University of Virginia Library

IV

THE MONASTIC POLITY

INTRODUCTION

FOLLOWING the example of St. Anthony (251/2-ca. 356), the earliest monks established themselves in the
Egyptian desert, living in eremitic isolation, entirely free from the fetters of any form of communal life.[1] Even when
hermits lived in groups, they lived out of earshot of one another and assembled only on Saturdays and Sundays for
divine services. Their practice of abstinence and self-mortification reduced the problem of securing nourishment to
negligible proportions.

Conditions changed when St. Pachomius (292-346) introduced in southern Egypt a new concept of monastic
withdrawal, in which large groups of monks banded together to live and worship in common, within the stable
enclosure of a fixed architectural settlement. Survival, worship, and conduct under such conditions had to be
based on rules and order; and St. Pachomius, the founder of this type of cenobitic monachism, spent the better part
of his life organizing and directing his order, which at his death included nine monasteries with some three thousand
monks, and a nunnery. Each monastery consisted of a number of separate houses, accommodating thirty to forty
monks, segregated accorded to trades—fullers in one, shoemakers in another, carpenters in still another, and so on—
and each house had its own praepositus, its own cellarer as well as a variety of other administrative officers.[2] Most of
the religious services were performed in these individual houses; only the more important ones took place in the
common church.

Although the order as a whole had a remarkably centralized structure with a superior general, a common chapter,
and a system of periodic visitations, the spirit within each monastery was surprisingly individualistic. Each monk
was permitted to pit himself against the others in order to obtain a record in ascetic exercises such as reducing his
measure of sleep and nourishment to the narrowest possible limit, and submitting to the harshest austerities. St. Basil
(ca. 330-379), who had occasion to become familiar with the Pachomian system while journeying in Egypt, set

himself against these excesses of bodily austerity and perfected the coenobitic form of monastic life by declaring
its theoretical supremacy over the eremitical form or the Pachomian syncretism.

When monachism spread through the crumbling Roman empire, the West adopted both the eremitical form of
life that had been practiced by St. Anthony, and the cenobitic form established in Egypt by St. Pachomius, and in
Asia Minor by St. Basil (ca. 330-379). It developed, in addition, a variety of hybrid forms—as in the famous island
settlement of Lerins in Gaul, where the senior monks lived in separate cells in the more isolated spots of the island,
joining the others for the celebration of the divine services or to receive instruction from the abbot. In their isolated
retreats they still followed the Egyptian ideal of asceticism by fasting for prolonged periods and inflicting upon
themselves those extreme forms of chastisement leading to ecstasy and devotional hallucination.

St. Benedict of Nursia (ca. 480-ca. 547) began his monastic career by practicing these extreme forms of the
prevailing type of monachism. For three years he lived in a cave without conversing with men, receiving his food on
a rope, which the monk Romanus let down from the high rock that overhung his cave. From St. Gregory's dialogue
we learn that he wore animal skins, that he came near to starvation, on at least one occasion, and that on others he
overcame temptation by rolling himself naked in the thicket of briars and nettles.[3]

But in the maturity of his later life St. Benedict turned his back on these austerities and wrote a Rule for monastic
life that formed such a complete departure from the prevailing types of monachism that it has been termed a revolution
rather than a development from the earlier forms. The decisive features of this new concept are a deliberate
rejection of the individualistic rivalry in ascetic achievement, which had been the keynote of Egyptian monachism,
and the complete submersion of the individual in the community. While the life which St. Benedict prescribes may
seem austere if viewed in a present day perspective, it was nothing of the sort when seen in the light of his own time.

Whereas Egyptian monachism prohibited the consumption of wine and flesh and demanded that even the permissible
types of food be reduced to the lowest limits required for survival, St. Benedict allowed a hemina of wine and
a pound of bread per day, and prescribed in addition two dishes of cooked food and a third of fruit and young
vegetables.[4] He permits the meat of quadrupeds to be fed to the sick and convalescent,[5] and is so vague about the
consumption of fowl that later generations had no scruples in allowing it during the weeks of the great religious
festivals.[6] Whereas in Egyptian monachism cleanliness was thought to be a sign of worldly corruption or sensuous
self-indulgence, St. Benedict permits the bath to both the healthy and the sick.[7] Although certain Egyptian abbots
could rule that the monks' clothes should be such that if they were left on the road, no one would think of taking
them,[8] St. Benedict orders the abbot to see to it "that the monks' clothes fit them, that they are to get new clothes
while the old ones are still fit to be given to the poor, that they are to have warmer clothes in the winter, lighter in the
summer; that they are to change their clothes for the night, and that they are to be washed."[9] While in Egypt it was
held that sleep should be battled by eternal vigilance and that the monks should lie on bare ground with stones
for pillows, St. Benedict not only allowed his monks a normal and healthy ratio of sleep, but besides, also assigned to
each a blanket, a coverlet, a mattress, and a pillow.[10]

The keynote of all of this is moderation, and it is in the general cultural acceptability of this very concept of
moderation that we must recognize one of the primary reasons for the eventual universal success of Benedictine
monachism.

The second decisively new and creative element of Benedictine monachism pertains to the relation of the
individual to the community. Egyptian asceticism had a clearly asocial tinge, which remained a dominant trend even
where monks banded together, as in the monasteries of St. Pachomius. St. Benedict, adopting a monastic philosophy
that had been developed and propagated in Asia Minor by St. Basil the Great (ca. 330-379), abolished this
individualism altogether. His Rule frowns on any special form of penitential practice that would have pitted one
monk against another in rivalry. He established instead one common mode of life for all, to which the abbot was
held no less than the monks, and in which all segments of the community were bound to each other for life in a daily

round of objective duties, consisting of public common prayer, manual work, and reading. It is in this orderly
integration of the individual into the monastery as a corporate body that we must recognize a second primary reason
for the acceptance of Benedictine monachism by both the ecclesiastical and the secular hierarchies.

A third one is to be found in the soundness of the monastery's economic organization. Since the better part of the
monk's day was taken up by services rendered to God,[11] the bulk of the basic industrial and agricultural chores on
which the community depended for its physical sustenance had to be taken on by others. This brought into the orbit
of the monastery, both within and without the monastic enclosure, a host of servants, serfs, and tenants, very much
of the kind one would find about the manors of secular dignitaries. The Benedictine monastery in this way acquired
the character of a landed estate, which differed from those of the secular lords solely by the fact that it had embedded
in it a house of religious devotion and a school for religious learning.

