suggested by Hans Reinhardt in 1937
and 1952[158] , by René Louis in 1952, and by Louis Hertig in
1958.[159] In reviewing the evidence, I find that I cannot
concur with these interpretations for a number of reasons:

1. Nowhere in any of the forty-odd buildings of the
Plan or any of its other installations does the drafter of the
scheme show anything as lying behind another object when
he means it to lie beneath it. Wherever something was
meant to be below or above something else this is indicated
through an explanatory title beginning with the preposition
infra or supra.[160]

2. In the churches of the monastery of St. Gall, from
the seventh century onward, i.e., in the early Irish oratory
as well as the churches which superseded it under Abbot
Otmar (719-759) and Abbot Gozbert (830-836), the sarcophagus
which enshrined the body of the Saint was de facto
not below but behind the altar (inter aram et parietem). I
have already had occasion to refer to this fact.[161] The same
condition prevailed at St. Riquier (Centula) as is attested
by a well-known passage in the Chronicle of Hariulf which
reads: "The tomb [of St. Richarius] itself, however, is so
placed that at the feet of this Saint his altar stands in an
elevated place, and at his head stands the altar of the
apostle St. Peter." (Sepultura vero ipsa ita posita est, ut a
parte pedum ipsius sancti altare sit in loco editiori, a parte
capitis sancti Petri Apostoli ara persistat.)[162]

[ILLUSTRATION]

118. PLAN OF ST. GALL

Crypt of Church, Ostendorf's interpretation

[Ostendorf 1922, 43, fig. 279]

This proposal provides a shaft too narrow to
allow monks to pray in privacy near the
saint's tomb, and furnishes insufficient
separation from laymen,

[ILLUSTRATION]

119. PLAN OF ST. GALL

Crypt of Church, Hecht's interpretation

[Hecht, 1928, pl. 10b]

Hecht is more generous in his provision of
space around the tomb of St. Gall than is
Ostendorf, yet he still allows for too
indiscriminate an intermixture of monks and
laymen.

[ILLUSTRATION]

120. CORVEY-ON-THE-WESER, GERMANY

WESTWORK OF ABBEY CHURCH, GROUND FLOOR (873-885)

While most Early Christian and Carolingian churches were timber roofed, the art of vaulting
continued to be practised in crypts and westworks, where it was needed to carry the weight of the
superincumbent work. Corvey and St. Riquier are magnificent examples of this tradition.

In the 11th century the groin was freed from confinement underground or in the avant-corps and
ascended into the principal body of the church, first to aisles (Jumièges, figs. 189.A-D), then to
nave (Speyer, figs. 190.A-B). In the transfer of Carolingian modularity to the elevation of the
church, and its marriage, at roof level, with the tradition of groin vaulting, medieval bay
division enters its final and most accomplished phase.

3. To interpret accessus ("access") as fenestella ("window")
is doing injustice to the Latinity of the churchman
who framed the explanatory titles of the Plan. Accessus is
"bodily admittance" (accedere means "to approach," "to
step toward"). The concept fenestella implies the opposite,
because a window, although granting visual access, is part
of a wall or barrier that precludes a bodily approach. The
clarity of the other explanatory titles of the Plan suggests
that if the framer of these titles had wanted to designate the
presence of a window in the wall between the two flights of
stairs which lead from the crossing to the high altar he
would have done so by choosing the proper and traditional
term for this device.[163] In Walahfrid Strabo's account of the
Miracles of St. Gall, there is mention of a fenestella opening
into the confessio of Abbot Gozbert's church at St. Gall,
but this window was in the pavement of the presbytery in
front of the high altar and it allowed the light of a lamp
suspended in front of that altar to "fall upon the altar of
the crypt beneath it.[164]

4. Finally, I must re-emphasize a point already amply
stressed in my descriptive analysis of the Plan: The layout
of the barriers in the two transept arms of the Church
leaves no doubt that the crank-shaped circumambient crypt
of the Church is reserved for the secular visitors of the
tomb, the southern arm serving as access for the Pilgrims
and Paupers, the northern arm for Distinguished Guests
(fig. 82).[165] The monks, too, needed access to the sarcophagus
containing the relics of the Saint. I am drawing
attention once more in this context to chapter 7 of a
capitulary issued by Charlemagne in 789, which directs
in the clearest and most unequivocal terms that such
private oratories be constructed "near the place where the
sacred body rests so that the brothers can pray in secrecy."[166]
Monastic integrity and seclusion required that such an
oratory be separate from those spaces through which the
secular visitors gain access to the tomb. A simple fenestella,
located at a distance of 17½ feet from the westernmost end
of the tomb of St. Gall could not have performed this function
and, in fact would have been meaningless. There was
a need for devotional space in front of the tomb, sufficiently
large to accommodate an altar and large enough to admit
at least a modicum of worshipping monks. One might
quarrel about the relative size of that space, but one should
not question its existence.

In discussions of this as well as of many other important
features of the Plan of St. Gall, the innovative character of
this ingenious monastery scheme has been consistently
underrated. The spatial functional needs of a Carolingian
monastery church differed vastly from those of their
metropolitan Early Christian prototype churches and called
for new solutions. We shall have more to say about this in
the next chapter.

WINDOWS

The reconstruction of the windows offers no serious difficulties,
as Carolingian windows survive in many places.
We have fashioned the windows of the Church of the Plan
after those of the basilica of Einhardt at Steinbach-in-the
Odenwald (827), the design of which has been the subject
of a special study by Walter Boeckelmann.[167] These
windows are narrow at the outer wall surface; however, the
jambs are strongly splayed toward the inside, with steeply
slanting sills and arches. Splayed windows appear sporadically
in Roman architecture,[168] and toward the end of the
sixth century (although not a typical feature even then), and
they were apparently common enough to attract the notice
of Gregory the Great (590-604), who expressed himself on
their virtues:

In times when glass was a rare and costly commodity, the
splayed window offered the advantage of keeping the area
of glass minimal, while admitting the maximum amount of
light.

ROOF

There can be no doubt that the frame of the roof of the
Church of St. Gall was meant to be constructed in timber.
It took two more centuries in the development of western
architecture before basilicas of major dimensions were
vaulted in stone. Since no timbered Carolingian church
roofs survive to guide us in our reconstruction, the details
of the carpentry of the roof of the Church must remain a
matter of conjecture. The earliest extant medieval church
roofs date from the twelfth century. They consist of simple
sequences of coupled rafters of uniform scantling rising

[ILLUSTRATION]

121. REICHENAU-OBERZELL. CHURCH OF ST. GEORGE (890-896). CRYPT

This view shows the crypt as seen from its entry shaft. Of monumental simplicity and great structural beauty, the crypt is square in plan and coextensive
with the square choir rising above it. It is covered by nine groin vaults supported in the center by four free-standing columns.

from the ends of a tie-beam and made rigid by collar beams
and an elaborate system of bracing struts. The cross section
of the twelfth-century roofs of the churches of St.-Germain-des-Prés
and St.-Pierre-de-Montmartre in Paris (figs. 124125)
are typical examples.[170]

Although perfectly feasible for churches of moderate
dimensions, this roof design would not have been solid
enough, in my opinion, to safely span the vast interstices
between the clerestory walls of the larger Carolingian
churches. The nave of the Abbey Church of Fulda, 802819
(fig. 138) had an inner width of 17m (calculated by
Vonderau as corresponding to 60 Roman feet),[171] and thus
was narrower than the nave of its Early Christian prototype,
Old St. Peter's in Rome (fig. 141), by only a small margin
(18.80m, listed by Volbach as corresponding to 61 feet,
8 inches).[172] I am inclined to believe that the roof that
covered the basilica of Fulda derived its design from the
same source that inspired the entire building.[173] That the
roof of Old St. Peter's was well known to Frankish architects
may be inferred from two letters of Pope Hadrian I to
Charlemagne (one written between 779 and 801; the other,
between 781 and 786), in which the pontiff asks the
emperor not only for the beams for the repair of the roof
of St. Peter's but also for a magister to supervise the work—
clear evidence of the high esteem Frankish carpenters and
builders enjoyed in Rome in those days. The Pope asked
for the services of no lesser man than Wilcharius, Bishop of
Sens, to direct the restoration.[174]

Carlo Fontana made an engraving in 1694 of the roof
trusses spanning the nave of Old St. Peter's (fig. 126); these
he considered to be an authentic record of the original
(Early Christian) roof of the church.[175] The nave span of the
Church of the Plan is only about one-half (40 feet) of that
of Old St. Peter's, and therefore, would not have required a
roof of such heavy design. In our reconstruction of the roof
of the Church (figs. 108-110) we have been guided by a roof
design which, it is believed, was a standard Early Christian
type, and which, to judge by a description in Vitruvius'
Fourth Book,[176] must also have been standard for broad
spans in Roman Imperial times. Vitruvius distinguishes
between two roof types, one suited for "spaces of relatively
small dimensions" (commoda spatia), the other for buildings
involving "broader spans" (majora spatia). The former,
according to his description, consisted of two simple
rows of rafters converging at the top in a ridge beam and
extending downward all the way out to the eaves of the
building (columen et cantherii prominentes ad extremam
subgrundationem); the latter was made up of a sequence of
vertical trusses which supported the covering of the roof
by means of purlins. Vitruvius lists the different parts that
make up this frame and tells us that their names express
their different functions (ea autem uti in nominationibus ita
in re habet utilitates); "Under the roof, if the span is
broader, there are tie-beams (transtra) and bracing struts
(capreoli). . . . Above the principal rafters (cantherii) there
are the common rafters (asseres) extending outward sufficiently
to protect the walls with their overhang."[177]

This terminology is indeed highly descriptive and typical
of the classical habit of defining the functions of inanimate
objects by imagery borrowed from animate life. Cantherius
(a beast of burden) is an appropriate term for the load-bearing
action of the rafters; capreolus (a wild goat) expresses
vivdly the butting action of the diagonal timbers
locked in the center and at the bottom of the king post like
the horns of two fighting goats; transtrum, derived from the
preposition trans (across) is equally expressive of the purpose
of the large crossbeam that forms the base of the truss.
Vitruvius fails to furnish us with the name for the king
post, which in this type of construction rises almost
invariably from the center of the tie-beam to the ridge pole.
The primary function of this post is not to support, as has
been frequently thought, but to serve as a base of departure
for the diagonal bracing struts which prop the rafters midway
in their span, and thus prevent them from sagging
inward under the load of the roof covering.[178] The early
translators and commentators on Vitruvius have interpreted
these descriptions of the two basic Roman roof
types correctly; and such reconstructions based upon these
interpretations as are found, for instance, in Barbaro's
Italian translation of Vitruvius, published by Francesco
Marcolini in 1556 (fig. 127)[179] or in the 1827 edition of
Vitruvius published with commentary by Joannes Polenus,[180]
cannot, in my opinion, be improved upon.

The correctness of such interpretations has recently been
confirmed by George H. Forsyth's extraordinary discovery
of the original timbers of the roof of the sixth-century
church of St. Catherine at Mount Sinai, which is the

[ILLUSTRATION]

122. FULDA. ABBEY CHURCH

HALL CRYPT (817-819)

[after Vonderau, 1949, 52, fig. 6]

The monk Racholf, under Eigil's abbacy, built two crypts,
one before the western, the other beneath the eastern apse of
Ratger's church. Both were destroyed, the west crypt during
construction of the 18th-century church and the east when two
circular towers standing to its side collapsed in 1120-21. This
apse was completely rebuilt (1123-1158) by Markward,
presumably in its original form. Both crypts were dedicated by
Bishop Heistulf of Mainz in 819. (For archaeological details see
Vonderau, 1931, 49-61; for documentary sources the prose and
metric Vita Eigilis, in Mon. Germ. Hist., Script. XV:1,
229, and ibid., Poetae Lat. 11, 108.)

earliest surviving example of its kind.[181] But the design of
others, of even earlier date—exhibiting the classical truss
formed by tie-beam, rafters, and bracing struts[182] —is engraved
into the masonry gables of the porches of certain
Syrian churches of around 400 (figs. 128 and 129). In Italy
this roof type survived unchanged throughout the Middle
Ages. One of the finest extant examples is the magnificent
fourteenth-century roof of the church of San Miniato al
Monte in Florence.[183]

In conformity with this well-attested Roman and Early
Christian roof tradition, we have reconstructed the roof of
the Church of the Plan as a trussed timber roof with purlins
supporting an outer set of rafters (figs. 108-110). The proportions
of the Church suggest that these trusses were
placed at a distance of 20 feet from one another over the
center of each nave column, or at intervals of 10 feet, if we
assume intermediate trusses over the apex of each arcade
midway between the columns. Our roof pitch is of course
purely conjectural. Since the Church of the Plan lies
stylistically midway between the Early Christian and the
Romanesque, we have constructed it at an angle of 45
degrees—a pitch considerably more obtuse than that of the
average Early Christian roof, yet substantially more acute
than the average roof of the transalpine churches of the
tenth and eleventh centuries.

ROOF COVERING

The customary material used for covering the roofs of
Carolingian churches was tile or lead. The distinction is
not always clear, as the term tegula (classical Latin for
"ceramic tile") is used for both. However, it is probably
safe to assume that when tegula is used without the qualifying
adjective plumbea, it stands for tile.

When Benedict of Aniane founded his first monastery at
the banks of the stream of that name, he covered the
building "not with red-gleaming tiles, but with thatch"
(non tegulis rubentibus, sed stramine).[184] Conversely, when he
rebuilt the monastery in 772, "he covered the houses not
with thatch, but with tiles" (non iam stramine domos, sed

[ILLUSTRATION]

123. PLAN OF ST. GALL

CRYPT OF THE CHURCH

AUTHORS' INTERPRETATION

Whatever the precise shape of the space designated
CONFESSIO it obviously could not have exceeded an area
confined to the north and south by masonry of the
Presbytery walls and to the west and east by walls separating
CONFESSIO from crossing and from the transverse arm of the
corridor crypt. It is also clear that the Crypt's two
longitudinal arms would have come to lie outside the masonry
of the Presbytery walls. To clear these walls they would
each, in construction, be moved outward by 2½ feet; but the
builder could have easily complied with this need, since the
Crypt arms were underground and the space invaded by their
outward displacement would not have diminished any
adjacent structure. The CONFESSIO surely must have been
covered with groin vaults because of the weight of the
superincumbent Presbytery floor with its high altar and
heavy loading from constant use.

In the plan shown to the right Ernest Born has subdivided the 40-foot
squares of crossing and Presbytery internally each into sixteen 10-foot
squares and the latter again (in the areas occupied by the crypt) each into
sixteen 2½-foot squares. Our reconstruction shows how easily and
convincingly the masonry of an actual building can be developed within the
framework of the grid that forms the conceptual basis of the Plan — masonry
and foundation solid enough to carry the load of the superincumbent walls
of the Church.

The CONFESSIO is here interpreted as an inner hall crypt of roughly 20 by
30 feet with a ceiling formed by six groin vaults each covering the surface
area of a 10-foot square (100 square feet).

In the interpretation illustrated here the gray tint indicates walls of the church above
in locations depicted on the original document, and the U-shaped crypt passage or
corridor is presumed to be covered with a barrel vault.

tegulis cooperuit).[185] From chapter 26 of the capitulary
issued by Charlemagne at the synod of Frankfurt in 794,
it appears that tile was then the customary cover for
church roofs.[186] But before the century had come to a close,
lead appears to have moved into the foreground. It was
with tegulis plumbeis that Charlemagne covered the Palace
Chapel at Aachen (consecrated in 805).[187] The same material
was used by Abbot Ansegis (807-833) to cover the church
of St. Peter's at St. Wandrille,[188] by Bishop Hincmar (845882)
to cover the roof of the cathedral of Reims,[189] and by
Einhard to cover the roof of his church of SS. Peter and
Marcellinus, at Seligenstadt (started in 827). The purchase
of lead for the latter and the difficulties encountered in
procuring it are discussed in an undated letter of Einhard's
written to an unidentified abbot:

II.2.2

THE CHURCH AS MODIFIED IN THE
LIGHT OF ITS CORRECTIVE TITLES

To reconstruct what the Church of the Plan would have
looked like had it been modified in the light of the corrective
titles is an intriguing historical task and has produced
a variety of different proposals. It is not surprising that no
agreement has ever been reached in this matter. The
attempt involves some delicate changes on which even
Carolingian architects might not easily have come to terms
with one another.

GEORG DEHIO (1887) & JOSEPH HECHT (1924)

One of the distinctive and historically most fascinating
features of the Church drawing is that it is constructed
according to a system of squares (fig. 61), exhibiting a
principle of spatial organization that became a guiding
feature in certain schools of the Romanesque, two centuries
later.[191] To reduce the Church to the requested length of
200 feet implies the abandonment of the square schematism;
anyone who attempts to redraw the Church using
the measurements listed in the explanatory titles has made
this distressing discovery. Not wishing to totally relinquish
this feature Georg Dehio, who belonged to a generation of
architectural historians profoundly interested in the problem
of modular geometricity in medieval architecture,
retained the squares in the transept and in the fore choir.
By diminishing the interstices of the arcades of the nave
to the stipulated twelve feet, he then arrived at the compromise
length of 218 feet (fig. 130).[192] Joseph Hecht, pursuing
similar lines of thought, arrived at a length of 224
feet.[193]

[ILLUSTRATION]

124. PARIS. ST. GERMAIN-DES-PRÈS

[after Deneux, 1927, 50, fig. 70]

[ILLUSTRATION]

125. PARIS. ST. PIERRE DE MONTMARTRE

[after Deneux, 1927, 50, fig. 71]

Two typical examples of the SPARRENDACH, a relatively steep-pitched
roof with supporting frames of narrowly spaced rafters in continuous
sequence, with light scantling, and braced internally but without purlins
or ridge beams.

