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

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

200

[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.

201

[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.

202

[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

203

[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).

204

[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.

[254]

An excellent recent summary of the history of the counter apse will
be found in Thümmler, 1960, col. 93. Of earlier literature to be consulted
on this problem, see Dehio and von Bezold, I, 1892, 167ff;
Effmann, 1912, 153ff; Braun, I 1924, 388ff; Arens, 1938, 61, n. 89;
Doppelfeld, 1954, 50ff; Schmidt, 1956, 403ff. On Early Christian
basilicas with apse and counter apse in Tunisia, see Lapeyre, 1940,
180-81; in Tripolitania see Romanelli, 1940, 246; in Spain see Durliat,
1966, 42 fig. 9, and Hubert, 1966, 42 fig. 9.

Brief summaries on North African churches of the fifth and sixth
centuries with apse and counter apse will be found in Ward Perkins,
1965, 62-63 (Lepcis Magna I, ibid., 22-34; Sabratha I, ibid. 7-19) and
N. Duval, 1965, 472-78 (Sbeitla and Haïdra). Krautheimer, 1962, 22-23,
in a discussion of Orléansville, disclaims the possibility of any influence
of these North African churches on the medieval development: "But
counter apses remain rare and contrary to older opinions, are not the
immediate sources for those of medieval churches in Europe."

On the basilica of Silchester, see J. G. Joyce, 1881, 344-65 and below,
p. 256. On the basilica of Augst, see Reinle, 1965, 34 and below, p. 200.

[255]

I am following Thümmler's enumeration, loc. cit. For St. Maurice
of Agaune, see Blondel, 1948, 9-57, and 1957, 283-92; for Fulda, see
Beumann and Grossmann, 1949, 17-56; for Paderborn, Thümmler,
1957, 87ff; for Echternach, Meyers, 1951, 1ff; for Cologne, Doppelfeld,
1948, 1954, 1958; for Reims, Hubert, 1938, 30; for Auxerre, Louis, 1952;
for Oberzell, Hecht, I, 1928, 132ff, Christ, 1956, and Gall, 1956.

Excellent summaries of the state of knowledge concerning the German
churches here cited will be found in Vorromanische Kirchenbauten,
F. Oswald, L. Schaefer and H. R. Sennhauser, editors, 1966-1968, where
these buildings are dealt with in alphabetical order.

[256]

Beumann and Grossmann, 1949, 17-56; Groszmann, 1962, 344-70.

[257]

Blondel, 1957, 291.

[258]

St.-Riquier, to mention just one example, where the eastern apse
contained the altars of St. Peter and St. Richarius; the westwork was
added as a sanctuary for the Saviour. See Effman, 1912, 39ff.

[259]

On the relative numbers of monks and serfs see below, pp. 342ff.