The successful management of this complex cultural organism depended on the existence of a well-trained staff
of monastic administrators. The responsibilities of these men are defined in the Rule of St. Benedict, to the extent
to which their offices existed in his days. Later developments are reflected in a brief about monastic officials written
around 834-836 in the monastery of Bobbio by Abbot Wala,[12] brother of Abbot Adalhard of Corbie and the latter's
successor at Corbie (823-833). A good deal of additional information can be gleaned from the Administrative
Directives of Abbot Adalhard.[13] Complete translations by Charles W. Jones of these two important sources are
given in Volume III, Appendix II.

There is no need to stress the fact that the review of monastic administrative organization offered in this chapter
must by necessity remain abstract. There were many local variations in the number of existing positions, and in their
titles. For a more detailed account of these one must turn to local sources such as the chronicles of St. Gall by Ratpert
and Ekkehart IV, and to the unusually rich documentary legacy of this monastery, published by Wartmann.[14] All
of these abound with references not only to the various administrative departments (called ministeria or officia) but
also to the names and titles of their individual holders (officiales).

[ILLUSTRATION]

[ILLUSTRATION]

[ILLUSTRATION]

MAJUSCULE LETTERS. OXFORD, BODLEIAN LIBRARY, HATTON 48, FOLS. 58R, 11V, 51V [shown same size as originals].
These letters (and passages reproduced below, pp. 330-45) are from the oldest extant copy of the Rule of St. Benedict, written in England
around A.D. 700. The text is rendered in SCRIPTURA CONTINUA (i.e., without word spaces) in uncial letters of massive dignity, the opening
of each chapter enhanced by handsome rubricated capitals. Ornamented initials are a distinctive trait of 7th- and 8th-century Hiberno-Saxon
schools of illumination. Often initials extend over an entire page, suppressed beyond legibility in waves of the most exuberant, yet always
carefully constructed interlace (cf. figs. 178-85, fig. 245).

Through such manuscripts the Rule of St. Benedict was transmitted to the new barbarian nations of the north. On them is founded the entire
history of medieval monasticism. They played a crucial role in deliberations of two reform synods of Aachen, from which the Plan of St. Gall
emerged.

D. H. Farmer (The Rule of St. Benedict, Oxford, Bodleian Library, Hatton 48, Copenhagen 1968) believes Hatton 48 is the English
copy of a manuscript of the Rule brought to England by St. Winifred, who died in 709.

[ILLUSTRATION]

II QUALIS DEBEAT ABBAS ESSE

1 Abbas, qui praeesse dignus est monasterio, semper meminere
debet, quod dicitur, et nomen maioris factis implere.

2 Christi enim agere uices in monasterio creditur, quando ipsius
uocatur pronomine

WHAT KIND OF MAN THE ABBOT SHOULD BE

An Abbot who is worthy to rule a monastery should always
remember what he is called and realize in his actions the name
of a superior. For he is believed to be the representative of Christ
in the monastery, and for that reason is called by a name of his

IV. 1

THE MONASTIC OFFICIALS

IV.1.1

THE ABBOT (ABBAS)

AUTHORITY AND OBLIGATION

The head of the monastic community is the abbot. His
qualifications and duties are set forth in chapters 2, 3, 27,
and 64 of the Rule of St. Benedict—so fully and incisively
as to have resisted all later attempts for revision and
amplification.

"The abbot is believed to be the representative of Christ
in the monastery," Benedict declares,[15] and for that reason
called abba, i.e., father—an epithet derived from Abba,
Pater, addressed to Jesus and by Jesus himself addressed
to the Lord.[16] His authority over the monastery is complete
and unquestioned, extending even to those through whom
it is enforced: "As soon as anything has been ordered by
the superior, let it be received as a divine command and
not suffer any delay in execution . . . for the obedience
which is given to the superior is given to God."[17]

In exercising his authority, if the matter is of general
concern, the abbot must take council with his monks and
hear what each one, including the youngest, thinks;[18] if
the business to be done is of lesser importance, he may act
on the advice of the seniors only,[19] but in either case "the
decision depends entirely on the abbot's judgment, so that
when he has decided what is the better course, all may
obey."[20] In all things the abbot must make disposition with
prudence and justice, "knowing that he will certainly have
to render account of all his judgments to God, the most
high judge."[21] He must neither make any personal distinctions
in the monastery, not love one more than another, nor
put a freeborn monk before one that was a slave, "unless he
find him better in good works and obedience" or "there
be some other just reason," in which case he "may fix
anyone's order as he will." Otherwise, he must keep them
"in their due places,"[22] i.e., the order of seniority established
by the date of joining the community.

In administering correction the abbot must proceed with
due prudence and moderation "lest being too zealous in
removing the rust he break the vessel."[23] "Let him adapt
himself to circumstances, now using severity and now
persuasion, displaying the rigor of a master and the loving
kindness of a father . . . and let him not shut his eyes to the
faults of offenders."[24] As the titular head of the monastery
and its only link with the outside world, the abbot was
empowered "to eat with the guests and pilgrims" and for
that purpose was provided with his own kitchen "so that
the brethren may not be disturbed when guests—who are
never lacking in a monastery—arrive at irregular hours."[25]

ELECTIVITY OF OFFICE

The office of the abbot is elective, but has to be confirmed
by the local bishop, who also has the power of
correction: "Let him who is appointed be chosen for the
merits of his life and his enlightened wisdom, even though
he be the last in order of the community. But if (which God
forbid) the whole community should agree to choose a
person who acquiesces in its vices, and if these somehow
come to the knowledge of the local bishop and neighboring
abbots or Christians, let him foil this conspiracy of the
wicked and set a worthy steward over God's house."[26] In
the kingdom of the Franks there was another power to be
contended with, the secular ruler; the capitularies of Charlemagne
leave no doubt on this score:

A classical case of the use of these powers was the deposition
of Abbot Ratger of Fulda in 817 by Emperor Louis
the Pious.[28]

MANORIAL POWER
AND MILITARY OBLIGATIONS

By the time the Plan of St. Gall was drawn, the abbot
had become lord of a vast and ramified system of manorial
estates which placed him economically and socially on a
par with many of the leading secular lords of the empire.
It was as landowner and as landlord of tenants and vassals
that the abbot became subject to military assessments.