[ILLUSTRATION]

126. ROME. ROOF OF OLD ST. PETER'S RECORDED IN 1694 IN
CARLO FONTANA'S TEMPLUM VIATICANUM ET IPSIUS ORIGO. Detail of engraving same size as original

[after FONTANA, 1694, 99]

In publishing this design of what he refers to as "the trusses which sustained the
roof over the nave of Old St. Peter's" (LE INCAUALLATURE, CHE SOSTUEUANO LI
TETTI DELLA NAUE MAGGIORE . . . DEL ANTICA BASILICA VATICANA) Carlo Fontana
(1634-1714), disciple and collaborator of Lorenzo Bernini and architect in charge
of the Pontifical Office of Architects and Engineers, informs his readers that his
engraving was made after an "accurate drawing" (UN GIUSTO DISEGNO) tendered
him by an "informed person" (UNA PERSONA DILETTEUOLE); and that it was
because of the extraordinary constructional "sophistication" (INTELLIGENZA) as
well as the soundness of the timbers employed in these trusses that the roof of the
Constantinian basilica survived intact for so many centuries—to the extent that
when finally taken down, it was found to be in such good condition that its timbers
could be reassembled to sustain the roof of the Palazzo Farnese.

If timbers from the roof of Old St. Peter's were re-used in the Palazzo Farnese
(1546-1589) they must have come from the western half of the nave dismantled
by Bramante (1502) to make room for the construction of New St. Peter's. The
eastern half of the nave (closed off from the construction site by a provisional wall
under Paul III, 1534-1549) was demolished only in 1606 to make room for Carlo
Maderna's westward elongation of New St. Peter's. The roof timbers of this
portion were also re-used, this time for the Palazzo Borghese (1605-1621).

The names of the component members of the truss shown in Fontana's engraving
are enumerated on two scrolls which form part of the drawing. On these the tie
beams are referred to as CORDE MAGGIORI (B), the collar beams as CORDE
MINORI (C), the rafters as PARADOSSI (D), the center post suspended from the
apex of the truss as traue pendente adVso di monaco (E).

During the 12th to 13th centuries of its existence, the roof of the Constantinian
basilica of Old St. Peter's was, not surprisingly, in need of numerous repairs. A
complete account of them, including what in the sources is referred to as a "renovation"
by Pope Benedict XII (fecit fieri de novo tecta huius Basilicae sub anno
1341) is given by Michele Cerrati in Tiberii Alpharini, "De Basilica Vaticana
Antiquissima et Nova Structura" (STUDI E TESTI vol. 26 Rome, 1914, 13 note 2;
brought to my attention by my colleague Loren Partridge). There is no compelling
reason to presume that Benedict's renovation involved any basic changes in the
roof's design.

Fontana's rendering of the trusses of Old St. Peter's is in complete accord with
that which Vitruvius recommends for broad spans, except that all of the principal
members of the truss are doubled, and that the tie beams are fashioned in two
pieces, joined midway by an overlapping scarf joint. Owing to the extraordinary
width of the nave of Old St. Peter's (23.6 3m.), two-piece tie beams were necessary
since it would have been hard to find trees of sufficient height to yield single timbers
to span the whole space. Doubling all of the principal members was an extremely
wise constructional feature—probably the primary contribution to the longevity
of the Constantinian trusses—which evolved from the strategic function made of
the TRAVE PENDENTE. The scheme is a laminative one; a kind of truss-sandwich
is formed in which the structural components are assembled and joined in a function
that yields, in effect, a "pair" of trusses, but which is really a single homogeneous
creation of remarkable simplicity and purity of concept—revealing a mastery of static
mechanics that transcends Vitruvius and commands admiration today. Yet the design
does not seem to have found general acceptance. On the contrary, a medieval carpentry
truss, when it is impressive, gains our attention rather by its quaintness, its
intricacy of joinery and the complexity of its members.

The construction is ingenious. Transmitting the entire roof load to the two outer ends
of the tie beams, the principal rafters D-D are in compression and thus act as
columns as well as beams. Column action augmented by the deflection of beam
action is resisted by the horizontal strut C-C (collar beam) which functions in
compression. These minor chords support the rafter pairs midway in their span, a
construction that reduces the effective length of the rafters to approximately one-fourth
the nave span. Strut C-C is supported at mid-point by the vertical member
E-E (MONACO) which concurrently serves as a tension member to prevent sag in
the great lower chords. The scarf joint of these tie beams, tabled, locked, and
girdled by iron bands, prevents them from separating in the horizontal plane. In
contemplating the brilliance and simplicity of the design, remember that the wall-to-wall
span was above 84 feet—reflecting a state of theory of mechanics and
knowledge of structure existing in the 4th century!

[ILLUSTRATION]

127. TWO BASIC ROMAN ROOF TYPES

[after Vitruvius, Fourth Book on Architecture; interpreted by Barbaro in his translation of 1556]

HANS REINHARDT (1937 and 1952)

Hans Reinhardt, who tends to under-evaluate the square
schematism of the Church of the Plan of St. Gall,[194]
attempted to resolve these discrepancies by developing a
drawing in which the Church was shown reduced to 200
feet. But to attain this goal he found himself compelled to
reduce the fore choir and the space of the crypt beneath it
to one-fourth of their original dimensions, and thus he
arrived at a modified plan which appears to retain no spiritual
kinship to the original concept of the drawing (fig.
131).[195]

Reinhardt contracts the Church most severely where
contraction hurts most: in the all-important area around
the high altar and the tomb of St. Gall, where the entire
body of the monks assembled daily for a total of four hours
or more, in common chant and the celebration of the divine
services. He placed the high altar against the very edge of
the raised choir, where it drops vertically down to the floor
level of the transept leaving no space for the officiating
priest and his attendants (fig. 132). A step on the eastern
side of the altar suggests that Reinhardt imagines the priest
to stand behind the altar facing west. This not only is
incompatible with what is known to have been a general
custom in Carolingian liturgy,[196] but also in open conflict
with fourteen other altars in the Church of the Plan (figs.
84, 93 and 99). Their layout leaves no doubt that the
officiating priest stood west of the altar, facing east; the

[ILLUSTRATION]

128. SYRIA, BATUTA CHAPEL. PORCH, SOUTH SIDE

[courtesy Princeton University Archaeological Expedition to Syria]

location of the altar barriers and the position of the crosses
leaves no doubt on this score.

One feels equally puzzled about Reinhardt's modification
of the crypt. The drafter of the Plan provided the
monastery with two crypts with different but complementary
functions. One is an outer corridor crypt in the
shape of a crank, which takes the pilgrims and the other
secular visitors to the tomb of St. Gall. The other is an
inner crypt which lies beneath the high altar and is reached
from the crossing through a passage marked accessus ad
confessionem, between the two flights of steps that lead up
to the fore choir (fig. 99). Being accessible from an area

[ILLUSTRATION]

130. PLAN OF ST. GALL. CHURCH

[after Dehio, 1887, pl. 42 and fig. 2]

Dehio reconciles the conflict between the "corrective" titles of the plan
of the Church and the manner in which it is drawn, by reducing the
arcade spans to 12 feet. Leaving Transept and Presbytery untouched,
he retains the full measure of space (and incidentally its square
schematism in the liturgically most vital part of the Church, where
monks assembled daily for no less than four hours of religious services.
This solution is acceptable—even perfect—if one excludes the western
apse, as Dehio seems to have done, from the 200-foot length prescribed
for the Church. Dehio's church measures 218 feet from apex to apex of
its apses.

[ILLUSTRATION]

131. PLAN OF ST. GALL. CHURCH

[after Reinhardt, 1952, 20]

Reinhardt proceeded by assuming that the 200-foot prescribed length
of the Church must be understood to include both apses. He adopted
Dehio's solution for the nave of the Church and accomplished a further
reduction of the overall length to exactly 200 feet by eliminating the fore
choir, moving the high altar into the apse, dispensing with the altar of
St. Paul, placing the tomb of St. Gall beneath the altar, and the high
altar itself, into a position where it had to be serviced from the east
rather than the west as was customary in this period.

[ILLUSTRATION]

129. SYRIA. BRAD CONVENT. PEDIMENT OF PORCH

[after Butler, 1929, 199, fig. 201]

Had Forsyth not discovered the 6th-century roof of St. Catherine's on Mt. Sinai, Brad and Batuta (fig. 128) would be sole evidence for
reconstructing the design of timbered roofs in Early Christian Syria. St. Catherine's roof is still functioning, in perfect condition. See The
Monastery of St. Catherine at Mt. Sinai, 1973.

reserved for the exclusive use of the monks, this can only
have been a hall crypt providing the monks with prayer
space around the tomb of St. Gall.[197] Reinhardt eliminates
this confessio altogether and thus creates a spatial vacuum
in one of the most spiritually vital spots of the Church.

From a liturgical and functional point of view the
removal of the fore choir is fatal. Moreover, it is devastating
in its effect on the subsidiary spaces of the Sacristy and the
Scriptorium, which are built against the fore choir and, like
the latter, each cover a surface area of 40 × 40 feet. What
does Reinhardt propose to do with them? To reduce them
proportionately would render them unusable;[198] to retain
them as originally planned would amount to an aesthetic
degradation of the apse which seems incompatible with its
liturgical and architectural function.

Reinhardt's proposal also seems unsuitable in general
historical terms. The interposition of a separate spatial unit
between apse and transept is one of the new and original
features of Carolingian architecture. It appeared in
Neustadt-on-the-Main shortly after 768-769 (figs. 116, 133);
in the abbey church of St. Riquier (Centula) between 790799
(fig. 135); in the church of Vreden around 800 (fig. 136);
in the cathedral of St. Mary and St. Peter of Cologne, prior
to the death of its founder, Archbishop Hildebold, d. 819
(fig. 139); in St. Mary at Mittelzell on Reichenau, as rebuilt
by Abbot Haito between 806 and 816 (fig. 134); and in the
abbey church of Hersfeld, if Groszmann's reconstruction is
correct, between 831 and 851.[199] The primary motivation
for this new spatial entity was, as Thümmler has correctly
pointed out, the desire to isolate and strengthen the importance
of the high altar, at which the choral services were
held, and to provide more space for the officiating clergy.[200]
The increasing dimensions of the crypt, and the latter's
division into an outer corridor crypt for the pilgrims and an
inner confessionary for the monks, is directly related to this
development. Both of these innovations were responses to
pressing liturgical needs.

ARGUMENTS IN FAVOR OF
DEHIO'S INTERPRETATION

It is easy to understand why Dehio was reluctant to
undertake any changes in the eastern parts of the Church
and took the step, for which he was subsequently so
severely criticized, of making the Church a little larger (218
feet) than the stipulated 200 feet. However, there remains
the question whether Dehio is really guilty of such a compromise.
His reconstruction may in fact be based upon a
more accurate interpretation of the title which prescribes
the reduction. Dehio's critics interpret the propositional
phrase AB ORIENTE AD OCCIDENTē to mean "From the
apex of the eastern apse to the apex of the western apse."
There is no assurance whatsoever that this is in fact what
the title meant to convey. The first five letters of the phrase,
AB ORI, are inscribed into the eastern apse, which means
that this apse was a component part of the designated
length. But the inscription does not run into the round of
the western apse; it stops in the westernmost bay of the
nave with the numeral .cc. Literally interpreted this would
mean that the western apse was not meant to be included
in the designated length of 200 feet. If it was not, then
Dehio's reconstruction (fig. 130) would run only 8 feet

[ILLUSTRATION]

132. PLAN OF ST. GALL

CRYPT & ALTAR SPACE, Reinhardt's Interpretation

[after Reinhardt, 1952, 20]

Eliminating the fore choir and moving the high altar into the apse
would have reduced space occupied by monks during divine services to
less than half that foreseen in the Plan. In addition to incongruities
described in fig. 131, this would have led to congestion of disastrous
proportions in this most heavily used part of the Church.

beyond the stipulated length (nine arcades of a span of
12 feet = 108 feet; crossing unit = 40 feet; fore choir =
40 feet; apse = 20 feet. Total = 208 feet)—close enough
to be acceptable; and acceptable without any shadow of
doubt, if the radius of the eastern apse were shortened from
20 feet to 12 feet.[201]

It is imperative, in this context, to draw attention to the
fact (entirely disregarded in previous discussions of this
subject) that the reconstruction proposed by Georg Dehio
appears to conform, indeed, with the manner in which
Abbot Gozbert and his builders interpreted the Plan when
they rebuilt the church in 830-836, as August Hardegger
inferred from the measured architectural drawings made of
the church by Pater Gabriel Hecht, in 1725/26, when
much of the Carolingian fabric of the church was still
identifiable.[202]

WOLFGANG SCHÖNE (1960)

By far the most radical attempt to reconcile the drawing
of the church of the Plan of St. Gall with that of its corrective
explanatory titles was that which Wolfgang Schöne
published in 1960.[203] Schöne not only shortened the church
to the desired 200 feet, but applied the same reduction to
all the other buildings of the Plan. However, in advancing
this theory he either overlooked or disregarded the fact that
the same proposition had already been discussed and convincingly

rejected twenty-two years earlier by Fritz Viktor
Arens, who pointed out that if one were to redraw the Plan
according to the measurements given for the length of the
Church (i.e., 200 feet), the Cloister and all of the service
structures of the Plan would be too small to perform their
designated functions.[204]

My own analysis of the scale used in designing the Plan
confirmed this view. Were the Plan redrawn in this manner
not only would the monks, including the abbot and the
visiting noblemen (i.e., Monks' Dormitory, Abbot's House,
and House for Distinguished Guests) no longer fit into
their beds, but the Refectory of the Monks would be too
small to seat the full contingent of monks, the horses would
lack the required floor space to stand in their stables, and
the workmen could not carry out their respective crafts and
labors.[205]

The most decisive counter argument, however, to
Schöne's interpretation of the Plan is to be found in a
statement made by a man who lived at the time when the
Plan was drawn. In his commentary on the Rule of St.
Benedict, written around 845 in the monastery of Civate,
Hildemar, a monk from Corbie, declared that in his days
"It was generally held that the cloister should be 100 feet
square and no less because that would make it too small."[206]

Schöne reduces it to a little less than 67 × 67 feet. It is
historically incongruous to assume that a scheme of paradigmatic

[ILLUSTRATION]

134. REICHENAU-MITTELZELL

HAITO'S CHURCH (CONSECRATED 816)

[after Reisser, 1960, fig. 285]

Built by the "author" of the Plan of St. Gall, between 806-817 (but
the nave perhaps not before 811), this church continues the tradition of
St. Riquier with its extended altar space and tower-surmounted
crossing. (Also see figs. 117 and 171 for comment on its alternating
supports, and its underlying modular concepts.)

significance should propose a cloister whose dimensions
fall by one-third below what at the time was
considered to be the lowest suitable limit.

ADOLF REINLE (1963-64)

The reconstruction of Adolf Reinle (fig. 137), because of
his radically different interpretation of the axial explanatory
title of the Church, occupies a position entirely apart from
those of any of the previous students of the Plan. Translating
the axial title of the Church "AB ORIENTE AD OCCIDENTE[M]
PED .CC." in the sense of "THIS PLAN IS DRAWN
AT THE SCALE OF 1:200," he felt himself under no compulsion
to reduce the Church to a length of 200 feet, as so
many others had tried to do. He rather endows it with its
full length of 300 feet. However, in adjustment to the title
which designates the intercolumnar interstices of the
arcades of the nave to be 12 feet, Reinle consequently
increased the number of arcades from nine to fifteen.
Reinle draws support for this interpretation from the
observation that arcades of a span of 20 feet (6.8 m.) are
not known to have existed in any of the large colonnaded
basilicas of the first millennium.[207] This being as it is, he
concludes "we must assume that the columnar order of the
Church of the Plan of St. Gall is rendered in a schematic
manner in logical explication of the system of squares which
controls the Plan of the Church."[208] He categorically rejects

[ILLUSTRATION]

136. VREDEN. PLAN

CHURCH OF SS FELICISSIMUS, AGAPITUS, & FELIGITAS

[after Thummler, 1953, 306]

Vreden is a three-aisled cruciform basilica with westwork and
extended choir, plus an annular crypt, built ca. 800 (W. Winkelmann,
1953) or ca. 839 (H. Claussen). See Claussen-Winkelmann,
"Archäologische Untersuchungen unter der Pfarrkirche zu Vreden
(Vorbericht)," Westfalen XXXI, 1953, 304ff.

[ILLUSTRATION]

137. PLAN OF ST. GALL. CHURCH

REINLE'S INTERPRETATION OF THE CHURCH OF THE PLAN AS MODIFIED
BY ITS CORRECTIVE TITLES

[after Reinle, 1962/3, 100]

SCALE 1/64 INCH = ONE FOOT [1:768]

any connection of this geometricity of the Plan of the
Church with the square schematism of the Romanesque.[209]

This is too simple a way, in my opinion, to explain a
complex historical phenomenon. Columnar interstices of
20 feet, it is true, are not attested for the period in which
the Plan was drawn. But this does not mean that such a
solution was not within the grasp of an imaginative
Carolingian architect. Our analysis of the scale and
construction method used in designing the Plan[210] has
shown that the author of this scheme proceeded with an
acute awareness of the dimensional realities involved in
whatever he drew. It is inconceivable, in my opinion, that
an architect whose punctilious observance of spatial needs
is reflected in the dimensioning of even the smallest detail
throughout the entire width and length of the Plan, should
have reverted to a radically different method of rendering
when he drew the Church of the Monastery and should
have spaced the columns at a distance of 20 feet when in
fact he meant them to be placed at intervals of 12 feet. A
consistent interpretation of the dimensional layout of the
Plan permits no other conclusion than that the draftsman
meant what he drew. Nor is there evidence to presume
that the instruction to make the columnar interstices 12 feet
wide stemmed from fears that arcades spanning 20 feet
would be a constructional hazard. Our reconstruction (figs.
107-110) demonstrates this point clearly enough. The
shortening of the arcade spans was simply an inevitable
consequence of the reduction of the overall length of the
Church from 300 to 200 feet. It dealt a deadly blow to the
square schematism as applied to the nave of the Church—
one of the draftsman's favorite and most original ideas—
but it was the most reasonable way out of the dilemma
caused by the overall reduction of the length of the Church.
By reducing the spatial depth of each bay, the corrective
title permitted the retention of the original number of altar
stations, while at the same time it safeguarded the original
concept in those parts of the Church where a reduction
would have impaired the primary function of the sanctuary,
the conduct of the sacred services in transept and choir.

