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

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

209

[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

210

[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.

211

[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.]

212

[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).

[278]

On the plurality of altars and the increasing strength of the cult of
the saints in the Franco-Carolingian era, see Braun, I, 1924, 368ff;
and Bandmann, 1962, 371-411.

[279]

Braun, I, 372-73.

[280]

Ibid., 376; and Father Iso Müller, in Studien, 1962, 129ff.

[281]

Hariulf gives us a vivid description of such processions as they were
held in his days in the monastery of Centula. After leaving their seats
in the choir, the monks moved in solemn procession through the crossing
into the nave, to the altars of St. Stephen and St. Lawrence, which were
built against the western crossing piers. There they parted into two
separate choirs moving on opposite sides of the church in spiral formation,
first to the altars in the two transept arms (St. Maurice and St.
Quentin), then to the altars near the eastern crossing piers (St. Stephen
and St. Lawrence), and finally, to the altar of the Saviour in the center
of the nave, where they formed themselves again into a single procession
and exited into the cloister. Other processions took the community of
monks to the altars of the westwork and of the atrium, and into the
churches of St. Mary and St. Benedict. On all the regular days the
services were held before the high altar (St. Richarius), but on the feasts
of the other saints they were celebrated at the altars in which their relics
were placed, or "if there were several churches . . . in the churches
which are consecrated to their veneration." Hariulf, "De circuitu orationum,"
Chronique de l'abbaye de St.-Riquier, ed. Lot, 1894, 305-306.