At the time of St. Benedict it would have been unthinkable
that the abbot participate in any military activities.
But in the kingdom of the Franks the monasteries were held
to contribute their share of the country's defense and although
numerous public laws forbade that the abbots
should personally ride into battle,[29] the emperors did not
hesitate to order them to the rallies that preceded military
campaigns with their armed and mounted vassals, and to
specify the number of wagons and the volume of other
military gear and provisions, to be taken along on these
journeys.[30]

IV.1.2

THE PROVOST OR PRIOR
(PRAEPOSITUS)

Highest in rank after the abbot was the provost. St.
Benedict recommended his appointment "if the circumstances
of the place required it," but warned that rivalries
and dissensions might arise from the presence of a second
in command, "for there are men puffed up by an evil
spirit of pride who regard themselves as equal to the

[ILLUSTRATION]

LXV. DE PRAEPOSITO MONASTERII

1 Sepius quidem contigit, ut per ordinationem praepositi scandala
grabia in monasteriis oriantur.

65 THE PRIOR OF THE MONASTERY

It frequently happens that the appointment of a prior gives rise
to serious scandals in monasteries.

abbot."[31] The office, nevertheless, became firmly established,
probably because of the growing economic and administrative
complexities of the medieval monastery. Chapter 29
of the resolutions of the first synod of Aachen (816) affirms
the position of the provost as the direct representative of
the abbot.[32] Wala describes his duties as follows:

The provost should be first after the abbot inside and outside the
monastery; but these especially should be in his jurisdiction, to
wit all work in the fields and the vineyards and on the buildings;
and of the potters and the shepherds and of all the cells situated in
this valley, except those which are assigned to the care of other
brothers, or all farms held in fee, horses tamed and untamed, and
he should allocate the quarters in the monastery according to
need.[33]

Under the jurisdiction of the provost were the keeper of
the vineyards (custos vinearum), the master carpenter, and
all other masters who worked in wood and stone (magister
carpentarius et omnes magistri de ligno et lapide).[34]

IV.1.3

THE DEAN
(DECANUS)

The dean was in charge of the spiritual conduct of the
monks and of monastic discipline. Wala informs us that he
took the responsibility for the monastery as a whole, as the
third in command, when the abbot and the prior were
absent.[35] Originally the term decanus was a denotation for
the leader of a group of ten men, both in secular and in
ecclesiastical life. Wala uses the title in the singular form,
clear evidence that by the ninth century the institution of
multiple deanships had made allowance for the emergence
of a senior dean who could act as vicegerent for the abbot
or prior. The division of the community of monks into
groups of ten, each under the spiritual and disciplinary
supervision of a dean, is an old monastic custom attested by
St. Jerome, St. Augustine, Cassian[36] and St. Benedict.
St. Benedict stipulates that they be chosen "not by order
(of seniority) but according to their worthiness of life,
learning and wisdom."[37] He preferred a division of power
among deans to the centralization of authority in the person
of a prior, since "the business being thus shared by
many, no individual will become proud."[38] A late reflection
of this influence can be seen in the rulings of the Council of
Mainz (813), which also favored the sole institution of
deans,[39] but it was revoked by the first synod of Aachen in
816. Until the beginning of the ninth century, however, the
deans had occupied a rank superior to that of the prior in
such monasteries as Fulda, Reichenau, St. Gall, and Weissenburg.[40]

[ILLUSTRATION]

XXI. DE DECANIS MONASTERII

1 Si maior fuerit congregatio, elegantur de ipsis fratres boni
testimonii et sanctae conuersationis et constituantur decani.

21 THE DEANS OF THE MONASTERY

If the community be a large one, let there be chosen out of it
brethren of good repute and observant life, and let them be
appointed deans.

IV.1.4

THE CELLARER
(CELLARARIUS)

The Cellarer was in charge of everything pertaining to the
kitchen or to food after it had reached the monastery (except
for bread and fruit in the case of the monasteries of
Bobbio and Corbie).[41] St. Benedict asks that he be "a man
who is prudent, of mature character, temperate, not a great
eater, not proud, not headstrong, not rough-spoken, not
lazy, not wasteful, but a God-fearing man, who may be like
a father to the whole community. . . . Let him not vex the
brethren. . . . Let him neither practice avarice, nor be
wasteful and a squanderer of the monastery's substance;
but let him do all things with measure and in accordance
with the instructions of the abbot"[42] to whom he had to
render a full and strict account of his expenditure. Adalhard
of Corbie paints a vivid picture of the various duties of the
cellarer in supervising the cooks in the kitchen: he was to
name what brothers were to serve in the kitchen every week,
to see that they did their job to satisfaction and to check
carefully all the utensils they had used at the end of their
service. He also was in charge of the laymen who did the
rough work of cleaning and dressing the food for the
kitchen.[43] In larger monasteries, such as Bobbio and Corbie,
the senior cellarer was assisted by a junior cellarer who
apportioned to each brother his daily measure (hemina) of
wine and looked out for the cleanliness of the Refectory and
its utensils.[44] Still another assistant cellarer, the cellarer of
the servants (cellararius familiae), took care of the monastery's
serfs and servants, under the supervision of the
prior.[45] The keeper of the bread (custos panis) was responsible
for the storage of the grain, after it had arrived in the
monastery, as well as for the bread and the bakers.[46] He had
to reckon in advance how much bread he would use each
day of the year, and like the cellarer, had to give a strict
account of his expenditures.[47]

[ILLUSTRATION]

XXXI. DE CELLARARIO MONASTERII, QUALIS SIT

1 Cellararius monasterii eligatur de congregatione sapiens, maturis
moribus, sobrius, non multum edax, non elatus, non turbulentus,
non inuriosus, non tardus, non prodigus,

2 sed timens deum, qui omni congregationi sit sicut pater.

31 WHAT KIND OF A MAN THE CELLARER
SHOULD BE

As cellarer of the monastery let there be chosen out of the
community a man who is prudent, of mature character, temperate,
not a great eater, not proud, not headstrong, not rough-spoken,
not lazy, not wasteful, but a God-fearing man who may be like
a father to the whole community.