[ILLUSTRATION]

PLAN OF ST. GALL

137.X CENTULA
(ST. RIQUIER)

see also page 185 and figs. 135, 168, and 196

141. ROME. OLD ST. PETER'S

[after Jongkees, 1966, 34, Pl. I and II]

The church's inner length was 112m (368′), its height 84m (276′), and its width
58m (190′). Probably begun after 324 and finished by Constantine's death in 377,
its precise dates are unknown.

138. FULDA

[after Groszmann, 1962, 351, fig. 5]

Ratger's church of 802-817. Precise measurements unknown

139. COLOGNE

Hildebold's church of SS Peter and Mary

[after Weyres, 1966, 408, fig. 10]

140.

II. 3

HISTORICAL EVALUATION

II.3.1

SALIENT FEATURES OF THE CHURCH

The salient features of the Church of the Plan of St. Gall
are: its extraordinary length of 300 feet; its extended eastern
altar space (fore choir); its elaborate system of crypts
giving access to the relics of the patron saint without
encroaching upon the space required by the monks; its
disengaged crossing; its nineteen altars; its western counter
apse; its two semicircular atria; its detached towers; and
its square schematism.

II.3.2

LENGTH OF THE CHURCH

The Church of the Plan of St. Gall is chronologically not
the first monastic church of this order of magnitude but
probably the third or fourth. The earliest was the Abbey
Church of Fulda, in the form which it obtained under
Abbot Ratger between 802-817 (fig. 138). It had a clear
inner length of 98.00 meters (321 modern English feet).[211]
The second was probably, although not demonstrably so,
the monastery church of St. Peter's and St. Mary's in
Cologne (fig. 139), founded by Bishop Hildebold (d. 819),
which measured 91.20 meters internally from apse to apse
(300 Carolingian feet, calculated at 1 foot = 30.04cm.)[212]
The third was the original church of the Plan of St. Gall,
as rendered in figure 140 (prototype plan made in 817;
copy for Abbot Gozbert between 820 and 830). The fourth,
if Groszmann's analysis of this building is correct, was the
Abbey Church of Hersfeld, built between 831 and 850.
Together with its west-work, it measured 102.85 meters
(339 modern English feet).[213]

Abbot Ratger's church at Fulda (fig. 138) was a T-shaped
basilica with a continuous transept. The particulars
of its design leave no doubt that it was modeled after the
Church of Old St. Peter's in Rome (fig. 141). Like that
church, its clerestory walls were supported by two rows of
columns which were surmounted not by arches, but by a
straight entablature; also like St. Peter's, the ends of the
transept arms were separated from the principal body of
the transept hall.

The ideological reasons for this emulation of the design
and size of the great Early Christian proto-basilica of Rome
during the reign of Emperor Charlemagne have been
brilliantly analyzed by Richard Krautheimer.[214] The design
was an outgrowth of the general process of Romanization
of the Frankish Church and the Frankish kingdom that
started with the anointment of Pepin and his sons by Pope
Stephen II in 753 and culminated in the coronation of
Charlemagne as emperor on Christmas Eve of the year 800.

[ILLUSTRATION]

142. EPHESOS. FIRST CHURCH OF ST. JOHN (CA. 450)

[after Keil, 1932, fig. 47]

Built over the tomb of John, Bishop of Ephesos (traditionally identified as John the Apostle), this is the largest Early Christian church of
Latin cross plan. It is not known whether the church was so planned, or if it acquired its form by aggregation of four basilicas built separately
in successive stages against the martyrion of St. John.

[ILLUSTRATION]

143. BETHLEHEM. CHURCH OF THE NATIVITY (END, 5TH CENT.)

[after REALLEXIKON ZUR BYZANTINISCHEN KUNST, I, 1966, cols. 603-604, fig. 2]

The most accomplished Early Christian Latin cross church, long dated to the reign of Justinian, is perplexing for its numerous incipient
medievalisms: a nave as wide as the transept and twice the width of each aisle, and, remarkably, a fore choir repeating the dimensions of the
crossing unit—features wholly uncharacteristic for the mainstream of Early Christian architecture. As in Ephesos the eastward extension of the
nave may have resulted from special circumstances, i.e., the desire to encompass in the new church the remains of an earlier sanctuary.

[ILLUSTRATION]

145. THASOS, MACEDONIA

CRUCIFORM CHURCH, 6TH CENT. PLAN

[redrawn after Orlandos, I, 1952, 193, fig. 157, 1]

The intersection of nave and transept masses lends to these cruciform
Early Christian churches an almost medieval appearance. But they are
not designed to any modular concept (cf. p. 208ff).

[ILLUSTRATION]

144. THASOS, MACEDONIA

CRUCIFORM CHURCH, 6TH CENT. PLAN

[redrawn after Orlandos, 1, 1952, 189, fig. 155]

The intersecting nave and transept established before the apse a square
for both altar and benches. The latter, continuing in the apse to form a
synthronon, became standard layout in monastic churches (cf. above
p. 141 and fig. 94).

The ties of the Abbey of Fulda with Rome had been
especially strong. The missionary work of its founder, St.
Boniface (680-754), was closely linked to the papal see.
His successor, Abbot Sturmi (744-769), was an ardent
student of the customs of Monte Cassino on which the
customs of Fulda were based, and Fulda was the first
German abbey to be placed under the direct jurisdiction
of the Roman see.[215] There is no doubt that the return to the
design of the great western Roman basilicas of Constantine
the Great and of Pope Sylvester was an expression of the
renovation by Charlemagne of the universal Christian
empire inaugurated by Constantine the Great. One might
justly conclude that the propensity for colossal dimensions,
embodied in the abbey Churches of Fulda, Cologne, and
the Church of the Plan of St. Gall, was an integral part of
this ideology; but to explain the dimensional boldness of
these churches exclusively in such symbolic terms would
be a gross historical simplification. There are other more
functional and more specifically monastic reasons for the
appearance in transalpine Europe of churches of unprecedented
dimensions. One of them was the need to extend
the altar space in order to accommodate, in addition to the
officiating clergy, an entire community of monks celebrating
the divine services jointly in an elaborate ritual
involving chant and counter chant. Another reason was
the transfer of baptismal rites from a separate subsidiary
building to the basilica; in the Church of the Plan this
function claims one third of the entire nave. A third reason
was that the rapidly increasing veneration of saints resulted
in a multiplication of altars, each requiring additional space.
There also developed the desire to accommodate in a single
oratory a variety of cults that in earlier monastic churches
has been distributed over an entire family of buildings.[216]

But the dimensional enlargement of the church that
these demands generated raised serious economic problems.
Whatever the historical and functional incentives may have
been for building churches of a magnitude of 300 feet and
more, there still remained the question of whether a community
of an average of 100 to 200 monks could afford to
build and maintain such structures. Ratger, the Abbot of
Fulda, thought so. But his monks, who paid for his
ambition with their toil and sweat, were disturbed by his
building program to the point of rebellion. In a formal
petition presented to Charlemagne in 812, they pleaded
that the construction of these "oversized and superfluous
buildings" (aedificia immensa atque superflua) be brought to
a halt or reduced to a normal pace, because it taxed the
brothers beyond endurance, left no time for the lectio
divina, and threatened to exhaust the monastery's economic
resources.[217] The petitioners returned, defeated, to the

[ILLUSTRATION]

146. SALONA, DALMATIA

CRUCIFORM CHURCH, 6TH CENT. EGGER'S RECONSTRUCTION

[redrawn after Orlandos, I, 1952, fig. 4]

This westernmost of cruciform churches of the Thasos type (figs. 144
and 145) is so similar in design to the latter, it could be said that "an
attempted reconstruction of either church is applicable to the other"
(Hodinott, 1963, 181). Of both, only foundations remain.

[ILLUSTRATION]

147. KORNELISMÜNSTER, Inden, Nordrhein-Westfalen

ABBEY CHURCH OF THE SAVIOUR. PLAN

[after Hugot, 1965, 411]

Founded by Louis the Pious for Benedict of Aniane as a model
monastery for thirty monks, according to good contemporary sources
Kornelismünster was intended to be Louis's burial place. It was
consecrated in 817, a few days before the second synod opened at
Aachen. For a full bibliographical account see Vorromanische
Kirchenbauten, 1966-71, 160ff.

monastery: Charlemagne denied their petition. Hildebold,
then arch-chaplain and one of the emperor's closest
advisors, may have had a voice in the negative decision.

By 817, however, the climate had changed. Louis the
Pious was now emperor; sometime between 816 and 817
he received the same delegation with the same petition,
which this time was received favorably. As a direct result
of the petition, Ratger was deposed in favor of Eigil,
leader of the dissenting monks of Fulda. When Eigil was
installed as the new abbot in 817, he was admonished by
Louis "to stop this superfluous work of erecting structures
of inordinate size and to reduce the monastery's building
program to normal proportions."[218] It appears that Louis
made use of the words the monks themselves had spoken,
the first time before Charlemagne and the second time
before him.

Overindulgence in costly building activities was not the
only reason for Ratger's fall, and by itself might not have
brought it about. He was also accused of violations of
sanctioned monastic customs,[219] but the incident shows that
constructing a church 300 feet long was by no means an
easy matter for a monastic polity and could have disturbing
consequences not only for its economic stability but also
for its spiritual health.

The rebellion of the monks of Fulda against the building
activities of their abbot is the strongest historical evidence
to be offered in support of Boeckelmann's theory that the
explanatory title which stipulates a length of 200 feet for
the Church of the Plan is the expression of a programmatic
retrenchment.[220] This measure might have been
directly related to the struggles of Fulda.

II.3.3

EXTENDED EASTERN ALTAR SPACE
(FORE CHOIR)

When the fore choir was introduced between the transept
and the eastern apse of the church, the T-shaped plan of
the Early Christian basilica was transformed into a Latin-cross
plan (crux capitata). The origin and dissemination of
this feature forms one of the most fascinating chapters in
the history of medieval architecture.[221] Contrary to Georg
Dehio's belief two generations ago, the Latin-cross plan
is not a Carolingian invention. It came into use early in
the fifth century[222] as a fusion of the longitudinal basilica
and the cruciform central plan of buildings traditionally
associated with Christian martyria.[223] The cruciform plan
is well established in such buildings as the first church of
St. John in Ephesus, built in the fourth to fifth century
(fig. 142);[224] the Nativity Church in Bethlehem, built by
Justinian in the sixth century (fig. 143);[225] the cruciform
basilicas of Thasos in Macedonia (figs. 144 and 145)[226] and of
Salona in Dalmatia (fig. 146).[227]

In Merovingian France the form appears as early as 577,
when the Greek-cross plan church of Ste.-Croix-et-St.Vincent
at Paris (completed by King Childebert in 558)

[ILLUSTRATION]

CRUCIFORM NON-AISLED CHURCHES WITH
DISENGAGED CROSSING

148.A TOMARZA, CAPPADOCIA. PLAN, 5TH-6TH CENT.

148.B HALVADERE, CAPPADOCIA. PLAN, 5TH-6TH CENT.

148.C PFALZEL, NEAR TRIER. PLAN, ABBEY CHURCH OF ADALA
(BEFORE 715)

The impetus to development of the Carolingian modular Latin cross plan
by small cruciform churches such as Tomarza and Halvadere and their
western derivatives or counterparts, such as Pfalzel, should not be overvalued.
Yet, the undeniable ubiquity of these small buildings spread
throughout the whole Christian world the concept of an arch-framed
—and generally tower-surmounted—crossing created by the intersection
at 90° of two volumes of space, each identical in height and width. Like
that of the quincunx church, this building type had distinct modular
implications, another feature making it attractive to the northern mind.

148.X. Sivri Hissar stands somewhat aside from the other Cappadocian churches. An
aisle added to the northern flank of the nave perhaps served as a sepulchral chapel for
St. Gregory of Nyssa (331-ca. 396) who owned large estates in this part of the world.

was transformed into a Latin cross by the addition of
aisles.[228] The new form thus created was subsequently
copied in several other Neustrian churches, most notably,
perhaps, in the church of Corbie.[229]

Dehio was of the opinion that the Latin-cross plan owed
its rise to practical considerations, namely the need for
more choir space for the worshiping monks. Graf stressed
the commemorative, funerary significance of the centralized
cruciform development of the eastern end of the church.
In a recent review of this controversy George H. Forsyth
has pointed out that these two theories need not preclude
each other and that a vast body of new material, made
available since the time Dehio and Graf discussed these
problems, tends in fact to corroborate both opinions.[230]

In the historical evaluation of this important architectural
motif, a sharp distinction must be made between its origin
and occasional appearance in Early Christian times and its
prevalence everywhere during the Carolingian period.
Practical considerations must have played a decisive role
in its adoption at the time of Charlemagne. The cult of
relics, which had introduced into the church a multiplicity
of altars, made it impossible for the service of the high
altar to expand into the nave or the aisles of the church.
Few monasteries had fewer than 100 monks, and some had
as many as 300 or 400. Without the insertion of a fore choir

[ILLUSTRATION]

149.B

[ILLUSTRATION]

149.A GERASA (JERASH), Palestine

CHURCH OF PROPHETS, APOSTLES & MARTYRS

[after Kraeling, 1938, pl. XLI and XLII]

[ILLUSTRATION]

150. MOUSMIEH, SYRIA

PRAETORIUM (or TEMPLE?) ca. 180

[after DeVoguë, I, 1865, 46, fig. 11.]

between transept and apse, there would have been insufficient
space for the monks participating in the service. At
the same time it cannot be denied that because of its
association with the relics of the Patron Saint of the church,
the high altar had acquired an intrinsically funerary significance—another
historical incentive for the absorption in
the basilican scheme of the cruciform arrangement of the
centralized paleochristian martyria. Lastly, it is also quite
clear that the Carolingian architects who struggled with
the development of the Latin-cross plan could hardly have
been blind to the exciting aesthetic implications of a
fusion between the basilican and the central plan.

Churches with extended altar space preceding the Plan
of St. Gall, as I have already pointed out in my discussion
of Reinhardt's reconstruction of the Church of the Plan,[231] of
St. Gall are the Saviour's Church of Neustadt-on-the-Main,
shortly after 768/69 (fig. 133); the abbey church of St.
Riquier (Centula), between 790-99 (fig. 135); the Carolingian
Cathedral of Cologne, between 800 and 819 (fig.
139); and the abbey church of St. Mary at Reichenau-Mittelzell
(fig. 134), built by Abbot Haito between 806 and
816. Even the church of the model monastery of Inden,
built by Emperor Louis the Pious between 815 and 816 for
Benedict of Aniane and his chosen community of only
thirty monks, had a rectangular space inserted between
transept and apse (fig. 147).[232]

The innovative aesthetic significance of this motif lies
not so much in the addition of the space as such, but in the
modular alliance into which it enters with the crossing
square, the transept arms, and by extension, although at a
slower rate of development, with the square division of the
nave of the church.

II.3.4

DISENGAGED CROSSING

The crossing of the Church of the Plan is completely
separated at floor level from the contiguous spaces by rails
and choir screens (fig. 99); and if it was meant to be
framed by boundary arches at the top, as I believe it was
(figs. 107-110),[233] the crossing would be the only place
where a principal constituent part of the church was segregated
from the rest of the latter's space by dividing arches
reaching up to roof level. No other single architectural
feature had such deep and far-reaching reverberations for
the future.

Like the fore choir, the disengaged crossing did not
originate during the Middle Ages. Crossings framed by
boundary arches, which separated the intersected area from
the nave and the transept, occur in certain cruciform, non-basilican
churches of Cappadocia, such as Tomarza,
Halvadere (fig. 148.A-B) and Sivri Hissar, as early as the
fifth and sixth centuries, as Samuel Guyer has pointed out.[234]
That the type was known in Western Europe is attested by
the Abbey Church of Adala in Pfalzel near Trier, before
715 (fig. 148.C).[235] There is a faint possibility that some

[ILLUSTRATION]

VAGHARSHAPAT (ECHMIADZIN), Armenia

151.A

151.B

CHURCH OF ST. GAYANÉ

[after Arutiunan and Safrian, 1951, fig. 20]

Erected by the Catholicos Ezra between 630 and 646.

[ILLUSTRATION]

BANDE, Orense, south Galicia, Spain

151.Xa

151.Xd

151.Xb

CHURCH OF SANTA COMBA (7th Cent.)

A jewel of Visigothic architecture, small, built in cyclopic masonry, this church attests
the early adoption of the Early Christian quincunx church by the Germanic conquerors
of Spain, and their fascination with cellular space division and the concept of an arch-framed
and tower-surmounted crossing that was to become a key feature of Carolingian
architecture.

