III.3.5
LATER PRACTICES
Separate quarters for the Abbot became a standard practice
in the monastic building tradition following the second
synod of Aachen. But during the Cluniac reform of the
eleventh century this privilege was revoked. The Customs
of Udalric written about 1085, tell us that "the abbot's bed
stood in the middle of the dormitory next to the wall" and
that it was the abbot himself who struck the bell to arouse
the brothers for the divine service.[333]
In the early Cistercian
monasteries likewise the abbot was at first required to sleep
in the monk's dormitory, but later on, in the thirteenth
century, he was again installed in a house of his own.[334]
In
Carolingian times, I am inclined to think this was the rule
rather than the exception; and the Plan of St. Gall must
have been a primary force in solidifying that custom. It
certainly left its imprint on the monastery for which it was
drawn. Gozbert (816-836), during the last six years of his
abbacy, was too intensely preoccupied with the completion
of his new church to allow himself to get involved in the
construction of a new residence. This project was undertaken
by his second successor Grimald, abbot of St. Gall
from 841-872 (and for much of that time also chancellor
at the court of Louis the German), who built himself an
aula worthy of his high political standing. Two wall
inscriptions of the new building, recorded in Cod. 397 of
St. Gall[335]
describe it as follows:
Aula palatinis perfecta est ista magistris,
Insula pictores transmiserat Augia clara.
This hall was built by masters of the palace, while
the island of Reichenau furnished its famous
painters.
A second inscription praised the splendid marble columns
of the abbot's residence and stated that it was built by
Grimaldus during the reign of Louis the Pious:
Splendida marmoreis ornata est aula columnis,
Quam Grimoldus ovans firmo fundamine struxit,
Ornavit, coluit Hludewici principis almi
Temporibus multos laetus feliciter annos.
Here is the glamorous palace, with columns of marble
augmented,
which Grimold with pious intention on solid foundation
erected,
With art ornamented and cherished, in days of Prince
Louis the Pious.
Long years thereafter he proudly oversaw the care of its
fabric.[336]
Abbot Grimald's aula stood to the north of the abbey
church—like the Abbot's House on the Plan of St. Gall,
but a little further east than the latter. In 1414 it was gutted
by fire, and subsequently rebuilt internally and re-roofed.
In this form it is portrayed on the bird's-eye-view of the
City of St. Gall, in 1596 (fig. 507), and all subsequent views
of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
[338]