IV.1.5

THE CHAMBERLAIN
(CAMERARIUS)

The chamberlain was responsible for the clothing of the
brothers, their bedding, and all the monastery's tools and
utensils. In certain monasteries, such as Bobbio, this
function was divided between two officers, a senior
chamberlain (camerarius) and the abbot's chamberlain
(camerarius abbatis).[48] Wala defines their duties as follows:

On the Plan of St. Gall all these crafts, except those of
the wheelwrights and coopers, were performed in one
workshop (Great Collective Workshop).[49] At the monastery
of Corbie, and probably many others, the chamberlain was
the superior of the keeper of the clothes (vestiarius) as well
as the gardener (ortolanus).[50]

IV.1.6

THE PORTER[51]
(OSTIARIUS)

The porter was in charge of food and shelter for visitors.
He received the monastery's guests, announced them to the
abbot, if worthy of attention, and assigned them to the
appropriate quarters. In order to be able to perform this
task he drew one-tenth of all the monastery's revenue.[52] He
was the superior of the master of the Hospice for Pilgrims
and Paupers (procurator pauperum) and furnished the latter
with all the supplies required for his service. The master
of the Hospice for Pilgrims and Paupers also took care of
the sick who came to the monastery, and distributed to the
indigents a fifth of all of the revenues in money that came
into the porter's hands.[53]

IV.1.7

THE WARDEN OF THE SICK
(CUSTOS INFIRMORUM)

Wala describes the warden of the sick succinctly, as the
official "who should look after the sick and his helpers."[54]
It is noteworthy that neither the Rule of St. Benedict nor
later monastic consuetudinaries refer to a physician's being
a member of the regular monastic hierarchy of officials.[55]

IV.1.8

THE MASTER OF THE NOVICES
(MAGISTER PULSANTIUM)

He is not mentioned in Wala's brief, but his office is implied
in chapter 58 of the Rule of St. Benedict,[56] and a special
room was assigned to him in the Novitiate of the Plan of
St. Gall.[57]

IV.1.9

THE SACRISTAN
(CUSTOS ECCLESIAE)

The supervision of the services that were celebrated at the
altar, as opposed to the choral phase of the opus dei, was
the responsibility of the sacristan. Abbot Wala refers to
him simply as "keeper of the church (custos ecclesiae) and
lists among his responsibilities the "care of the lamps of
the church and its every ornament, and the regulation of
the hours" (competentia horarum), i.e., the important task
of assuring the correct maintenance of the prescribed
liturgical timetable. He also "receives the alms that come
to the brothers."[58] Later consuetudinaries inform us that
his manifold duties included maintaining the cleanliness of
the chalices and cruets for wine and water, preparing the
host, ringing the bells or instructing others to do so, distributing
candles throughout the household offices, and
taking charge of burials, both lay and religious.[59]

IV.1.10

THE CHOIRMASTER
(CANTOR)

"The choirmaster," Abbot Wala states, "should regulate
whatever pertains to the chant."[60] He is assisted in this
task by others specially trained in chant, the praecentor, the
succentor and the concentor.[61] Since the service books used
in the chant and other phases of the divine service formed
the nucleus of every monastic library the choirmaster, in
early times served often as librarian.[62] Under the impetus
of the Carolingian revival of learning, this latter function
was transferred to a special official, the librarian.[63]

IV.1.11

THE LIBRARIAN
(BIBLIOTHECARIUS OR ARMARIUS)

"The Librarian is to have care of all books, readings, and
writings."[64] He is in charge of both the library and the
scriptorium. He receives his orders directly from the abbot,
distributes the workload, provides the scribes with all the
requisites needed for their work (desks, parchment, ink,
pens, penknives, pumice stone for smoothing the parchment,
awls and rulers for making guidelines, reading frames to
hold the original being copied)[65] and sees to it that no one,
during the hours of work, leaves the scriptorium without
permission.[66]

[ILLUSTRATION]

XXXII. DE FERRAMENTIS UEL REBUS MONASTERII

1 Substantia monasterii in ferramentis uel uestibus seu quibuslibet
rebus praeuideat abbas fratres, de quorum uita et moribus
securus sit,

2 et eis singula, ut iudicauerit utile, consignet custodienda atque
recolligenda.

32 THE TOOLS AND PROPERTY OF THE
MONASTERY

For the care of the monastery's property in tools, clothing, and
all other articles, let the abbot appoint brethren on whose life
and character he can rely: and let him, as he shall judge fit,
commit the various articles to them, to be looked after and to
be collected again.

IV.1.12

THE KEEPER OF THE CHARTERS
(CUSTOS CARTARUM)

As the monastery grew from the relatively simple economic
organization of the time of St. Benedict into the complex
manorial enterprise of the Middle Ages, there arose a need
for a genre of scribes distinct from those who devoted their
time to copying books—the writers of charters.[67] This
activity was placed into the hands of a new official, The
Keeper of the Charters who, Wala tells us, "should take
care of all the monastery's records."[68]

Besides all these major officials there were a number of
minor functionaries. There were junior deans (decani
iuniores) to whom the senior dean could delegate any particular
function of his office of maintaining monastic discipline.[69]
The masters of the children (magistri infantum)
were the constant companions of the youngsters, as is made
abundantly clear by Hildemar in his commentary on the
Rule of St. Benedict.[70] The roundsmen (circatores), mentioned
by both Wala and Adalhard,[71] consist of an indefinite
number of seniors charged with supervision in the
cloister and dormitory. Hildemar stresses that these seniors
must be "highly qualified" (valde boni) because "it is
through men of this type that the orderly conduct of
monastic life is maintained" (quia per istos ordo monachorum
consistit). They have "the power," should the need arise,
"to correct the deans, the provosts, and even the abbot"
(potestatem debent habere corrigendi decanos et praepositos,
etiam abbatem).[72] The synod of 816 stipulates that their
custody over the monks extends to work performed both
within and without the monastic enclosure.[73] Wala's brief
also makes mention of a caretaker of the lamps (lucernarius)
and a keeper of the orchard (custos pomorum).[74]

Thus, in a monastery of the time of Louis the Pious,
some twenty to thirty monks were engaged in important
administrative functions, and since each of these officials
had, in addition, an indefinite number of assistants, it was
possible for about half of the entire community, as Dom
Knowles has pointed out, to have been engaged in one way
or another in administrative responsibilities.[75]

IV. 2

THE MONKS

IV.2.1

ELIGIBILITY & SOCIAL BACKGROUND

Although the Rule of St. Benedict granted admission in
principle to men of all walks of life, all classes, types and
ages,[76] in the early days of monasticism most of the monks
appear to have come from lower-middle-class families.[77] At
the time of Charlemagne and Louis the Pious, by contrast,
the monks were drawn almost exclusively from the ranks
of the freemen and the nobility. This held true in a special
sense for the royal foundations. In some of these, such as
the Abbey of St.-Riquier (Centula), the Frankish nobility
was so widely represented that the eleventh century
chronicler Hariulf could exclaim that "every higher
dignitary, wherever located in the kingdom of the Franks,
boasted of having a relative in this abbey . . . for in this
monastery were educated dukes, the sons of dukes and even
the sons of kings."[78]