151.Xc

rudimentary forms of the disengaged crossing (but not, so
far as I can judge, a fully developed archetype) appear in
certain Early Christian basilicas with tripartite transepts:
in Greece, such as Basilicas A and B in Nikopolis, and the
basilicas of Epidaurus, and Lokris. But it is well to reserve
final judgment until such time as Guyer's schematic reconstruction
of churches of this type with intersecting naves
and transepts surmounted by crossing towers is corroborated
by more tangible archaeological evidence than is
offered in his own study.[236]

If Kraeling's and Egger's reconstructions of them are
correct, the two finest examples of Early Christian churches
with fully developed crossings are the churches of the Holy
Apostles and Martyrs of Gerasa, 464-465 (fig. 149), and
the cruciform church at Salona.[237] However, no less important
for the development of the arch-framed crossing in
medieval architecture may have been such Armenian
central plan churches as St. Gayané at Vagharshapat
(Echmiadzin), 630 (fig. 151) as well as a small but no longer
tracable group of near-eastern quincunx churches, which
one must postulate historically to have formed the connecting
link between such semisacral cross-in-square
buildings as the praetorium (or temple) in the Roman camp
of Mousmieh, Syria, ca. A.D. 180 (fig. 150), an audience hall
of like design outside of the walls of Rusafa, Syria, dating
from about 560, the minute, yet arrestingly beautiful
seventh-century church of Santa Comba de Bande, Spain
(fig. 151.X) and the sophisticated Germigny-des-Prés built
by Theodulf of Orleans, councillor and missus dominicus of
Charlemagne, between 806-810 at his summer residence
on the Loire, near the abbey of St. Benoit-sur-Loire (fig.
152).

Yet the true Early Christian prototype for the Carolingian
disengaged crossing may be found closer to home in
the north basilica of Trier, which Gratian, having chosen

[ILLUSTRATION]

151.Y TRIER, GERMANY

154.A*

NORTH BASILICA

[isometric reconstruction, redrawn from Krautheimer, 1965, 61, fig. 23]

In the conceptual interaction of quincunx and basilica a medieval style of architecture emerges. The north basilica lacks only the ordering principle
of modularity for its full development. Product of two building campaigns (basilica, shortly after 325; quincunx, 380) the result in Trier is a composition
of bold and unusual grouping of masses that must have strongly influenced development of the Carolingian Latin cross church with disengaged
and tower-surmounted crossing.

[ILLUSTRATION]

GERMIGNY-DES-PRÉS

152.A

152.B

152.C

CHURCH OF THEODULF OF ORLEANS, 806-810

[plans after Viellard and Troiekouroff, 1965, 356, fig. 111]

Small, yet of magnificently controlled proportions, the spaces of Germigny-des-Prés step in bold progression to the slender, steeply rising nave and
transept, from whose intersection rises a tower of great elan. This church attests that the quincunx, even in the 9th century, had life enough to capture
the imagination of a great Carolingian churchman. Theodulf was a Visigoth and his acquaintance with such churches as Santa Comba de
Bande (fig. 151.X) may have influenced his choice.

to reside in Trier, rebuilt in 380. In its final Early Christian
form (fig. 151.Y) this building terminated in the east in
what can only be called a grandiose variant of a quincunx
church, consisting of a large, central, tower-surmounted
bay surrounded by eight smaller two-storied spaces: four in
the cross, four in the corners, the latter appearing externally,
like towers. Much masonry of this structure survives
today, incorporated in the fabric of the Romanesque church
which superseded it in the eleventh century. But in Charlemagne's
time it still stood there in its original form for all
his subjects to see, located about seventy-five miles as the
crow flies from the emperor's residence at Aachen.[238]

As one surveys all of this material, it must be stressed
again that sharp distinction must be made between the
occasional appearance of these motifs in the relatively
isolated topographical contexts of Armenia and Spain and
their formal and systematic combination with the basilican
scheme as attested by the sequence discussed in the
preceding chapter: St. Denis, 750-755; Neustadt-on-the-Main,
after 768/69 (figs. 116 and 133); Reichenau-Mittelzell,
806-816 (fig. 134); Cologne, 800-819 (fig. 139); in
some respects even the church of St. Benedict of Aniane at
Inden, 815-816 (fig. 147); and certainly, most decidedly
and programmatically, the Church of the Plan of St. Gall,
prototype plan: 816-817; copy: ca. 820 (figs. 55 and 99).
The tripartite Early Christian transept may have helped
bring about this fusion, but it had in itself none of the
exciting aesthetic and constructional implications which
made the disengaged crossing so important for the future.
Again it is difficult, if not impossible, to say precisely what
triggered the development of this particular solution. There
can be no doubt that the increase in the number of altars
affected the form of the crossing as much as it affected the
fore choir. Nor should it be overlooked that the division of
the congregation into choirs singing in antiphonal response
called for a more distinct architectural recognition of the
two constituent parts of this ritual. The Plan of St. Gall

[ILLUSTRATION]

154.B* ROME. OLD ST. PETER'S. CRYPT PLAN

[after Kirschbaum, 1959, 58, fig. 9]

In the Constantinian basilica the funerary monument marking the place of Peter's
execution stood in the chord of the apse, his altar in the transept before it. Gregory
raised the presbytery floor and beneath it made Peter's monument accessible to
pilgrims by a circular corridor crypt (the first of its kind), thus reserving the altar
space for exclusive use of clergy.

[ILLUSTRATION]

PLAN OF ST. GALL. FORE CHOIR AND ITS SYSTEM OF CRYPTS

155.A

155.B

For our interpretation of how this delineation of the
Presbytery and the Crypt of the Church of the Plan
would have to be translated into a modern architectural
drawing, with walls shown in their full thickness we
are referring to fig. 123, p. 177.

suggests that the fore choir and the apse became the
station for the majority of the monks, while the antiphonal
singing of the psalms by voices trained specifically for that
purpose took place in the crossing. There was, no doubt, a
liturgical need for spatial differentiation; the establishment
of a "house for the counter song" (this is how I think we
must interpret the term chorus psallentium) in the crossing
of the Plan served the purpose of preventing the altar
space from being crowded. Yet it would be foolish to
presume that this need alone brought about the creation of
a new architectural form.

In constructional terms the disengaged crossing established
in the most crucial area of the church a system of
bracing arches which could serve as a sound architectural
base for a superincumbent tower, and thus demonstrated
that arches rising from relatively slender piers could carry
substantial loads at impressive heights without weight-bearing
walls beneath them. This idea, once conceived,
prepared the way for the perforation of the nave walls and
their conversion from weight-bearing sheets of masonry
into a skeletal frame of structural members. Moreover, in
separating the crossing from the rest of the church by
framing arches, a space came into being which could be
used as a unit of measurement for the modular articulation
of the remaining spaces of the church. In the Church of the
Plan of St. Gall this articulation is already far advanced.

II.3.5

CRYPTS

The combination of a circumambient corridor crypt with a
vaulted inner hall crypt, as has been claimed in the preceding
chapter, is a Carolingian innovation that owes its
origin to the need for an area of devotional seclusion
enabling the monks to pray in front of the tomb of their
patron saint without intermingling with the secular visitors
to the tomb.[239] Hall crypts and corridor crypts as separate
entities are well known around 800, both north and south
of the Alps. The former is relatively rare; the latter, very
common.

The most ancient Christian hall crypt known at this date
is the small three-aisled crypt of the church of Santa Maria
in Cosmedin in Rome (fig. 153), built under Pope Adrian I
(772-795).[240] Its columns carry a straight entablature, surmounted
by a flat ceiling made of large slabs of stone. The
earliest known example of an annular corridor crypt, to the

best of my knowledge, is the semicircular passage with
which Pope Gregory the Great encircled the shrine of St.
Peter's when he raised the platform of the Presbytery above
the original pavement of the church sometime between 594
and 604 (fig. 154).[241]

Corridor crypts were ideally suited to relieve conditions
of crowding imposed by the increasing number of pilgrims
and other visitors to the shrines of saints. They permitted
the devout to come into close bodily contact with the tomb
of the saint, while affording to it a central and well-protected
position. The layout assured an easily controllable
peripheral flow of movement for laymen, leaving the central
area free to be utilized (as such areas subsequently were)
for more restricted rites. The corridor crypt became an
integral feature of Christian architecture on both sides of
the Alps from the seventh century onward, as popular
veneration of relics became widespread.

Typical examples of corridor crypts in Rome are those
of the churches of San Crisogono (built under Gregory III,
731-741); San Marco (built under Adrian I, 772-795);
and San Stefano degli Abissini (built under Leo III, 795816).[242]
North of the Alps they are found in the Abbey
Church of St. Emmeran at Regensburg (as early as ca. 740);
in St. Lucius at Chur (mid-eighth century); in the Abbey
Church of St.-Denis (consecrated in 775); in St.-Maurice
of Agaune (end of the eighth century); in the Abbey
Church of Werden (ca. 830); in the Abbey Church of
Vreden (consecrated in 839) and the Carolingian cathedral
of Hildesheim (consecrated in 872).[243] In the ninth century
north of the Alps, the annular corridor crypt was replaced
with increasing frequency by a crank-shaped crypt, consisting
of two straight longitudinal arms connected in the
east by a straight transverse arm. The new form was
unquestionably conditioned by the introduction of the fore
choir, which made the circumambient crypt independent of
the semicircular shape of the apse, thus opening up new
possibilities in crypt design. The earliest occurrence of the
crank-shaped corridor crypt is the Plan of St. Gall (fig. 155)
and here, also for the first time, this type of crypt is found in
combination with a central hall crypt. The designer of the
Plan may very well have been the inventor of this scheme.

Other examples soon followed: St. Philibert of Grandlieu,
847-853 (fig. 156);[244] St. Germain of Auxerre, consecrated

[ILLUSTRATION]

CHURCH OF ST.-GERMAIN

157.A

157.B

Auxerre, Yonne, France

REDRAWN AFTER LAMBERT, 1960, 7, fig. 6

If the inner hall crypt with the coffin of St. Germain was accessible
from the nave, as Hubert assumes (1970, 299, fig. 345), this crypt
would have been, in essence, identical with that of the Plan.

[ILLUSTRATION]

FLAVIGNY-SUR-OZERAIN, Côte d'Or, France

158.B

158.A

CHURCH OF ST. PIERRE. CRYPT

[after Lambert-Jouven, 1960, 27, fig. 25]

The crypt, on level with the nave, was built in two stages. In final
form it consisted of an inner aisled hall and apse, which enshrined
the bodies of SS Prix and Reine. A crank-shaped corridor primarily
used by pilgrims surrounded this hall and gave east access through a
rectangular fore room to a hexagon built in honor of SS Peter and
Paul.

on January 6, 859 (fig. 157);[245] the Carolingian
cathedral of Hildesheim, built by Bishop Altfrid between
851 and 872[246] and St. Pierre in Flavigny, 864-878[247] (fig.
158). None of these crypts are identical in design, yet all
of them have in common the existence, side by side, of a
circumambient corridor crypt (crank-shaped or rounded)
and a highly developed system of inner spaces differing in
form and size from the small confessional chambers of the
preceding centuries.

In St. Philibert of Grandlieu (fig. 156) the inner crypt
consisted of a barrel-vaulted transverse shaft—located at
the base of the apse—that was intersected by three shorter
longitudinal arms. East of this system there was a larger
cross-shaped space accessible through an opening in the
apex of the apse.

At St. Germain of Auxerre (fig. 157) the hall crypt had
the shape of a small basilica with longitudinal barrel vaults
rising from straight entablatures supported by piers and
columns. This space was entered from the east by a straight
longitudinal arm and terminated toward the west in a
polygonal apse which sheltered the tomb of St. Germain.
The latter, if Louis' interpretation of the description of this
crypt by Heiric is correct, was visible from the upper church
by a fenestella.[248] The massif of masonry by which this
confessio is enclosed is 33 feet (10.00 m.) wide and 50 feet
(15.30 m.) long, and thus covers a surface area of 1,650 feet.
The clear inner space of the confessio totaled roughly 670
square feet.[249] This is only slightly less than the area of 787
square feet, assigned in our reconstruction to the confessio
of the Plan of St. Gall. But the crypt of St. Germain is
more elaborate in other respects: by the wealth of chapels
attached to its outer corridor shafts, as well as by the
sophisticated rotunda of St. Maximin at the extreme eastern
end of the system joined to the corridor crypt by an aisled
longitudinal arm two bays deep.

The inner crypt of Flavigny (fig. 158) was of the same
order of magnitude, perhaps larger, than that of St. Germain
of Auxerre. The excavation conducted by Georges
Jouven in 1960 revealed without any shadow of doubt that
the confessio extended westward from the apse for the full
length of the presbytery, with a clear inner width of 20
feet (6.00 m.) and an axial inner length of 34½ feet (10.5 m.).[250]
Its vaults, which carried the floor of the entire presbytery,
were supported by two rows of free-standing columns with
corresponding pilasters in the long walls. Because of the
unco-operative obstinacy of a private property owner only
the southern half of the crypt could so far be excavated for
its full length; but there is no reason whatsoever—as
Jouven points out convincingly—that conditions in the
unexcavated northern part of the crypt were not identical.[251]

There is no doubt in my mind that the designer of the
church of the Plan of St. Gall furnished the prototype for
this combination of an inner hall crypt with a circumambient
corridor crypt. An important link in the dissemination
of this scheme may have been the crypt of the
church of St. Remi in Reims, in which archbishop Hincmar,

[ILLUSTRATION]

159. LEPCIS MAGNA, Tripolitania

BASILICA, SEPTIMIUS SEVERUS (146-211)

[after Ward Perkins, 1965, 23, fig. 8]

One of the finest of the large-aisled Roman market halls with apses
at both ends—perhaps the most outstanding Severan period
architectural monument. It borders on the south on a great colonnaded
court. The layout is reminiscent of the Forum of Trajan, Rome
(fig. 239). For a more modest version built in the transalpine
provinces of Rome, see fig. 202. The influence this hall type may
have exerted upon the Carolingian basilica with apse and counterapse,
as well as on the concept of the medieval cloister, may be greatly
underestimated.

in 852, deposited the relics of St. Remi. Archaeologically
this crypt is terra incognita, but the description "larger and
more beautifully built" (maiori et pulchriori opere factum)
in the Vita sancti Remigii[252] suggests, as Hilde Claussen has
argued persuasively,[253] a more elaborate type of Carolingian
crypt.

II.3.6

COUNTER APSE

The counter apse is not a Carolingian invention. Basilicas
with apses at either end of the nave were in use in Early
Christian times,[254] but appear to have been confined almost
exclusively to the North African provinces of Rome, where

[ILLUSTRATION]

160. ST.-MAURICE-D'AGAUNE, Valais, Switzerland

[after Blondel, 1948, 29, fig. 5]

The plan renders the terminal form (end, 8th cent.) of a succession
of basilicas erected in honor of St. Maurice and his companions in a
monastery founded late in the 4th century under the crag where they
suffered martyrdom. Three preceeding churches, built on the same
site, were of smaller dimensions; each had only one apse.

at least eleven, perhaps twelve, churches of this kind are
known: two in Tripolitania (Lepcis Magna and Sabratha);
three in Algeria (Matifou, Orléansville, and Tipasa); and
six, perhaps seven, in Tunisia (Sbeitla, Haïdra, Henchir
Chigarnia, Iunca, Thelepte, and less well-excavated Mididi
and Henchir Goraat ez-Zid). The apse and counter apse
arrangement of these churches owes its existence to a
variety of reasons. At Lepcis Magna (fig. 159) and Sabratha
it is clearly the heritage of a pre-existing judiciary basilica
put to Christian use. Elsewhere, as at Orléansville, Matifou,
Tipasa, Sbeitla and Haïdra, a square or semicircular counter
apse was added to an earlier single apsed church to
serve as a sepulchral martyrion for a saint, whose growing
importance called for a second place of veneration within
the church. In still other places, the counter apse owed its
existence to the reorientation of an originally occidented
church, when the eastward location of the altar space
became mandatory in early Byzantine times. One cause
does not exclude the other and in some churches the reorientation
of the building coincided with the transformation
of the original apse into a funerary chapel, while the
new counter apse and the area immediately in front of it
became the site for the new high altar (as in the church of
Bishop Bellator at Sbeitla). Whether or not these North
African churches had any influence on the medieval
development is hard to say; but that much is sure, that
when the counter apse was adopted in the north and
became a traditional feature, it was in response to a sharply
rising interest in the cult of relics calling for an augmentation
of the number of stations needed for the veneration of
saints. In purely aesthetic terms one cannot entirely preclude
the possibility of influences from pagan Roman
times, even at this late stage of the adoption of the theme.
I am thinking of such double-apsed judiciary basilicas as
those on the forum of the Romano-British city of Silchester
(fig. 202) or the more recently excavated basilica of the
Gallo-Roman city of Augst in Switzerland. Basilicas of this
type must have been infinitely more numerous in the
Roman provincial territories north of the Alps than would
appear in present-day perspective and the remains of many
of them may still have been visible in Carolingian times.
Their power to influence the medieval development would
doubtlessly have been enhanced by the fact that when the
early Christian basilica entered into a symbiosis with the
concept of a large galleried cloister court, attached to one
of its long sides—as it became standard in Carolingian
times—aesthetic emphasis shifted from the longitudinal
directionalism of the early Christian basilica, to a broadside
orientation that had been an essential trait of the judiciary
basilica of pagan Rome in the first place.

In the north the apse and counter apse motif was not
employed with any consistency until the time of Charlemagne
and its introduction coincided with a renaissance of
the basilican design created for Rome by Constantine the
Great. The fusion established a norm which continued into
Ottonian times and lasted in Germany until the end of the
Romanesque period.

[ILLUSTRATION]

161. CORINTH-LECHAION

CHURCH OF ST. LEONIDAS

[after Pallas, 1962, 142, fig. 142]

The remains of this great church in the harbor
suburb of Corinth, although preserved to no more
than 2 feet above ground are, even in so ruinous a
state, one of the most impressive sights in the entire
Early Christian world, and an expression of the most
accomplished architecture it could produce. The
church dates from 450-460?; its atrium from
518-527. Including atrium and fore court, the full
length of this basilica was 610 feet (186 m. or 600
Byzantine feet).