The passage must be taken with some caution as it refers
more specifically to men who received their education in
the monastery of St. Riquier than to regular and permanent
monks of this abbey; but a remark of another chronicler,
of the same period, likewise coined with regard to a royal
abbey, is unequivocal in its reference to monks of regular
standing: "For although St. Gall has never had a monk
who was not of free birth," writes Ekkehart IV in his
account of the death of Wolo, a noble monk of unruly
temper, "those of more noble rank erred more often."[79]
The pride with which these statements were made suggests
that they reflect the special conditions found in royal abbeys
rather than a principle universally practiced in the recruiting
of monks. Yet that the social composition of
recruits both for monastery and church was not a matter
of fleeting concern to the empire, may be gathered from
such crucial imperial ordinances as the famous Admonitio
generalis, issued in 789, where these institutions are
directed to attach to themselves as future monks and clergy
"not only infants from servile classes, but also the sons of
freemen" (non solum servilis conditionis infantes, sed etiam
ingenuorum filios adgregent sibique socient).[80]

IV.2.2

NOVICES AND OBLATES

An adult who sought admission (pulsans, i.e., one who
knocks) was first put up in the guest house, after having
knocked at the monastery door repeatedly and having been
rejected repeatedly for four or five days. If he still insisted,
he was admitted to the Novitiate. There he was initiated
into the Rule by a supervising senior. After six months of
intensive training, he was given an opportunity to depart.
If, after a year had passed, he still decided to stay (being
by this time fully aware of the severity of his prospective
life) he was, upon written petition, formally received at
the high altar. There he solemnly relinquished all his
private property and was stripped of his worldly clothing,
prostrated himself before the entire congregation, monk
by monk, received his tonsure, and thereafter was "no
longer free to leave the monastery, or to withdraw his neck
from under the yoke of the Rule."[81] The rank and order of
the brothers within the monastery was established "according
to the time of their entry," except for those "whom
the abbot has by special decision promoted or for definite
reasons degraded."[82]

Children (oblati, i.e., those who are offered) were presented
by their parents to the monastery for acceptance, by
formal petition. If from rich families, the children had to
entirely relinquish their right to inheritance, but the
parents might deed this to the monastery.[83] This practice of
deeding inheritance rights to the monastery, in time abused
by greedy abbots,[84] was criticized in 794, 811, and 813, and
was finally revoked, in full departure from St. Benedict's
Rule, during the synod of 816.[85] The new ordinance may have
had a frustrating effect upon the economic and monetary
exploitation of the system of monastic oblation but it could
hardly eradicate the deeper evils inherent in oblation itself,
which bound men to celibacy and monastic isolation through
paternal decree instead of their own choosing. Yet it cannot
be denied that some of the greatest medieval minds
emerged from this system, such men as the Venerable Bede

[ILLUSTRATION]

XLIII. DE HIS QUI AD OPUS DEI UEL AD MENSAM
TARDE OCCURUNT

1 Ad horam diuni officii mox auditus fuerit signus, relictis omnibus,
quaelibet fuerint in manibus, summa cum festinabone curratur,

2 cum grauitate tamen, ut non scurilitas inueniat fomitem.

3 Ergo nihil operi dei praeponatur.

43 OF THOSE WHO COME LATE TO THE WORK
OF GOD OR TO TABLE

As soon as the signal for the Divine Office has been heard, let
them abandon what they have in hand and assemble with the greatest
speed, yet soberly, so that no occasion be given for levity. Let
nothing, therefore, be put before the work of God.

(672/73-735),[86] St. Willibrord, the "apostle of the Frisians"
(c. 657-738)[87] and Hrabanus Maurus (c. 776-856).[88] Another
outstanding Carolingian oblate was a man of major
concern to this study, Bishop Haito of Basel, the presumptive
maker of the Plan of St. Gall. He entered the
monastery of Reichenau at the age of five, became a teacher
in the school where he himself had been taught, rose to the
rank of bishop in 803, became abbot in 806, and subsequently,
one of the most illustrious councillors at the
court of Charlemagne.[89]

Boys who were raised in the Novitiate were kept under
strict discipline at all times by everyone, especially by their
masters.[90] Hildemar, in his commentary on the Rule,
prescribes that three or four supervising seniors be assigned
to each group of ten young boys, and that these supervisors
see to it that none of their young charges is ever left untended,
not even in his most private moments; and under
no circumstances is he ever to be alone with another boy.[91]

Priests and clerics formed a third category of eligible candidates.
St. Benedict warns that permission for them to
enter not be granted too readily, and only on condition that
they are willing to observe the full discipline of the Rule.[92]
The second synod of Aachen (817) reaffirmed this rule.[93]

IV.2.3

DAILY ROUTINE

The monks' daily life was divided to allow some four hours
for common liturgical prayer and chant (opus dei), some
four additional hours for meditative reading or private
prayer (lectio divina), and another four to six hours for
manual occupations (opus manuum).[94]

OPUS DEI

The noblest of the liturgical occupations was the Work of
God, "over which nothing must take precedence" (Ergo
nihil operi Dei praeponatur).[95] This began at two o'clock
in the morning, when, after seven hours' sleep, the brothers
rose from their beds to celebrate what to St. Benedict was
known as the Nocturne (to later monasticism as Matins).
In the course of the day that followed they attended seven
additional services: Lauds (called by St. Benedict Matutinas),
held at the break of dawn; four shorter ones—Prime,
Terce, Sext, and None[96] —held at the first, third, sixth,
and ninth hours of the day; Vespers at sunset; and, on
the advent of darkness a last one, Compline.

Generally, these services began with an invitatory and a
hymn, followed by three to six psalms or canticles, three to
four readings from the Gospel, a responsory, and on
Sundays and feast days, a mass.

The central and longest phase of these services was the
chanting of the psalms. St. Benedict devoted no less than
nine chapters of his Rule to the order and manner in which
they were to be sung throughout the year.[97] He makes allowance
for changes, provided "that the psalter with its full
hundred and fifty psalms be chanted every week and begun
afresh every Sunday at Matins."[98] He makes clear on
which occasion the psalter should be sung "straight
through" (in directum) and on which occasion "with
antiphons" (cum antiphonis).[99] The structure of the Hebrew
psalms renders it probable that the division of the religious
congregation into choirs singing separate parts in alternation
may have originated in the ancient Jewish Church. In
the Eastern Church antiphonal song was introduced by
Ignatius Bishop of Antioch (d. 115). In the West it was not
practiced prior to St. Ambrose (d. 379). Firmly established
in the ecclesiastical liturgy by Pope Gregory the Great
(d. 604), by the ninth century antiphonal singing had
developed into an elaborate sequence of responses which
soloists sang in alternation with various other groups of
singers under the guidance of a conductor. The performance
of this art was held in such high esteem that on the
days of the great feasts, visiting bishops did not hesitate to
join the rows of chanting monks to sing under the direction
of their former teachers.[100] The supervision of this important
phase of the divine service was sometimes the
office of the cantor, at other times that of the master of the
library and scriptorium (armarius).[101] In his commentary on
chapter 8 of the Rule of St. Benedict, Hildemar lists those
who perform specific functions in the chanting of the psalms:
the cantor, the praecentor, the succentor, and the concentor.
The cantor is a soloist "who modulates his voice" (vocem
modelatur in cantu), the praecentor "opens the song"
(vocem praemittit in cantu), the succentor "responds"
(subsequenter canendo respondet), and the concentor is the
one who "harmonizes" (consonat).[102] The very existence
of these names is evidence of the extent to which the various
phases of the antiphonal chant had around 845 already been
delegated to specialists.

LECTIO DIVINA

The Rule allows for a long period of meditative reading and
prayer, that is, for the furthering of the spiritual well-being
of the individual rather than for the promotion of his intellectual
powers. It involved the reading of the scriptures,
early monastic literature, and the writings of the Church
Fathers. Monks with superior intellectual capacities could
devote this time to the copying of manuscripts and to their
own creative writing. Chapter 48 of the Rule states that
"one or two senior monks should be deputed to go round
the monastery at the times when the brethren are occupied
in reading, to see that there be no slothful brother who
spends his time in idleness or gossip and neglects the reading."[103]
The same chapter recommends that some kind of
manual labor be given to those who cannot read.

When Abbot Ratger of Fulda, in the heat of an ambitious
building program that fatigued the monks beyond endurance,
shortened the time for the lectio divina, the brothers
made this the subject of a complaint to Emperor Charlemagne.[104]
Initially rejected, eventually they secured the
dismissal of their abbot.[105]

[ILLUSTRATION]

XIX. DE DISCIPLINA PSALLENDI

1 Ubique credimus diuinam esse praesentiam et OCULOS
DOMINI IN OMNI LOCO SPECULARI BONOS ET MALOS;

2 maxime tamen hoc sine alîqua dubitatîone credamus, cum ad
opus diuinum adsistimus.

19 THE MANNER OF SAYING THE DIVINE
OFFICE

We believe that God is present everywhere and that THE
EYES OF THE LORD IN EVERY PLACE BEHOLD THE GOOD
AND THE EVIL; but let us especially believe this without any
doubting when we are performing the Divine Office.

OPUS MANUUM

Chapters 41[106] and 48[107] of the Rule speak clearly of monks
working in the fields. But the fact that the first synod of
Aachen found it necessary to admonish the brothers not to
murmur, "if the necessity arises to help in gathering the
harvest or in other chores of this kind,"[108] implies that to
many, labor in the fields had become a task quite out of the
ordinary. The brothers' opus manuum, in fact was not
primarily work of this nature. Most of the regular and
heavy agricultural work was performed by serfs or coloni,
and the monks' manual labor was generally restricted to
tasks that could be performed within the cloisters or the
buildings directly connected with them: cooking, baking,
serving meals, sweeping the claustral buildings, and washing
and mending clothes. Those skilled in the arts and crafts
could spend the time allotted for manual labor in the nobler
pursuits of carving ivories, painting frescoes, illuminating
books, or making sacred vessels and ornaments.

It is likely that in addition to his regular chores, every
healthy monk, for part of his lifetime at least, participated
in the work of building and repairing the buildings in which
he worshiped and lived. At Fulda the number of hours
allocated to construction was so exorbitant that, as just
mentioned, the monks turned to the Emperor for redress.
They complained that the time given to building interfered
with their ancient rights to work "in the bakehouse,
the garden, the brewhouse, the kitchen, and the fields."[109]
The synod of 816 reaffirmed these rights, and prescribed
in addition that the monks wash their own clothes.[110]

IV. 3

LAYMEN

IV.3.1

THE MONASTERY'S INDUSTRIAL
& AGRICULTURAL FORCE OF LABOR

The bulk of the labor for the monastery's industrial and
agricultural domain was done by laymen. The Plan of St.
Gall refers to these people as famuli,[111] famulantes,[112] servitores,[113]
custodes,[114] custodientes,[115] and uernae;[116] or by the craft
they performed, as shoemakers (sutores), saddlers (sellarii),
trenchermakers and furbishers (emundatores uel politores
gladiorum) shieldmakers (scutarii), turners (tornatores),
tanners (coriarii), goldsmiths (aurifices), blacksmiths (fabri
ferramentorum), fullers (fullones),[117] coopers (tunnariores) and
wheelwrights (ternarii),[118] or named by livestock for which they
cared, as ostlers (equos seruantes, custodes equaritiae), oxherds
(bubulci),[119] cowherds (armentarii), swineherds (porcarii),
shepherds (opilji), goatherds (pastores),[120] and fowlkeepers
(pullorum custodes, aucarum custodes).[121] The collective name
for this monastic family of laymen was familia. Those who
lived within the monastery were called familia intus; those
who lived on the outlying estates familia foris.[122]

FAMILIA INTUS

Depending on the terms of their registration, the "inner"
monastic family was divided into "prebendaries" (praebendarii
or prouendarii) and "odd-jobbers" (matricularii).

The term "prebendary" was in its narrow sense applied
to adult oblates who received their daily sustenance from the
monastery in return for the performance of a craft or service.
In the broader sense the term was applied to anyone
sustained for life by the community, including priests,
clerics, and other pensioners. Some of the prebendaries relinquished
all personal property upon entering the monastery;
others renounced ownership but retained the income;
still others kept both income and ownership.[123]

The prebendaries of the inner family were always unmarried.