The basilica itself (450 feet long) consists of a nave
about 60 feet wide and two aisles, a tripartite
transept and an apse. It is preceded by an
exonarthex and a narthex, the latter projecting like
a transept beyond the line of the aisle walls. Four
heavy piers in the eastern transept suggest that its
center bay was surmounted by a timber-roofed
tower—a feature which curiously enough appears at
the same time and thereafter in several Merovingian
churches: St. Martin at Tours (ca. 450), St.
Wandrille (647), and in the Carolingian church of
St. Denis, if Crosby's analysis of its foundations
(fig. 166.X) is correct.

The layout of the liturgical furniture in the BEMA
and the apse of St. Leonidas is very similar to that
in the Church of the Plan of St. Gall, consisting of
a semicircular bench (SYNTHRONON) in the apse
and two lateral benches in the BEMA, allowing the
monks to be seated on three sides around the altar
space—an arrangement that lent itself with
particular ease to monastic use.

From the BEMA of St. Leonidas a raised pathway
(SOLEA) lead to the AMBO, the pulpit from which
the bishop or his representative addresses the
congregation. To the best of my knowledge, the
SOLEA has no counterpart in Carolingian
architecture, but the AMBO is, on the Plan of St.
Gall shown in a similar position west of the
transept, in the axis of the nave of the church.

[ILLUSTRATION]

162. RAVENNA. CHURCH OF SAN VITALE

[after Encyclopedia dell' Arte Antiqua IV, Rome, 1965, 630, fig. 730]

San Vitale dates ca. 532-546. The two detached circular towers are
entered from the narthex. They give access to the gallery of the
church, an area reserved for women attending religious services.
Despite their clearly functional role, even at this early period they
may have had strong symbolic overtones as towers of the fortress of
God. At what point in history they came to be used as bell towers
is not easily ascertained (see above, pp. 129ff).

Probably because of their failure to fill practical needs, the detached
towers of the Church of the Plan of St. Gall had no consequence for
later medieval planning. Single detached towers, associated with
buildings of basilican plan may have been in use in the Exarchate of
Ravenna as early as the 8th century and became a common mark
of the Italian Romanesque and Gothic. North of the Alps, the
preferred solution was to incorporate the towers in the body of the
church—a process beginning with the invention of the Carolingian
Westwork (cf. pp. 206-208) and culminating in the medieval twin
tower façade. Even centrally planned buildings were affected by this
change, as witness the Palace Chapel at Aachen with its towers set
into an avant-corps with raised tribune from which the emperor
attended divine services (for changing stylistic concepts see caption to
Fig. 71.Z).

The oldest transalpine example known to date is the
basilica of St.-Maurice of Agaune, which dates from the
end of the eighth century (fig. 160). Then follow in
chronological order the abbey churches of Fulda, 802-819
(fig. 138); Paderborn, after 799; St. Willibrord in Echternach,
at the beginning of the ninth century; the Carolingian
cathedral of Cologne, traditionally ascribed to Archbishop
Hildebold, who died in 819 (fig. 139); St Remi, at Reims,
consecrated in 852; Auxerre Cathedral, 857-873; and the
Abbey Church at Oberzell on Reichenau, ca. 890.[255]

Liturgically, the counter apse provided a new sanctuary
for the founding saint of the monastery, who had in many
instances become more important in the ritual of the
church than its patron saint. In Fulda (fig. 138), we learn
from the Vita Eigilis the monumental west choir was added
under Abbot Ratger (802-819) to the church of Abbot
Baugulf (790/92-802) as a shrine to St. Boniface because of
the heightened veneration for the relics of the founding
saint.[256] Louis Blondel's excavations of the monastery of
St.-Maurice of Agaune (fig. 160) have shown how a new
church with a counter apse allowed the relics of saints
previously venerated in separate buildings to be housed
together in one church.[257] In churches with west-works, the
monumental western avant-corps of the church served the
same purpose.[258]

The western counter apse had the further advantage of
establishing a close liturgical tie with Rome, as the creation
of a sanctuary at the western end of the church was in
imitation of Old St. Peter's in Rome (figs. 104, 141).

Further, the adoption of this motif marked a decisive
step in the breaking away of Carolingian architecture from
the directional layout of the Early Christian basilica.
Because it was built onto what had formerly served as
the principal entrance to the church, the counter apse
completely eliminated the concept of the traditional
basilican facade. The nave had previously been a great
congregational longhouse designed to channel the worshiping
crowd toward the altar (fig. 81). With the introduction of
the counter apse, the nave became rather a connecting spatial
link between two terminal masses, both of which drew the
worshiper's attention (figs. 55, 107, 109, 111, 112). The
purpose of the nave was changed further by the railing-off

[ILLUSTRATION]

163. WERDEN CASKET (FRAGMENT). LONDON, VICTORIA AND ALBERT MUSEUM.

[by courtesy of the Victoria and Albert Museum]

A reliquary chest of carved ivory, the so-called Werden Casket, formerly believed to date to the beginning of the 5th century, was recently declared
a Carolingian copy (Beckwith, 1958, 1-11). The detail here shows Mary and Anne in the Visitation scene, and to their side the city of Judah,
represented by a building terminating in an apse and flanked by two detached circular towers.

If the Early Christian model of this carving reflects actual building practice, the ivory would bear witness to the existence in Late Antiquity of
detached circular towers flanking a church. So far, there appears to be no tangible archaeological evidence to confirm this conjecture except for the
staircase towers of the church of San Vitale, Ravenna (fig. 162).

[ILLUSTRATION]

164. PLAN OF ST. GALL. ALTAR ARRANGEMENT

                                     

1.	SS Mary and Gall
2.	Holy Cross
3.	SS John the Baptist and John the Evangelist
4.	St. Paul
5.	St. Peter
6.	SS Philip and James
7.	St. Andrew
8.	St. Benedict
9.	St. Columba
10.	St. Stephen
11.	St. Lawrence
12.	St. Martin
13.	St. Mauritius
14.	Holy Innocents
15.	St. Sebastian
16.	SS Lucia and Cecilia
17.	SS Agatha and Agnes
18.	St. Gabriel
19.	St. Michael

For a descriptive analysis of the altars and their identifying titles, see pp.
129-44. The schema shown above does not include altars in the chapels of the
Novitiate and Infirmary, whose patronage is not designated on the Plan (see
fig. 247, p. 302 and p. 311). A total of twenty-one altars is shown on the Plan.
On the number symbolism embedded in this figure and the distribution of altars
within the church see fig. 80.X, p. 124. On the importance of the layout of the
altars in reflecting and stimulating the emergence within the Church of a new
principle of spatial division distinctly different from the spatial directionalism of
Early Christian churches, see pp. 127-28 and caption to fig. 165.

of its terminal bays for the exclusive use of the monks,
leaving only the center of the nave accessible to laymen (figs.
82 and 110). This was the monastic Carolingian response
to the large congregational halls of the age of Constantine.

This architectural change reflects a liturgical one. The
great basilican churches of Constantine had been designed
for large crowds of worshipers, most of whom had only
recently been converted to the new faith. By contrast, the
Carolingian monastery church was designed for the worship
of a small community of men who lived in seclusion. In the
Early Christian basilica the body of officiating priests was
relatively small, the size of the attending crowd, colossal.
In the Carolingian monastery church, the number of
worshiping monks was relatively large (an average of 100 to
150; 300 to 400 in unusual cases), that of the attending
laymen not significantly larger. During the great religious
festivals, and in particular the feast of the patron saint, the
throng of pilgrims could rise to enormous numbers; but for
the rest of the year the lay attendance in the church remained
confined to the serfs who worked within the
monastic enclosure (in general outnumbering the monks
by not more than 30 per cent)[259] plus the tenants who lived
in cottages or on farms immediately around the abbey.

II.3.7

SEMICIRCULAR ATRIA

The two semicircular atria of the Church of the Plan
are a most unusual feature. The customary early
Christian form was a fore court of square or rectangular
plan, surrounded by colonnaded porticoes with a fountain
or water basin in the center and porches in the galleries for
entry and exit. These courts served varyingly as a preliminary
place of assembly for the faithful, as refuge during
inclement weather, as a burial ground, and often also as a
gathering place for those who were as yet not formally
admitted to the Christian community.[260] The architectural
prototypes of these early Christian atria (from Greek:
αίϑςιον; i.e., "a place under the open sky")[261] were the
galleried courts which the ancients interposed as a transitional
zone between the profane world and their sacred
buildings, in a multitude of aesthetic variations including
the use of semicircles, as well as an exuberant combination
of squares and semicircles, such as in the temples of
Baalbek or the Forum of Emperor Trajan in Rome. If
viewed against these lavish architectural orchestrations of
Rome, the early Christian atrium signifies historically a
retrenchment to the somber form of the square. Among
hundreds of well-attested early Christian atria, there are
only three, to my knowledge, that make use of the semicircle:

[ILLUSTRATION]

165. PLAN OF ST. GALL * AXONOMETRIC DRAWING

In aligning altars and altar screens with every second nave column, the architect projected the modular order of the Church (fig. 61) into the layout of its liturgical
furnishings. The interior is divided into a multitude of separate devotional stations, leaving only narrow passages in the aisles for the worshiper to move through the entire
length of the Church (fig. 82).

The emergence in Carolingian architecture of the ordering of space in recognizable, aesthetically modular form (cf. pp 217-23, below) has a striking parallel in the appear-
ance in Hiberno-Saxon and Carolingian book illumination of a decorative scheme whereby the entire book is divided internally into clearly distinguishable parts and sub-parts—
leading, in a crescendo of pictorial emphasis from letter to initial, initial to ornamented page, ornamented to figured page, and thus separating Gospel from Gospel, book
from chapter, chapter from paragraph, and paragraph from sentence. On the emergence of comparable stylistic trends in Carolingian literature and music, see Crocker,
Jones, and Horn in Viator VI, 1976.

[ILLUSTRATION]

166. RAVENNA. SAN GIOVANNI EVANGELISTA

BUILT BETWEEN 424 AND 434

Plan with square grid superimposed [after Petrovič, 1962, 43, fig. 2]

Navenka Petrovič's interpretation of the proportions of the church
of San Giovanni Evangelista in Ravenna is based upon a plan too
small and sketchy to be susceptible to critical evaluation. One is
disturbed to find that in some places the lines run along the outer,
in others along the inner surfaces of the walls of the Church. In the
case of the nave columns one observes with consternation that they
are not even touched by the longitudinal lines of the grid. Petrovič is
probably correct when she concludes that the church of San Giovanni
Evangelista is twice as long as it is wide, but the square grid from
which she thinks these proportions are developed is meaningless, since
the boundaries of the component squares of the grid are in no tangible
relation to the nave columns or the blind arcading of the outer-wall
surfaces. They are even less compatible with the dimensions of the
porch, the apse, or the two rectangular spaces (DIAKONIKON and
PROTHESIS) to the side of the apse.

Similar, if not more blatant discrepancies between Petrovič's modular
grids and the actual course of the masonry as well as the spacing of
the nave columns exist in virtually all of the other dozen odd fifth
and sixth century churches of Ravenna and the Northern Littoral of
the Adriatic Sea with which she deals, although in many of these the
length of the church appears to be indeed, the double of its width.
The proportions of all of these churches should be re-examined with
new plans made on the spot, and at a scale considerably (!) larger
and draftsmanship more precise than those upon which the Petrovič
grids are based.

a large fourth-century church at Damous-el-Karita,
a suburb of ancient Carthage;[262] the domed basilica of
Meriamlik, in Silicia, Asia Minor, 471-94;[263] and the
recently excavated church of St. Leonidas at Lechaion, the
harbor suburb of Corinth, whose atrium dates from 518527
(fig. 161).[264]

The earliest semicircular atrium north of the Alps is the
western atrium of Cologne Cathedral (period VI), which
was added to the enlarged transept of the old Merovingian
church (period V), as is now believed, after the accession
of Hildebold to the episcopal see in 782 and before the
coronation of Charlemagne in 800[265] (fig. 139), and thus
precedes the two circular atria of the Plan of St. Gall by
over twenty years.

It appears to me extremely doubtful that there is any
connection between these semicircular Carolingian forecourts
and those of the just-mentioned fourth- to sixth-century
churches of North Africa, Asia Minor, and Greece;
and I would be inclined to give stronger credence to a
connection with the semicircular courts of the basilica of
Emperor Trajan (fig. 239); their layout may have exerted
the additional influence of stimulating the aesthetic acceptance
in Carolingian churches of the motif of apse and
counter apse. We have other reasons to think that the
Forum of Trajan had some influence on the mind of the
architect who invented the scheme of the Plan.[266]

II.3.8

DETACHED TOWERS

Detached circular masonry towers, like those found on the
Plan of St. Gall, do not occur elsewhere in the ecclesiastical
architecture north of the Alps.[267] The builders of the North
chose to incorporate the towers into the body of the
church, and the preferred Carolingian solution was the
Westwerk, which eventually developed into the two-tower
facade. Detached towers were common enough, however,
in the churches of the Exarchate of Ravenna. Giuseppe
Galassi[268] dates some of these Ravenna churches in the
eighth century: San Giovanni Evangelista, San Pier'
Maggiore, and San Giovanni e Paolo. Others doubt that
they are this early.[269] Still, I am inclined to believe that the
idea originated in Ravenna, where it remained a favorite
motif throughout the Middle Ages. It has been generally
overlooked in this context that the Church of San Vitale in
Ravenna, consecrated in 547, has two impressive circular
towers with spiral staircases, which, for all practical purposes,
may be classified as detached towers (fig. 162).[270]
Therefore, I think it very probable that the trend began
with the towers of San Vitale. The Ravenna towers may, in
turn, have been influenced by Asiatic or Syrian prototypes.
Reinhardt[271] has drawn attention to a church with two detached
circular towers on an ivory panel in the Victoria
and Albert Museum (fig. 163), formerly considered to be of
late antique date but recently declared a Carolingian
pastiche.[272] Another contributing source, as has been pointed

[ILLUSTRATION]

166.X ST.-DENIS, SEINE, FRANCE

ABBEY CHURCH

(Consecrated 24 Feb. 775)

[redrawn from Crosby and Conant]

The plan is based on Crosby's interpretation of the remains of the Early
Carolingian church (Crosby, 1953, 68) as rendered and reproduced by
Conant (1959, 292). The square grid, superimposed in red, is based on
Formigé's analysis of the proportions of the church (Formigé, 1960).

out in the preceding chapter, were the two defensive
towers flanking city gates, shown on contemporary representations
of the two sacred towns of Rome and Jerusalem
(see above, p. 129).

Why the author of the Plan of St. Gall gave preference
to two detached towers over the more common Carolingian
Westwerk remains an enigma. The westwork consisted of
a multi-storied avant-corps on the entrance side of the
church, in which two lateral staircase towers gave access
to a raised tribune from which the emperor and his entourage
could attend the divine services. This innovation—a
tangible architectural expression, it appears, of the protectorate
which the secular ruler exercised over the Church in

[ILLUSTRATION]

NEUSTADT-AM-MAIN. SAVIOR'S CHURCH (768-769) WITH SQUARE GRID SUPERIMPOSED

167.A

167.B

[after Boeckelmann, 1962, 11, fig. 3]

The church was dedicated, according to a later tradition, on 19 August 793. But this date has recently been questioned (see Vorromanische
Kirchenbauten, 1966, 233). For another view of the church, see fig. 116; for its Early Christian prototypes and the roles they may have played
in stimulating medieval modularity, see figs. 144-151 and above, pp. 190ff.

the empire of the Franks—made its first appearance,
perhaps not accidentally, in the royal abbeys of Lorsch,
767-774 (figs. 200-201), and St. Riquier, 790-799 (figs. 168
and 196). The only preserved example besides the Palace
Chapel at Aachen (fig. 71.Za) is the Abbey Church of
Corvey-on-the-Weser (873-885), but others are known to
have existed at Reims Cathedral (founded by Archbishop
Ebbo, 816-835, and consecrated by his successor, Hincmar,
in 862), in the cathedral of Halberstadt (consecrated in
859), Hildesheim (consecrated in 872), and Minden (consecrated
in 952).[273]

Although, on the Plan of St. Gall, the emperor and his
following are given ample space in houses that the monastery
had set aside for reception of visitors,[274] in the church
itself he was not granted a station of his own. Perhaps we
are sensing here, once more, an expression of the touchiness
of the reform movement with regard to the possibility of
secular contamination of the House of God and its servants.[275]
The interpretations of the relation of Church
(sacerdotium) and State (regnum) were still far from attaining
any fixed or permanent form. Under Charlemagne, even
such leading churchmen as Theodulf of Orleans and Alcuin
did not hesitate to refer to the secular sovereign both as
"king in power" and "pontifex in preaching"; and
Charlemagne himself left no margin of doubt that it was
the emperor who installed the bishops and reserved for
himself the ultimate authority in the trial of prelates.[276] Yet
all throughout his reign and, with increasing strength, that
of his sons, there was a clerical reaction that rejected
temporal hegemony, proposed to erect the order of the
church as a second government beside the temporal power,
or even to arrogate complete subordination of the royal
power to the jurisdictional apparatus of the clergy. The
conviction of Louis the Pious that the emperor stood "in
the service of God" (in Dei servitio) gave added impetus
to this concept.[277] This ambiguity was not solved in
Carolingian times; and if it expressed itself in architecture,
we cannot expect it to have led to uniformly acceptable
solutions.

II.3.9

PLURALITY OF ALTARS

During the two centuries after the official recognition of the
Christian faith, most churches had only one altar. When the
need arose for additional altars, they were generally not
installed in the church, but in separate oratories built to the
side of the principal structure. The earliest evidence of
multiple altars within the church itself dates from the sixth
century. In the seventh and eighth, the trend increases. By
the time of Charlemagne, the number of altars in some
cases had risen to as many as thirty.[278]

The Church of the Plan with its seventeen altars (fig. 164)
—nineteen if we add the altars in the towers—is not an

[ILLUSTRATION]

168. ST. RIQUIER (CENTULA). ABBEY CHURCH (790-799) WITH SQUARE GRID SUPERIMPOSED

[as reconstructed by Achter, 1956, 146, fig. 7]

Achter's reconstruction of the plan of the abbey church of St. Riquier appears to us to be superior to that of Effmann (1912) because it takes into
account irregularities in the Gothic church that can only be explained on the assumption that they were conditioned by the layout of the preceding
Carolingian church. It is a refinement, not a contradiction, of Effmann's views. For other aspects of the church see fig. 196.

unusual case. Between 834 and 835 the Cathedral of Le
Mans had fourteen altars; the cathedral of York (766-778),
according to the testimony of Alcuin (d. 804), had thirty;
the abbey of Centula, at the time of Abbot Angilbert
(d. 814), had thirty; there were fourteen in the Church of
St.-Riquier, three in the Church of St. Benedict, and
thirteen in St. Mary's Church.[279]

There are many reasons for this multiplication of altars:
first, the increasing emphasis being placed on the saints
and their relics during this period; second, the introduction
into the liturgical ritual of solitary masses which were
celebrated at auxiliary altars; third, the growing number of
masses held in commemoration of the dead and for other
special occasions; and finally—perhaps the most decisive
cause—a papal ordinance that mass could be celebrated
only once a day at the same altar.[280]

The installation of more altars tended to divide the space
of the church into separate areas for worship. It fostered
processionals, in which all the monks, separated into
choirs, moved from altar to altar throughout the church,
chanting the psalms in antiphon and praying.[281]

The aesthetic implications of this new liturgical development
are clearly marked in the Church of the Plan (fig. 140).
An alignment of altars (or altars and other important
liturgical appurtenances) in nave and aisles at each second
pair of columns establishes transverse divisions on the
floor of the Church, the rhythm of which can only be

[ILLUSTRATION]

169. FULDA. PLAN OF ABBEY CHURCH AS ATTAINED UNDER RATGER (802-817)

[after Vorromanische Kirchenbauten, plate following p. 81] SQUARE GRID SUPERIMPOSED

There is no doubt that the layout of Ratger's church at Fulda was based on that of Old St. Peter's in Rome (fig. 170, and text, p. 221) but the
conceptual method, used in giving nave and transept the same width and using the area of intersection as a module for the proportions of all superordinate
spaces, is fundamentally different.

[ILLUSTRATION]

170. ROME. OLD ST. PETER'S (AFTER 324 CA. 360)

[Plan after Jongkees, 1966, pl. 1. Construction diagram superimposed by Ernest Born]

The architect who planned St. Peter's used a constructional system as classical in concept as the modularity of Carolingian churches is medieval.
He obtained the length of the longitudinal body of St. Peter's by elongating the sides of a square to a length equalling its diagonal. In the same
manner the architect calculated the overall length of the church by using the diagonal of the rectangle thus constructed.

The diagonal of any square does not relate in a ratio of integers to its sides. The metric expression of the diagonal of a square is 1.414, the square
root of 2 (√2). The extension of a square into a rectangle by extending two of its sides to a length equalling its diagonal is a simple task that can
be performed without recourse to calculation and with only the aid of a string.

Spaces designed by aggregation of modules tend to produce such narrow elongated shapes as are exemplified in the churches of Fulda, Cologne,
and the Plan of St. Gall. The trait distinguishes the Romanesque and Gothic architecture of Hildesheim, Jumièges, and Speyer. The extension into
a rectangle of a square by means of its diagonal produces, by contrast, spaces of relatively squat proportions. The Romans made frequent use of
√2 rectangle construction, resulting in the thoroughly un-medieval proportions of many Roman cities and military camps. No doubt strategical
advantages of defending compact fortifications as compared with long, attenuated ones influenced, if not conditioned, Roman application of the √2
rectangle to site layout. But military considerations could hardly have been primary in constructing metropolitan churches. When they came to be
built, the method perhaps had become habit; its simplicity was probably an important cause of its general adoption.

[The linear values √1, √2, √3, √4, √5, etc. are derived by diagonals produced from a generating square of unity. Starting with the initial
square, one unit by one unit, the nth square is formed after n2 steps. The procedure can go on to infinity. But after the √5 rectangle (the diagonal to
the second square) linear or lateral expansion is simplest and most direct by compounds of the square. Hence square schematism. E. B.]

[ILLUSTRATION]

171. REICHENAU-MITTELZELL. HAITO'S CHURCH OF SS MARY, PETER, & PAUL (CONSECRATED 816)

The church is inordinately short for its period. Reisser (1960, fig. 285) held the opinion that Haito intended to extend the church westward to twice
its present length, so that its façade would have been in line with the façade of Pirmin's church. This would explain the shift from square modules
(30′ × 30′) used in the eastern part of the church and oblong ones used in the nave (24′ × 30′). For more detail see fig. 117 Horn and Born, 1974,
453; IDEM, 1975, 372-74; and Erdmann and Zettlar, 1974, 481ff.

compared to that which was established two centuries later
on the clerestory level through the introduction of diaphragm
arches. This is the beginning of the principle of
rhythmic alternation. It starts with the alignment of altars
and columns (Plan of St. Gall), finds structural expression
in the nave walls with the introduction of supports of
rhythmically varying strength (Gernrode and Hildesheim),
gathers vertical momentum with the addition of slender
shafts and arches that carry the rhythm up into the heights
of the clerestory (Speyer I), and enters into its final phase
as arches are thrown across the nave from alternate sets of
piers (Jumièges, Cérizy-la-Forêt).

II.3.10

SQUARE SCHEMATISM

"Square schematism" is a principle of medieval church
design by which the constituent spaces of the church are
calculated as multiples of a basic spatial unit, usually that
of the crossing square. The origin and evolution of this
concept is still one of the great mysteries of medieval
architectural history. The Church of the Plan of St. Gall
represents a crucial stage in the conceptual development of
this principle. The importance of this fact has been blurred
because no consensus of opinion had been obtained, in
previous inquiries, with regard to even the simple question
of whether or not the design of the Church of the Plan had,
in fact, been developed within a system of squares; let alone
the infinitely more complex problem of the historical roots
and the deeper cultural significance of this fascinating
principle of articulating space. I, for one, am convinced
that these questions cannot be solved from within the
field of architectural history. The modular mode of thinking
that underlies this schematism is a general cultural
phenomenon that manifests itself in other spheres of life.
On the following pages I shall try to isolate some of the
converging historical currents that merge in this concept.

PRESENCE OR ABSENCE OF THE GRID OF SQUARES

On the Plan of St. Gall the square and the grid of squares
are used in two different ways: as a method of mensuration,
and as an aesthetic principle. In the first instance the square
grid offered a convenient method of dividing a given area
internally by defining it as a multiple or fraction of certain
modular master units (2½-foot square, 40-foot square, 160foot
square).[282] In the other case, the square grid was used
as an active principle of architectural composition. It is this
latter type alone with which we are now concerned. Reinhardt
categorically denied its presence on the Plan of St.
Gall.[283] Similar views were expressed in 1945 by Samuel
Guyer,[284] but convincingly challenged in 1952 by Albert
Knoepfli[285] in a drawing which shows a grid of 10-foot
squares superimposed upon the Plan of the Church.[286] My
own analysis of the scale and construction methods used in

[ILLUSTRATION]

172. COLOGNE. CAROLINGIAN CATHEDRAL OF SS PETER AND MARY

Like Fulda (fig. 169) and doubtlessly under the same influence, i.e., of Old St. Peter's in Rome (fig. 170), the transept is located in the west. As in
Fulda and in the other Carolingian churches discussed here, the use of modules imparts to the layout of the spaces an aesthetic character wholly
different from the squat corporeality of their Early Christian prototypes.

designing the Plan corroborated this view.[287] In view of the
visual evidence submitted by Knoepfli, as well as my own
analysis of the system of squares shown in figures 61 and
173, I do not see how the validity of this contention could
ever again be questioned.

MEDITERRANEAN OR NORTHERN ROOTS:
A DIVISION OF MINDS

Because of its geographical distribution primarily in the
territory of the Franks, Saxons, and Normans, Georg
Dehio considered the square schematism to be essentially
a "Germanic" contribution.[288] Samuel Guyer,[289] in a complete
reversal of this contention declared this "geometrical
clarity" to be a mark "of the Mediterranean way of thinking,"
and "one that had its roots in classical antiquity."[290]
The square schematism of the Plan of St. Gall, he maintained,
was not one of the new and creative contributions
to medieval architecture that it had been assumed to be,
but "transmits to the West in a rather muddled manner the
thought of the qualitatively superior art" of the Early
Christian period.[291]

These statements are of questionable historical validity—
and the argument does not gain in power when one finds it
supported by such sweeping generalities as "A civilization
in process of just awakening from the darkness of an
a-historical past" and "as yet suspended in a state of
unstable hovering between unconsciousness and awakeness"
could not possibly have produced aesthetic concepts
"of such distinct and clear rationality. . . . The period of
Charlemagne had never the significance ascribed to it so
fervently in recent times. . . . In the time of Emperor
Charlemagne the thoughts of Late Antiquity and Early

[ILLUSTRATION]

173. PLAN OF ST. GALL. PLAN OF MONASTERY CHURCH

SHOWN AT SCALE 1:600

The Church of the Plan of St. Gall is chronologically the last of a triad of Carolingian transept basilicas of monumental dimensions owing
their size to the tide of spiritual and cultural exhilaration that seized the Frankish clergy in the wake of Charlemagne's coronation as emperor,
on Christmas Eve of the year 800, in the basilica of Old St. Peter's in Rome.

Unlike Cologne (fig. 172) and Fulda (fig. 169) which were occidented in imitation of Old St. Peter's, (fig. 170) the Church of the Plan was
oriented. Like Cologne and Fulda, on the other hand, and in contrast to St. Peter's, the Church of the Plan was constructed on a square grid,
in the most elaborate and most consistent application of it, since it encompassed, in addition to the Church itself, the entire claustral complex
and in fact the entire monastery site (figs. 62 and 63).

[ILLUSTRATION]

174. ROME. SANTA MARIA MAGGIORE (432-440)

LOOKING NORTH AND SOMEWHAT EAST TO THE APSE

Despite its coffered Renaissance ceiling (added in 1500, substituting for the original open-timbered roof) this view of Santa Maria Maggiore
conveys persuasively the stylistic quality of the great Early Christian basilicas composed of huge, block-shaped, and internally undivided
voids.

The concept differs fundamentally from that of the square-divided Carolingian churches of Neustadt, St. Riquier, Fulda, Reichenau-Mittelzell,
Cologne, and that of the Plan of St. Gall (figs. 167-69; 171-73), as well as from the bay-divided and arch-framed spaces of the Romanesque
and Gothic (Hildesheim, Speyer, Jumièges; figs. 188-90), the cellular composition of which has primary roots in the Carolingian modular
reorganization of the Early Christian scheme.

For another magnificent view of the interior of a great Early Christian basilica see fig. 81, St. Paul's Outside the Walls, Rome.

[ILLUSTRATION]

175. FEDDERSEN-WIERDE, BREMERHAVEN, GERMANY

175: AISLED HOUSE OF A CHIEFTAIN, WARF-LAYER 11B, 1ST-2ND CENT. (authors' reconstruction)

176: PLAN (after Haarnagel, 1956, pl. 3)

The house belongs to the second settlement horizon of an artificially raised dwelling mound (Warf) which was occupied, on successively higher
levels, from the 1st to the 4th centuries. The house was 28.5 × 7.5m on an east-west axis. The living portion with hearth and the section for livestock
were, respectively, 9m and 16m long. An entrance in the middle of the eastern end wall was primarily used by cattle. (Also see figs. 315-316, II, 58.)

Christianity were taken over in a manner so superficial as
to be incapable of taking any deep root or of being developed
any further."[292]

I propose that we confine ourselves to specific issues
rather than argue the case in such global terms.

INCREASING PROPENSITY FOR MODULAR
SPACE DIVISION IN PRE-CAROLINGIAN AND
CAROLINGIAN ARCHITECTURE NORTH OF
THE ALPS

The emergence of the square schematism in medieval
architecture depended on two crucial innovations in the
interrelation of the component spaces of the basilican
church:

1. The nave and the transept of the church had to be
given the same width, and

2. The width of the aisles had to be fixed to one-half
the width of the nave.

Without the first, the crossing could not form a square;
without the second, the modular division of the nave could
not be carried into the aisles. Both of these features
occurred separately in Early Christian times, but they were
not integrated then into a programmatic architectural
system.

An example of a church with nave and transept of equal
width is the Justinian basilica of the Nativity at Bethlehem
(if Hans Christ's interpretation of its plan is correct).[293] In
several Christian churches of Ravenna—all without transepts—the
width of the aisles is fixed at one half, or approximately
one half, the width of the nave. Yet as we survey
Early Christian church architecture as a whole, we must
conclude that its truly distinguishing feature is not the
presence, but rather the absence of any fixed proportions.
Nevenka Petrović[294] has made an illuminating study of the
proportions in churches of Ravenna and the adjacent
littoral of the Adriatic sea. In attempting to demonstrate
that these churches were laid out according to a system of
squares, as she set out to do, she has de facto illustrated the
fundamental difference between the layout of these later
Early Christian churches and the system of squares employed
in medieval architecture. The salient feature of the
Church of the Plan of St. Gall and its Ottonian and
Romanesque successors is that the squares control the
spacing of the arcades and therefore express the modular
layout of the plan in the elevation of the columns. The
divisions of Petrović's grids (fig. 166), by contrast, have no
relation whatsoever to the position of the arcade columns.
True, in some of the proto-medieval churches of Ravenna,
the length and width of the church exist in a state of

[ILLUSTRATION]

178.

Great Cruciform page

size of original about 33·8 × 24·1cm.

[ILLUSTRATION]

LINDISFARNE GOSPELS

179.A

179.B

LONDON, British Museum, Cotton Nero D. IV, fol. 2v

[by courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum]

Stages of layout

modular interdependency, but since this module does not
control the spacing of the columns, it is aesthetically of no
consequence.

I tend to agree with George Dehio that the square schematism
is essentially a "Germanic" contribution to Western
architecture for two reasons: first, because it is found
primarily in regions of relatively strong Germanic concentration,[295]
and second, because it is in these areas also that
we may detect its developmental antecedents. An early
medieval church exhibiting an incipient tendency toward
the use of the square as a module was Fulrad's church of
St. Denis, begun after 754 and consecrated in 775 (fig.
167).[296] Its basic layout, if Formigé's interpretation is correct,
was developed within a grid of 6-foot squares which,
in contrast to San Giovanni Evangelista at Ravenna (fig.
166), determined not only the overall dimensions of nave
and transept, but also the interstices of its arcades. The
transept was seven 6-foot units wide, and thirteen long; the
nave was five units wide and fifteen long. The distance from
center to center of arcade columns was two units, and in the
middle part of the transept two cruciform piers establish a
square of five by five units. As yet we cannot speak of
square schematism, because the dimensions of the crossing
square are not mirrored anywhere else in the building, and
in particular not in the intercolumniation of the arcades. A
church that comes closer to this ideal is the Saviour's
Church of Neustadt-on-the-Main, after 768/69 (fig. 167).
The plan of this church together with other cruciform
churches of similar design built in early medieval times,
such as Pfalzel near Trier, and Metlach (both before 713),
may have formed a connecting link between square-divided
Carolingian basilicas of the ninth century and certain
cruciform churches of the fourth and fifth centuries, typical
examples of which are shown in fig. 144-146 and 148-149.
A grandiose variant of this church type, built as early as
380 by Emperor Gratian in his residential city of Trier,
rose in territory that later was part of the very core of the
Frankish kingdom—for every Carolingian to see! (Its
masonry survives to this day, incorporated in the fabric of
the Romanesque church that superseded it.) This is the
only pre-medieval church type where nave and transept
are of equal width, their intersecting bodies forming a
square—and one might indeed regard the fully developed
square schematism of the Carolingian period as a transference
to churches of basilican plan of a principle already
experimented with in pre-medieval times in the highly
specialized context of these Early Christian cross-in-square

[ILLUSTRATION]

180. LINDISFARNE GOSPELS

LONDON, British Museum, Cotton Nero D.IV, fol 2v

Square panel above arm of cross on cruciform page shown in fig. 178

• A. Photo of panel

• B. Photo of square grid visible on corresponding portion of
  fol. 4r.

• C. Square grid with outlines of cross and lozenge pattern
  (first stage of construction)

• D. Final stage of pattern (authors' interpretation)

churches.[297] The first Carolingian church to mark the developmentally
significant moment of the adoption of the
square schematism in a building of unequivocally basilican
design was the abbey church of Centula, 790-799, if
Irmingard Achter's reconstruction of this building is
correct (fig. 170).[298] Because of the scarcity of archaeological
data available on this important building, such an assumption
can neither be fully accepted nor convincingly
rejected. For the same reason it is impossible to ascertain
whether the interstices of the nave arcades were aligned
with these modules.

Modular adjustment between width and length of the
component spaces is clearly visible, however, in the abbey
church of Fulda (802-817).[299] Its nave, measured from the
base of its western to that of its eastern apse, was exactly
four times its width (fig. 169). The dimensions of the
transept were identical with those of the nave. In the vast
body of literature devoted to Fulda—whose authors never
weary of citing the dependence of its design on that of Old
St. Peter's—this crucial aesthetic novelty has never been
pointed out, much less set into proper historical perspective.
We know nothing about the intercolumniation of
Fulda.