The odd-jobbers were selected from among the poor
entered on the matricula or "poor list" of the monastery.[124]
The 150 prebendaries listed by Abbot Adalhard include
twelve referred to by the term matricularii.[125] They appear
to have been entrusted with such duties as ringing bells and
general housekeeping in the guest-houses.[126]

FAMILIA FORIS

The position of the seculars who formed the monastery's
"outer family" was preferable in many respects to those of
the domestics who lived within the monastic enceinte,
since they could marry, raise children, and work the land
assigned to them with the help of their entire family, in
exchange for the payment of a tribute (tributum) or the
rendering of a service (servitium). Depending on the degree
of servitude or freedom they enjoyed, they were classified
as liberi, coloni, lides, and servi. The homo liber, "free man,"
had the right to go wherever he wanted, and was not claimed
by any master. The colonus enjoyed freedom as a person,
but was inseparable from the land he cultivated. The lidus
was dependent both on the lord and the land, and thus held
a position midway between the colonus and the servus. The
serf had no freedom whatsoever and could be sold, given
away, or traded with the land on which he lived.[127]

From these seculars who lived in villages (villae) under
the supervision of a mayor (maior or villicus) or rural junior
deans (decani iuniores),[128] the monastery recruited its rural
personnel of foremen and artisans, the keepers of the rural
food stores (cellerarii, not to be confused with the monastic
official of this name), the foresters (forestarii), the keepers
of the livestock (pastores) and their master (magister gregum),
the millers (mulinarii), as well as an indefinite number of
craftsmen.[129] A more fundamental view of the operation of
these villages, their population and the services they
rendered to the monastery, can be gleaned from the
Administrative Directives of Abbot Adalahard of Corbie[130]
and the Constitution of Abbot Ansegis of St. Wandrille.[131]

The Plan of St. Gall does not reflect much of the life of
this outer family, except for the presence within the monastic
enclosure of buildings that serve as storage spaces for the
harvest and for the staples produced by the labor of these
people (Granary, Cellar, and Larder) and the presence of a
house in which the men were put up who brought this produce
from places too distant to return to within the same day
(House for Servants of Outlying Estates).[132]

IV. 4

NUMBER OF MONKS AND SERFS

IV.4.1

MONKS (RELIGIOSI)

The first cenobitic monastery, founded around 320 by St.
Pachomius in Tabennisi near Dendera in the Upper Nile
Valley, had at one point in its history between 1,200 and
1,600 monks.[133] Benedictine monasticism reduced these figures
to more manageable proportions. Although the Abbey
of Jumièges, in the seventh century is said to have had as
many as 900 monks,[134] the largest Carolingian monasteries
north of the Alps rarely exceeded a count of 300 monks.
The average number of monks of a transalpine monastery
in the ninth century appears to have ranged between 100
and 150. The following is a list of the approximate number
of monks in certain Carolingian monasteries, based primarily
on the studies of Dom Ursmer Berlière.[135]

The monastery on the Plan of St. Gall can house approximately
110 monks. I arrive at this figure through a count
of the beds that are actually shown on the Plan, adding to
this the number that might be installed in the bedrooms of
houses where they have not been designated. The Dormitory
of the Monks is equipped with seventy-seven beds,[136]
the dormitory in the Abbot's House with eight.[137] There are
five beds in the Porter's Lodging,[138] two in the lodging of the
master of the Outer School.[139] To this must be added an
estimated minimum of twelve beds in the dormitory of the
Novitiate[140] and an estimated three beds in the apartment of
the master of the Hospice for Pilgrims and Paupers. It is
not quite clear from the Plan where the chamberlain slept.[141]
If the gardener was a monk (as he appears to have been),[142]
he would probably also have had with him one or two assistants.
There were at least two physicians, who may also
have been monks.[143] This brings the total of the religiosi to
the estimated 110 monks.

Because of the paradigmatic character of the Plan, these
figures must be looked upon as a reflection of what the assembled
bishops and abbots, in 816 and 817 at the time of
Louis the Pious, considered to be the ideal number of monks
in a monastery. There is no doubt in my mind that the architect
who developed the scheme of the Plan based his work
upon a clearly formulated population plan, as I have demonstrated
earlier,[144] and that he implemented this plan as he
established the dimensions of the individual buildings.

IV.4.2

WORKMEN, SERFS, AND SERVANTS
(FAMILIA)

Judging from the number of bunks that could have been
installed in the bedrooms of the workhouses, stables, mill,
and mortar, etc., the total number of workmen, serfs, and
servants must have ranged between 130 and 150. The estimate
runs as follows: gardener's crew, 6; fowlkeepers and
their crew, 6. Workmen and artisans: 4 shoemakers, 4 saddlers,
3 trenchermakers, 3 shieldmakers, 4 turners, 4 curriers,
2 goldsmiths, 2 blacksmiths, 2 fullers, 5 coopers, 5
wheelwrights. Servants: in the abbot's kitchen and bathhouse,
6; in the Bake and Brew House of the Monks, 8; in
the Mill, 4; in the Mortarhouse, 4; in the Drying Kiln, 4;
horsegrooms, 8; oxmen, 8; for pilgrims and paupers, 6; in
charge of the House for the Emperor's Following, 8; keepers
of livestock: cowherds, 6; keepers of the mares and
colts, 6; swineherds, 6, goatherds, 6; shepherds, 6.

This is a purely mechanical count based on the number
of beds that could be installed while still maintaining comfortable
sleeping arrangements. The number could be increased
considerably if beds were crowded into sleeping
areas.

Except for the Abbey of Corbie, we do not have much
specific information about other Carolingian monasteries
with which to compare these figures. At Corbie, under

TABLE II

LIST OF THE APPROXIMATE NUMBER OF MONKS IN CERTAIN
CAROLINGIAN MONASTERIES

                                         

MONASTERY	TIME	NUMBER OF MONKS
		note
St.-Riquier	Angilbert (833)	400[[145]]
St.-Wandrille	Seventh century	300[[146]]
Fulda	Ninth century	270[[147]]
St.-Germain-des-pres	Toward 815	212
	In 829	120
	841-847	122[[148]]
Corbie	Adalhard (822-826)	circa 150-200[[149]]
Tegernsee	Toward 750	150[[150]]
St.-Denis	838	126[[151]]
Marmoutier	853	116[[152]]
St.-Vaast	Beginning of ninth century	112[[153]]
St. Maximin at Trier	Seventh century	100[[154]]
St. Gall	Gozbert (816-836)	circa 140-180
	Grimald (841-872)	103
	Toward 896	103[[155]]
St. Bertin at St.-Omer	Toward 820	83[[156]]
Lobbes	Toward 850	71[[157]]
Prüm	862-883	66[[158]]
Kornelismünster	817	30[[159]]

[ILLUSTRATION]

LVII. DE ARTIFICIBUS MONASTERII

1 Artifices sí sunt in monasterio, cum omni humilitate faciant
ipsas artes, si permiserit abbas.

2 Quod si aliquis ex eís extollitur pro scientia artis suae, eo
quod uideatur aliquid conferre monasterio,

3 hic talis erigatur ab ipsa arte et denuo per eam non transeat,
nisi forte humiliato ei iterum abbas iubeat.