On the other hand, it is not possible to interpret Old
St. Peter's as having been developed within a grid of
identical squares—neither each volume by itself, nor any
volume in relation to a neighboring unit or to the whole of
the building mass. The architect who planned St. Peter's
employed instead a constructional system as classical in
concept as the modularity of the Carolingian churches
shown in figs. 144ff is medieval (see Born's analysis, fig.
170). He calculated the length of the longitudinal body of
the church by making use of the diagonal of a square with a
side equal to the width of the church, and developed the
overall length of the church in the same manner, with the
aid of the diagonal of the rectangle obtained by the preceding
method. This configuration, known as a √2
rectangle, is irrational, since the diagonal of a square is not
in any integral relationship to its sides (1: √2 = 1:1.414)
and therefore cannot be defined as an aggregation of an
integral modular value.

Hildebold's church of Cologne (ca. 800-819) was
composed wholly of equal squares: three in the transept,
four in the nave, one in the fore choir (fig. 172). If the
elevation of its nave walls was identical with that of the
church dedicated in 870, the piers of the arcades that
carried the clerestory walls would not have been in alignment
with this system.

The abbey church of Reichenau-Mittelzell, built by
Haito (806-816) is also developed within a modular grid of
squares, but the grid is irregular, and its existence, for that
reason, has been questioned. In evaluating this problem it
is important to distinguish the existence or nonexistence of
the concept of squares at Reichenau from the regularity or
perfection of its execution. The irregularity, in the angular
deviation of the walls from the grid (especially noticeable in
the eastern part of the church) is caused by special topographical
conditions. But no doubt can be entertained that
the concept exists. The shape of the fore choir and of the two
transept arms are almost a mirror image of the shape of the
crossing square, but the squares of the nave are slightly
oblong. Yet the principle of divisions is clearly there, and
the boundary between the two oblongs of the nave is
marked by piers, whose design differs from the columns
standing midway between them. In this feature St. Mary's
Church at Reichenau goes a step beyond even the Church
of the Plan of St. Gall, which has no such alternation in its
main supports.

In Hildebold's church of Cologne (fig. 172) the system
of squares finds clear expression in the west transept and
in the eastern fore choir, both of which are formed of squares
of identical size: three in the transept, one in the fore choir.
The nave is composed of four squares of like dimensions.
We know nothing about its elevation. If it was identical
with that of the church that was dedicated in 870, the piers
of the arcades which carry the clerestory walls would not
have been in alignment with the system of squares.

In the Church of the Plan of St. Gall the square schematism
attains its purest Carolingian form of expression (fig.
173). The basic unit is the 40-foot module of the crossing
square. The transept is formed of three such squares, the
fore choir of one, the nave of four and one-half; and the
dimensions of the crossing square are echoed even in the
Library and Vestiary. In St. Gall, moreover, the interstices
of the columns are in rhythmical alignment with the
squares. It is incomprehensible to me how this fact should
ever have been questioned. What the designer of this
church had in mind were arcades cutting deep into the
masonry of the nave walls (fig. 110) with their supports so
spaced as to give bodily expression to the sequence of
squares on which the Plan was based. This schematism is
a conscious and willed aesthetic principle. It is a fundamentally
different concept from that which produced the
low, narrowly spaced columnar orders of the Early Christian
basilicas of Rome (figs. 141 and 174). Contrary to what
Guyer, Reinhardt, and Reinle believe, it is an ingenious
anticipation of the square schematism of the Romanesque.

What are the historical preconditions of this propensity
for modular organization of space? Some clearly are functional.

[ILLUSTRATION]

181.

Cruciform page preceding the Gospels of St. Luke

size of original about 33·8 × 23·1cm.

[ILLUSTRATION]

182. LINDISFARNE GOSPELS

LONDON, British Museum, Cotton Nero D. IV, fol. 138r

[by courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum]

Diagram illustrating use of square grid in constructing the layout for
the opposite illustration

Others may have to be traced to vernacular architecture.
For still others we shall have to reach, beyond the
boundaries of architectural history, into the field of book
illumination, where strong expression of modular modes
of thinking can be observed over a century before they
assert themselves in church building. Yet others, and perhaps
the most important of all, may have to be sought in
deeper and more general cultural levels.

NEW LITURGICAL NEEDS
CONTRIBUTING TO MODULAR SPACE DIVISION

I have already drawn attention to a number of contributing
factors that tended to facilitate this development in a functional
sense: the need for an extension of the altar space,
leading to the interposition of a new spatial unit between
transept and apse; the framing of the crossing by means of
arches, creating a square division in the transept, that would
lend itself to being extended to the nave; and most of all,
perhaps, the multiplication of altars, demanding a subdivision
of the spaces of nave and aisles into a sequence of
devotional stations (figs. 164 and 165). We add to this a
feature (which Irmingard Achter stressed in her discussion
of the Carolingian Abbey Church of Centula): circular
towers such as the towers which surmounted the crossing
and the westwork of this church require as base a square-shaped
underpinning. All of these innovations contributed
to the development of a modular scheme, but none of them
alone (and perhaps, not even all together), might have
led to the creation of the modular space division of the
medieval church as a binding architectural principle. There
are other forces to be taken into account.

MODULAR SPACE DIVISION: AN INTRINSIC
FEATURE OF PREHISTORIC, PROTOHISTORIC, AND
MEDIEVAL WOOD CONSTRUCTION

In an article dealing with the origins of the medieval bay
system,[300] I have pointed out that modular design has been
from the remotest periods an intrinsic feature of northern
wood construction. The stability of the timbered Germanic
house required that its roof-supporting posts be joined
together at the top: lengthwise by means of plates, and
crosswise by means of tie beams. This divides the space of
the house into a modular sequence of timber-framed bays
(figs. 175 and 176). Recent excavations have made it clear
that this construction type came into existence around 1200
B.C., and for the next two thousand years it served as an
all-purpose house in the Germanic territories of Holland,
Germany, England, and Scandinavia as well as in all those
areas of Central and Western Europe that were primarily
settled by Germanic peoples.[301] In timber this concept is
old; in stone it is new. In timber it develops as a logical
construction method from the natural properties of the

[ILLUSTRATION]

Canon Tables (183.A)

The Ada Gospels is the first great highlight of the classicizing phase of
illumination of the so-called Court School. It consists of an earlier part
(fols. 6-38) containing the canon tables (fols. 6v-11v) which combine the
decorative tradition of the Hiberno-Saxon school (figs. 178-182) with a tendency
to treat the arcades of the tables in a more architectural manner.

Size of leaves of the manuscript in the present cropped state is 36 × 24.5cm.

Figures 183.A and 183.B are reduced about 12.5 percent.

Originally the leaves were larger.

The later part of the Ada Gospels consists of the remainder of the text, and
portraits of the four evangelists (fols. 15v, 59v, 85v, 127v), one of which is
illustrated in fig. 184 (see overleaf).

[ILLUSTRATION]

183.C ADA GOSPELS (EARLY 9TH CENT.)

DIAGRAM SHOWING USE OF SQUARE GRID IN THE
CONSTRUCTION OF THE CANON TABLES SHOWN IN
183.A AND 183.B (see overleaf)

TRIER, Municipal Library, MS. XXII, fol. 6v

material. In masonry it is an intrusive feature, imposed
upon the material as a willed aesthetic principle—and
therefore ushers in a conflict between style and building
material which, in its ultimate phase, the Gothic, led to a
complete denial of the natural properties of stone. I have
suggested that the modular arrangement of space, which
begins in Carolingian Church architecture, gathers increasing
strength in the Ottonian period and reaches its peak of
expression in the Romanesque and Gothic (fig. 177), has
one of its roots in the fact that these churches were constructed
by men in whose collective memory "to build"
had been synonymous with building in modular sequences
of space.

The validity and importance of this explanation cannot
be appreciated until it is understood that the determining
factor in analyzing the origins of square schematism is not
that it is based on the shape of the square, but that it
establishes a system of binding modular relationships. In
distinguishing between the système des carrés of the Romanesque
and the système des barlongs of the Gothic, we have
lost sight of the fact that both of these systems are members
of the same family. Whether the module is square or
rectangular is determined by secondary conditions, sometimes
functional, sometimes constructional, sometimes
stylistic, and on occasion, even by purely arbitrary reasons.
The house of the Germanic chieftain of the first and second
centuries A.D., which is shown in figures 175-176, employs
both the square and the rectangular module, the former in
the living area, identifiable by the hearth; the latter, in the
section of the house where the cattle are stabled, identifiable
by the manure mats.[302] Here the shape of the module is
conditioned by strictly functional considerations: the roof-supporting
trusses are spaced at intervals of 6 to 7 feet, just
as much space as is needed to stable two head of cattle. In
the living section of the house, on the other hand, the
trusses are set further apart to give greater freedom of
movement. The distinction is very old and can be observed
in Bronze Age houses of the same construction type, dating
from around 1200 B.C., recently excavated by Waterbolk in
Elp, Holland.[303]

In the Carolingian monastery churches discussed in the
preceding pages, the square is the more reasonable form
to be adopted—at least in the liturgically most important
areas—the choir and the transept— which lend themselves
to square division with notable ease. In the nave, this was
more difficult to obtain, since here the square division
conflicted with the narrow intercolumniation inherited
from the Early Christian prototype churches. It required
a strong personality to move the columns apart to the novel
and daring distance of 20 feet, as was done in the Church
of the Plan, and thus to express the module in the bodily
sequence on the columns. The designer of the Church of
Cologne may have struggled with similar ideas (fig. 172), but
abandoned the scheme in actual construction (figs. 15-16).

[ILLUSTRATION]

183.B

[ILLUSTRATION]

183.D ADA GOSPELS

DIAGRAM SHOWING USE OF SQUARE GRID

TRIER, Municipal Library, MS. XXII, fol. 8v

MODULAR AREA DIVISION: AN INTRINSIC
FEATURE IN THE LAYOUT AND DESIGN
OF ILLUMINATED PAGES IN HIBERNO-SAXON
AND CAROLINGIAN MANUSCRIPTS

The modular bay division that governed the construction
of the Germanic house from the first millennium B.C.
onward was not the only source for the appearance of
modular relationships in Carolingian church architecture. It
may, in fact, take second place when weighed against
another influence, which reflects an attitude of mind more
than a constructional necessity. An organization based on
modules is one of the distinguishing features of the layout
of the illuminated pages of Hiberno-Saxon and Carolingian
manuscripts.

Figures 179.A and 179.B show how the artist of the Lindisfarne
Gospels set out to decorate the large cruciform page
that forms the frontispiece (fol. 2v) to this remarkable book
(fig. 178).[304] The principal motif is a square-headed cross
framed by a narrow band and decorated internally with a
key pattern. In the field between the arms of the cross and
the outer frame of the page, there are four panels with step
patterns, two square ones on the top, two of oblong shape
at the bottom. The background is filled with an intricate
design of interlace. The page is framed by a strip of interlaced
birds, held in by narrow bands which terminate at
each of the four corners in an ornamental knot.

An analysis of the construction method used in setting
out the design of this page shows that all the basic divisions
are multiples of the width of the framing bands. The basic
values are 5 · 6 · 7 · 12 (fig. 179.A). The squares of the cross
measure 12 · 12; the panels in the fields above and beneath
the arms of the cross are 10 · 10 and 10 · 25. I feel certain
that a system of linear coordinates, such as is shown in
figures 179.A and B, was laid out on the page, by means of
either lines or prickings before the artist entered the
decorative details. In certain places where the design was
very intricate, such as the panels above and under the arms
of the cross with their complicated step patterns (fig. 180.A),
the illuminator actually drew out the lines with the point
of a fine stylus. This is visible on the opposite side of the
sheet (fol. 2r) as a grid of delicately protruding ridges (fig.
180.B).[305]

I have shown in figures 180.C and D how this system was
worked out. First, the illuminator divided the square
internally into sixteen subordinate squares by the method
of continuous halving. Then he divided each subordinate
square into nine base squares through internal tri-section.
This furnished him with all the desired linear co-ordinates
for the lozenge, cross, and step patterns with which these
squares are decorated (fig. 180.A). The same or similar

[ILLUSTRATION]

184.A St. Luke

The Ada Gospel portraits of the four evangelists framed by arcades
(fols. 15v, 59v, 85v, 127v) depend stylistically on a Late Antique
manuscript tradition combining the sculptural corporeality of Roman
figure style with touches of Byzantine mannerism.

Revived in the art of the Frankish illuminators of the Court School,
this tradition merged with the northern concept of organization of
space. This first encounter of the two traditions is not reflected in the
portrayal of the Ada evangelists, but visibly controls the layout of
the surface in which their images are placed. Later, in a synthesis of
southern corporeality and northern abstraction that parallels the
same development in architecture, these concepts will produce a
figure style that, despite strong dependance on classical prototypes, is
distinctly medieval (see fig. 185).

[ILLUSTRATION]

184.B ADA GOSPELS (EARLY 9TH CENT.)

DIAGRAM SHOWING USE OF SQUARE GRID IN CONSTRUCTION
OF ARCH FRAMING

TRIER. Municipal Library. MS XXII, fol. 59v

methods were used in all other ornamental pages of the
manuscript, and also in the layout of the canon tables (fol.
10r-fol. 17r).

Figures 182.A, B, and C give an analysis of the design
of the great cruciform page on fol. 138v that precedes the
Gospel of St. Luke (fig. 181).[306] This page has as its main
motif a cross with T-shaped arms, filled in with a background
of interlaced patterns; the spaces around the cross
are filled with an animal interlace. The entire decoration of
this page is laid out on a system of squares, each side of
which is four times the width of the framing band. The
page measures thirteen units across and seventeen units up
and down. The transverse axis of the cross is laid out in
the sequence:

the vertical axis in the sequence:

The protruding knots at the corners and in the prolongation
of the two intersecting axes of the page are inscribed
into a marginal area seven units wide.

These principles of modular book design so typical of
Hiberno-Saxon art were inherited by the continental
Carolingian illuminators. Figures 183.C and D are a design
analysis of two of the canon tables of the Ada Gospels, fol.
6v and fol. 8v (figs. 183.A and B).[307] The layout of these
tables varies. Some have four arcades, others have three.
As in the Lindisfarne Gospels all the internal subdivisions of
these pages are calculated as multiples of the width of the
framing bands. In both tables the design is suspended in a
square grid composed of 4 × 4 base units.

On fol. 6v (figs. 183.A and C) the bases of the columns
and their interstices are calculated in the sequence:

the column shafts and their interstices in the sequence:

The columns are inscribed into a grid of 16 × 19 squares,
the arches into a 9 × 19-square grid.

The canon arch on fol. 8v (figs. 183.B and D) has only
three columns. It is based on the same grid pattern. The
bases of the columns are calculated in the sequence:

the column shafts and their interstices in the sequence:

Figures 184.A and B show that the same method of construction
is used in the layout of the arch which frames the
figure of St. Mark on fol. 59v of the Ada Gospels. The basic

[ILLUSTRATION]

185. CODEX AUREUS OF ECHTERNACH

MADRID, Escorial, Cod. Vitr. 17, fol. 2v

[by courtesy of the Patrimonio Nacional]

Emperor Konrad and Empress Gisela prostrate themselves before
Christ in Majesty. School of Echternach, 1043-1046. The Gospel
book was presented to Speyer between 1043 and 1046 by Henry III
(1038-1056) who (folio 3v) is portrayed with Agnes, his consort, in
the act of transmitting the manuscript to Mary, patron saint of the
cathedral. Both illuminations are high points in the synthesis of a
figurative style rooted in Antiquity, with a medieval propensity for
planimetric order and linear simplicity pervading both figurative and
geometric components of each picture (rectangle, lozenge, circles,
semicircles). Byzantinizing mannerisms (cf. fig. 184) are dropped;
the figures have acquired the magnificent blocklike stance that
characterizes much of the contemporary sculpture.

unit is a square, three times the width of the framing bands.
The columnar section is a square, 20 × 20 units; the arch
section, an oblong of 9 × 20 units.

The square grid affects the layout of the page, but not the
design of the figure of the Evangelist. This latter is clearly
patterned after a Byzantine model. The conflict between
the corporeal emphasis of the classical design, and the
tendency of the northern medieval illuminator to subject
the borrowed image to linearism and geometricity provoked
a developmental dialectic in which the ability to absorb
classical influences with increasing strength, in successive
stages, is preconditioned by a partial rejection and successful
transformation of those absorbed in a preceding phase.
In the period of the Romanesque, as a consequence of this
dialectic, solutions are obtained in which southern corporeality
and northern abstraction enter into a state of
balance (fig. 185). In like manner in the field of architecture,
southern masonry tradition fuses with northern frame
construction in a marriage in which the two component
traditions are matched with consummate perfection (fig.
186).

The square schematism is the primary organizing agent
in this development. It helps to disassemble the large
corporeal spaces of the Early Christian basilica, and to
arrange its parts in modular sequences that could be
vaulted. It determines the take-off points for the rising
shafts and arches that were needed to carry the vaults.

MODULAR AREA DIVISION:
AN INTELLECTUAL PRINCIPLE AFFECTING THE
CONCEPTUAL ORGANIZATION IN THE
RELATIONSHIP OF CHURCH AND STATE

It has become a commonplace of historical reference to
speak of the "anthropomorphic" character of Greco-Roman
and Late Antique art and of the "corporeal"
quality of their figurative and spatial composition; and it
has been stressed time and again that this quality grows
out of a way of thinking that interprets man and his metaphysical
environment "in the image of man," a concept so
embedded that even Christianity could not rout it. We
have not yet found any way of describing or explaining
adequately the way of thinking that impelled the medieval
illuminators to submit the classical prototypes to relentless
abstraction and caused the medieval architects to break up
and reassemble their spaces in controlled volumetrical
sequences.[308] Until we have, we shall not be able to understand
fully the meaning of such a phenomenon as the
square schematism of medieval art or, for that matter, any
other schematisms conceptually related to it. Square
schematism is an intellectual principle by which formerly
existent, yet isolated or only loosely connected parts are
brought into an ordered modular relationship. It is a
principle of intellectual alignment that strikes far beyond
the reality of architecture or book illumination into the
realm of literary and musical composition—as Charles W.
Jones and Richard D. Crocker have shown in recent
studies[309] —reflect a cultural attitude that may have had a

[ILLUSTRATION]

186. SPEYER CATHEDRAL (1082-1106)

[after Dehio, GESCHICHTE DER DEUTSCHEN KUNST,
4th ed., I, 1930, plate vol., figure 63]

About 1030, Emperor Konrad II (1029-1039) began to replace the
Merovingian cathedral with a new building (Speyer I) whose crypt
(dedicated in 1041) became a sepulchral sanctuary for the imperial
house. The nave walls of this structure were articulated by a
continuous sequence of engaged shafts rising from the floor to the
head of the walls. The roof was timbered. The aisles by contrast were
covered with shaft-supported and arch-framed groin vaults.

During the reign of Emperor Henry IV (1056-1106, or more
precisely from about 1082-1106), the design of the aisles was
transferred to the nave by the superimposition upon each alternate
tier of a second and heavier shaft, and their connection lengthwise
and crosswise by means of arches capable of carrying vaults. The
view shown above represents the cathedral in the form it had attained
at this point (Speyer II).

direct effect upon even the organization of the relationships
of Church and State, where similar tendencies can be observed
at about the same time. An illuminative reflection of
this mode of thinking is to be found in Walahfrid Strabo's
Libellus de Exordiis, written between 840 and 842. Here
secular rulership and ecclesiastical government are brought
into a system of modular relationships in which each of the
two respective hierarchies is formed by a series of parallel
offices:

Like the "disengaged crossing" or the "extended altar
square" many of the component parts of this system are
old. But the manner in which they were drawn together
into a system of homologous parts presaged a development
which, two to three centuries later, led to the accomplished
and intensely sophisticated metaphysical visions of scholastics.
They envisioned the universe as a triad of structurally
related hierarchies (fig. 187)—each being an identical image
of the other as well as of the system as a whole—that
possessed identical subdivisions into triads of ranks, and
in each of these triads each subordinate rank corresponded
in substance to its equivalent part in every other triad.[311]

SETBACK AND RE-EMERGENCE

On the preceding pages I have shown that the square
schematism appeared in western architecture neither as

[ILLUSTRATION]

187. WILLIAM OF AUVERGNE. LIBER DE UNIVERSO (1230-1236)

HIERARCHIES OF HEAVEN, STATE AND CHURCH

[Author's diagrammatic interpretation]

Components of this concept are Early Christian; their integration into an all-embracing metaphysical scheme is medieval. Similarities in the institutional
organization of Church and State were apparent in the 4th century after the Church began to model its administrative structure after that
of the State. Carolingian awareness of this fact is attested by the passage of Walahfrid Strabo quoted above, p. 231.

Dionysius the Pseudo-Areopagite (5th-6th cent.) speculated that the celestial hierarchies of angels and the orders of the Church were parallel. This
concept became a central theme of Carolingian theology after a manuscript of Dionysius (presented to Pepin I by Pope Paul in 758) had been
translated into Latin by Hilduin of St. Denis. (For more detail see Glossary, s.v. Hierarchy.)

[ILLUSTRATION]

HILDESHEIM. ST. MICHAEL'S CHURCH (1010-1033)

188.B

188.A

Alternating piers and columns at modular intervals is a leitmotif of Ottonian architecture, but has sporadic Carolingian antecedents in Reichenau-Mittelzell
(figs. 117, 134, 171), Werden (Vorromanische Kirchenbauten, 1966-71, 372ff), and the basilica of Solnhofen (see V. Milojcic,
Ausgrabungen in Deutschland, II, Mainz, 1975, 278-312).

abruptly and nor with as few historical preconditions as was
formerly thought. This raises the question: why, once
conceived, did it so suddenly disappear, not to re-emerge
until almost two centuries later?

The answer to this, I think, is relatively simple. The
square schematism, in the highly sophisticated and accomplished
form, which it attained in the layout of the Church
of the Plan of St. Gall, was born within the conceptual
framework of a building that had an overall length of no
less than 300 feet and for that reason could readily be
divided internally into a sequence of 40-foot squares. When
in the revisionary textual titles of the Plan it was suggested
that the church be reduced to a length of 200 feet and that
the columnar interstices be shortened from 20 to 12 feet,[312]
the modular order of the original layout was demolished.
There is no evidence to suggest that this reduction in size
was conditioned by structural or aesthetic considerations.
The change occurred as has been shown,[313] at more or less
the same time—and probably for the same reasons for
which—the abbot of Fulda was deposed for overtaxing the
spiritual and economic resources of his monastery with the
construction of a church considered by his monks as being
outrageously large. In this historical climate the dimensions
of the Church of the Plan of St. Gall, as laid down in the
drawing, could no longer be considered prototypal. The

[ILLUSTRATION]

JUMIÈGES, ABBEY CHURCH (1040-1067)

189.B

The red overprinting supplied by the authors on
Lanfry's fine drawing indicates where certain scars
in the original masonry give evidence of a structural
feature now vanished. This is by some interpreted as
a simple engaged column rising from floor to
clerestory wall-head level, by others as the seat of
abutment masonry of diaphragm arches. The
controversy requires thorough re-examination through
a masonry study made from scaffolds giving access to
full height of nave wall.

As long as such a study is lacking, and until a
structural engineering analysis is made, Ernest Born
and I prefer to keep the controversy alive, Born
favoring the former and I the latter interpretation.

W.H.

189.A

SEINE-INFÉRIEURE, FRANCE

Masonry scars in its clerestory walls (189.C, 189.D) prove that the nave of this Early Romanesque church was spanned by diaphragm arches
rising from engaged columnar shafts attached to every second pier of the nave (begun not before 1052). The square schematism and system of
alternating supports of Jumièges clearly derive from Ottonian architecture (fig. 188).

Columnar shafts introducing modular division into the nave walls first appeared in the cathedrals of Orléans (990) and Tours (ca. 990-1002)
and gained a hold in Germany, after the principle had been established in Speyer I (1030-1061). Jumièges goes further than Speyer through
use of diaphragm arches that carry modular division of nave walls transversely across the space. Diaphragm arches had previously been used in
the abbey church of Nivelles (1000-1046) and the cathedral of Trier (1016-1047). After Jumièges (1052-1067) they are found in other
Norman churches: St. Vigor-de-Bayeux (ca. 1060), Cérizy-la-Foret (ca. 1080), St. Gervaise-de-Falaise (ca. 1100-1123), and St. Georges-de-Boscherville
(after 1114). They become fashionable even in distant Italy: San Pier Scheraggio in Florence (ca. 1050-1086), Lomello (1060?)
and the magnificent San Miniato in Florence (ca. 1070-ca. 1150).

In all these churches the diaphragm arches were placed at intervals too large to allow vaulting between them. This step, the last in development
of the medieval bay system, was made in Speyer II (fig. 190).

[ILLUSTRATION]

189.C SOUTH WALL OF NAVE

Southwest view (toward the Seine and the quarry site for the stones
of Jumièges, showing clerestory windows.

Originally the nave of the church was covered by an open timber
roof, which in 1688-92 was concealed under a vaulted wooden
ceiling supported by sculptured brackets and foliated capitals inserted
on sill level of the clerestory windows.

On this occasion scars were left in clerestory walls through the
removal of some feature, which some believe to have been a
diaphragm arch (Pfitzer, Michon, Horn) and others a simple
engaged column (Martin Du Gard, Lanfry, Born).

[ILLUSTRATION]

189.D DETAIL

A close view shows one of the masonry scars left on the inner face of the
clerestory walls when the original feature for which it formed a seating was
removed, to make room for a vaulted 17th-century ceiling. It is the narrowness
and shallowness of these scars, as well as the height and thinness of the
clerestory walls, that induced earlier scholars to discard the assumption of
diaphragm arches.

Against this view it can be argued that for roughly two-thirds of their total
height, the nave walls are externally buttressed by the gallery vaults of the
church; and that along the lines where the scars occur, the clerestory is externally
reinforced by engoged buttresses rising from the galleries to clerestory wall-head
level. For a good summary of the controversy, see Michon-Du Gard, 1927.
47-54.

[ILLUSTRATION]

SPEYER CATHEDRAL (1082-1106)

190.B

190.A

[redrawn by Ernest Born after plans by
Dehio, Geschichte der Deutschen Kunst, 3rd ed., plate vol. I, figs. 68-69;
Kubach and Haas, 1972, pl. 9; and Conant, 1959, 75, fig. 22]

The great conceptual leap from Early to High Romanesque architecture was made by introducing continuous sequences of arch-framed vaults
springing from shafts that reached from floor to head of clerestory walls. Modularity, now embodied in an armature of architectural members
pervading and framing space in all directions, thus acquired its fully medieval form. The Ottonian "box-space" was transformed into the
bay-divided medieval space. The Gothic changed the vocabulary, but not the fundamental concept of space.

A basilica of magnificent longitudinal sweep and breathtaking verticality (70m. long, over 30m. high), Speyer was the first full embodiment of
this principle of composing churches in continuous sequences of clearly definable modular units of space.

grandiose scale of the original concept had received a
shattering blow in the neo-asceticism of the monastic reform
movement, and, in consequence, was abandoned.

The political chaos that followed the reign of Louis the
Pious offered no opportunities for a return to the earlier
concepts. Their renascence had to await the political and
economic consolidation that was brought about in Germany
by the house of the Saxon kings, and in France by the rising
power and importance of the dukes of Normandy that
peaked in the conquest of England.

The steps that lead to the re-emergence of square
schematism in Ottonian and Norman architecture are well
known and need not be reiterated. They are marked by
such highlights of medieval architecture as St. Michael's
Church at Hildesheim, 1010-1033 (fig. 188); the Abbey
Church of Jumièges, 1040-1061 (fig. 189); and the second
stage of the imperial cathedral of Speyer, ca. 1080-1106
(figs. 186 and 190).

St. Michael's at Hildesheim had a total length of 230 feet
and was internally composed of a sequence of seven
modules 30 feet square plus an apse with a radius of 20 feet
(fig. 188).[314] One could not wilfully construct a more convincing
mirror-image of the modular square division of the
Church of the Plan of St. Gall (figs. 61 and 173).

I do not know of the existence of any accurate measurement
studies of the Abbey Church of Jumièges (10401067).
But from the plans of Martin du Gard[315] and of
Lanfry[316] one gains the impression that it might have been
based on a modular sequence of 35-foot squares, four of
those composing the nave, one the crossing, one the fore
choir, and one half the apse, for a total of six and one-half
squares.

Whether or not the renascence of these modular concepts
at Hildesheim and Jumièges has any direct connection with
the Plan of St. Gall is impossible to say. The discussion of
this subject has suffered from the fact that until very
recently the square schematism even of the Church of the
Plan of St. Gall had been questioned.[317] Yet the similarities
can hardly be overlooked. As in the Church of the Plan of
St. Gall (fig. 61), so in Hildesheim and in Jumièges the
general dimensions of the principal spaces were calculated
as multiples of the crossing square. In both of these churches
this modular division was aesthetically underscored by a
rhythmical alternation of light supports with heavy supports,
the latter marking the corners of the module, the
former rising in the interstices between them. The system
has two isolated Carolingian precursors in the abbey
churches of Werden (dedicated 804)[318] and Reichenau-Mittelzell
(consecrated in 816)[319] but becomes a governing
principle of style only in the Ottonian period, starting with
the abbey church of Gernrode (961-965)[320] and leading
from there in successive steps of refinement through the
magnificent series Hildesheim[321] —Jumièges—Speyer. A
feature of primary developmental implications—completely
overlooked in all authoritative studies on the Abbey Church
of Jumièges—were the great diaphragm arches that spanned
the nave crosswise, rising from shafts attached to every
alternate pier.[322]

Aesthetically this is a first attempt to visually connect the
alternating support articulation of the nave walls with the
aid of a bold transverse member reaching full width across
the space of the nave as well as full height into the roof of
the structure. The diaphragm arch has been variously derived
from Roman,[323] Syrian,[324] Mohammedan,[325] and
Italian[326] sources; but its prototype is much closer at hand;
in the masonry arches that frame the area of intersection in
churches with nave and transept of equal height, and
establish in the transepts of these churches a modular cross
division of space that precedes that of the nave by centuries
(Church of the Plan of St. Gall, 816-17; Hildebold's
Cathedral of Cologne, after 800 and before 819; and perhaps
even the abbey church of St. Riquier, 790-799).[327]
The ultimate prototype of the diaphragm arch is, of course,
the triumphal arch of the Early Christian basilica[328] and

the testing ground for its migration from the transept into
the longitudinal body of the church are the aisles, where
precocious modular cross division by means of transverse
arches appear as early as the beginning of the ninth century
(Werden-on-the-Ruhr, dedicated by Bishop Ludger in 804
and Reichenau-Mittelzell, consecrated by Bishop Haito in
816).

The transept of the Cathedral of Speyer looks as though
it might have been conceived as a triad of 50-foot squares.[329]
The spacing of the piers in the original building (Speyer I,
constructed between 1030 and 1061) did not perpetuate
these dimensions; and when the nave, between 1080 and
1106 (Speyer II) was covered by groin vaults, mounted on
arches rising from shafts attached to every alternate pier,
this resulted in a sequence of oblongs rather than squares.
This variance in modular shape and size is an impurity of
minor importance; the epochal historical advance achieved
in Speyer was that the modular division of the ground floor
was here, for the first time, embodied in an all-pervasive
system of shafts and arches that divided the space lengthwise
and crosswise as well as in its entire height into a
modular sequence of clearly definable cells or bays. Once
this point was reached, the walls between the rising shafts
and arches could be perforated—and were in fact transformed
progressively into that intensely skeletal armature
of shafts and arches that led to the formation of the Gothic.

The self-contained and divisive vaults that covered the
bays of Romanesque and Gothic churches—firmly set off
against each other by their strong relief of framing arches
and ribs—were bound to strengthen the modular organization
of the spaces they covered. Yet they cannot by any
stretch of imagination be interpreted as a technical precondition
of that concept. Modular area division—as has
been made abundantly clear by the examples here cited—
preceded modular vault construction by centuries and
reached far beyond the realm of architecture into the layout
of the decorative pages of Christian service books. It has its
roots in a cultural frame of mind, not in technical conditions.

[ILLUSTRATION]

190.X GENOELS-ELDEREN DIPTYCH

190.Y

Shown same size
as original

BRUSSELS. MUSÉES ROYAUX D'ART ET D'HISTOIRE

[by courtesy of the Musées Royaux]

The monumentality of architecture in concept, execution, and fabric
may tend to overwhelm the scale of, and make distant, those objects that
men once handled and used in their daily pursuits. Tools, books, jewelry,
harness trappings, weapons, liturgical objects—with few exceptions they
are gone from us. The survivors, many of them precious then, as now,
lie in museums, remote from the purposes of their makers and rendered
exotic by their scarcity. Thus, the integration in spirit of such intimate
objects with monuments of architecture is somewhat difficult to achieve.
The many handicrafts that provided embellishment to daily life in a
monastic community such as was proposed by the Plan of St. Gall, has
been but lightly touched upon in this study. That works of art and
adornment were important to the community is undisputed. The Plan
has accommodations for making weapons and associated equipment,
saddlery and presumably other harness tack, and goldsmithing. Silversmiths,
lapidaries, and enamellers may have worked with armourer and
swordsmith. These crafts were housed with other facilities for more
ordinary work, in a pair of buildings in the southwestern tract of the
presumed site. Lay artisans were intended to reside in the community,
as is evidenced by comprehensive housing provided in the Plan.

Crafts that enhanced the praise of God by ornamentation of books,
vestments, and liturgical objects to assist in worship, were proper
activities for monks. Most notable were manuscript copying and
illumination, and ivory carving was likely among them. It is not
referred to specifically on the Plan of St. Gall, probably because its
execution did not require special facilities such as forges, smelters, and a
welter of noisy tools. The work of the ivory carver, silent and delicate,
often closely connected with all aspects of bookmaking, could be done
in a scriptorium, in company with scribes and illuminators.

The illustrated book cover is closely related to illuminations of the
Godescalc Gospels (781-783), earliest of the Court School manuscripts.
It has the same flatness of relief, the same delicate linearity, clearly
distinguishing it from the softly rounded forms and classicizing drapery
style of the later ivories of this school. The model must have been an
Early Christian ivory of Coptic or Syrian origin and representing a
style widely diffused in Merovingian Europe.

The front cover of the diptych shows Christ standing on the asp and
basilisk, flanked by two angels. The back cover displays the Annunciation
(upper register) and Visitation (lower register). Both covers are
pieced from several ivory plaques of different sizes. The work is
perforated and may have been mounted on a foil of gold leaf. The eyes
are inlaid lapis; interlace and step-patterns of the frames are clearly
influenced by insular art and stand in strong contrast to the perspective
illusionism of the two scenes. For references, see Braunfels, KARL DER
GROSSE, WERK UND WIRKUNG (exh. cat.), No. 534, pp. 345-46.

[ILLUSTRATION]

191. PLAN OF ST. GALL. MONKS' CLOISTER, THE CHURCH AND ADJACENT BUILDINGS

When St. Cuthbert built himself a hermitage on Farne Island, where he spent the last eleven years of his life in solitary retreat, he surrounded his
living space "with a wall higher than a man standing upright," and further increased its relative height "by cutting away the living rock so that
the pious inhabitant could see nothing except the sky from his dwelling, thus restraining both the lust of the eyes and the thoughts and lifting the
whole bent of his mind to higher things" (Bede, ed. Colgrave, 1940, 214-17). The Plan of St. Gall achieves a like effect for an entire community
in the sophisticated layout of the cloister with its egress and ingress governed by a body of rigid laws, the open inner court being the monks' only
access to nature and sun—a controlled and ordered island of nature with judiciously selected and carefully tended plants: PARADISUS CLAUSTRALIS.