52 THE CRAFTSMEN OF THE MONASTERY

If there be craftsmen in the monastery, let them practise their crafts with
all humility, provided the abbot give permission. But if one of them be
puffed up because of his skill in his craft, supposing that he is conferring
a benefit on the monastery, let him be removed from his work and not
return to it, unless he have humbled himself and the abbot entrust
it to him again.

Adalhard, the prebendaries numbered 150 "within" and
forty "without" the monastic enclosure. Adalhard gave instructions
that "whenever one died, he should be immediately
replaced by another, so that the number be always
complete. And no one should ever be added to enlarge this
number."[160] This group included in the first workshop (ad
primam camaram): three shoemakers (sutores tres), two
saddlemakers ([ad] caualos duo), and one fuller (fullo unus);
in the second workshop (ad secundam cameram): one storekeeper
(ad camaram unus), six blacksmiths (fabri grossarii
sex), two goldsmiths (aurifices duo), two shoemakers (sutores
duo), two shieldmakers (scutarii duo), one parchment-maker
(pargaminarius unus), one polisher (saminator unus), and
three foundrymen (fusarii tres). Two servants from the
third workshop were attached to the cellar and storehouse
of the porter (ad cellarium et dispensam portarii duo); one
to the infirmary (ad domum infirmorum unus). There were
two helpers (gararii duo), one in the woodshed of the
bakehouse (ad lignarium in pistrino unus), the other at the
center gate (ad portam medianam). Lastly, there were four
carpenters (carpentarii quattuor), four masons (mationes
quattuor), and two physicians (medici duo). Two servants
were attached to the house of the vassals (ad casam uasallorum
duo).[161]

We do not have enough information to draw any concrete
conclusions about the average ratio of monks to secular
domestics in Carolingian times, and there were probably
vast fluctuations, since there must have been some relation
between the number of serfs who worked within the monastic
enceinte and the number of serfs and workmen stationed
outside it, yet still within the immediate vicinity of the
monastery. If the calculations of von Arx are correct, the
Monastery of St. Gall, in 895, when it had 100 monks, employed
some 200 secular domestics,[162] and the Abbey of St.
-Bertin at St.-Omer, toward the middle of the ninth century,
when it numbered eighty-three monks had ninety-five
domestics.[163]

If the Plan of St. Gall represents the typical, as its paradigmatic
nature suggests, the average Carolingian monastery
at the time of Louis the Pious must have had a lay
population of domestic serfs and workmen exceeding that
of the number of monks by some 15 to 30 percent.

According to calculations found in many sources, the
number of people in the "outer family" was considerably
higher than the number of domestics. An inventory of 831
of the Abbey of St.-Riquier lists no less than 2,500 men,
including 110 mounted knights,[164] on the land immediately

[ILLUSTRATION]

LXVI. DE HOSTIARIIS MONASTERII

1 Ad portam monasterii ponatur senes sapiens, qui sciat
accipere responsum et reddere et cuius maturitas eum non
sinat uacari.

2 Qui portarius cellam debebit habere iuxta portam, ut uenientes
semper praesentem inueniant, a quo responsum accipiant.

66 THE PORTERS OF THE MONASTERY

At the gate of the monastery let there be placed a wise old
man, who understands how to give and receive a message,
and whose years will keep him from leaving his post. This
porter should have a room near the gate, so that those who
come may always find someone to answer them.

around it. The number of all persons living on the lands of
the Abbey of St.-Germain-des-Prés has been calculated by
Guérard to have amounted at the time of Abbot Irminon
(ca. 800-826) to about 13,300.[165] If we add to this the approximately
160 serfs and laymen who worked in the monastery
itself and divide the total of 13,460 thus obtained, by
the 120 monks of the monastery, we find that, as far as the
Abbey of St. Germain-des-Prés is concerned, to sustain one
single monk involved the support of 112 laymen.[166] The
figure 13,300 of St. Germain-des-Prés does not include
those persons who lived on land that the monastery had
granted in benefice (in beneficium). If the latter were included
the general population of the Abbey of St. Germain-des-Prés,
as Guérard estimates, would have been around
40,000.[167] The abbeys of St.-Wandrille and St. Denis appear
to have had populations of similar magnitude.[168]

NOTE

ON THE HATTON 48 INSCRIPTION ILLUSTRATIONS

Inscriptions are shown same size as the originals and are based on Bodleian
Library, Oxford, photographs, centimeter-inch scale shown, and on Farmer,
Early English Manuscripts in Facsimile, vol. 15, Rosenkilde and Bagger,
Copenhagen, 1968.

The original script was written in black ink on parchment. A splendid capital
marks the start of each chapter, drawn in black outline with vermilion infill
that gives pleasing brightness to the work. Black outline capitals are surrounded
with a line of red dots, a characteristic feature of Insular manuscript ornamentation.

The excerpts used in the preceding pages do not occur, in all cases, in the exact
sequence as reproduced. A dotted line printed in black shows where the text
of the manuscript is interrupted by breaks, such as occur in moving from one
column or one page to the next. Folio identification is included with each
excerpt.

The adaptation or translation from tonal-range copy to line copy with tone
absent was resolved by making photographic enlargements precisely 4 times
original size. Extraneous background blemishes or other stains and `show-through'
were easily eliminated at this scale (letters ca. 15mm high, lines ca.
5.5cm apart). Thus, corrective measures were subtractive (removal of unwanted
stains) rather than additive (as they would have been by redrawing or
tracing from the original). Exceptions are the red dots, where in many cases
the original vermilion dots had long ago faded and were barely legible around
the black outlines of the capitals. Many of these red dots were supplied here
by hand to correctly portray a continuous sequence of dot ornamentation as
originally executed.

Then, by photographic reduction back to the original size (with precision
equal to the procedure of enlargement), together with careful darkroom and
laboratory control with high-contrast processing (by Irwin Welcher, General
Graphics, San Francisco), images were obtained of clear and precise definition
of outline, devoid of tonal background, and without supervening interpretation
of additive subjective character.

Consequently the elegance of the letter forms of the script is reproduced with
a high degree of fidelity to the original and with authenticity of impression.

E. B.

[ILLUSTRATION]

261. UTRECHT PSALTER (CA. 830). PSALM XIII (14), DETAIL

UTRECHT UNIVERSITY LIBRARY, CODEX 32, fol. 7v

[courtesy of Utrecht University Library]

The singing of psalms, as many as three to six during one service, was one of the central and longest phases in a monk's daily worship. In the
adoption and reshaping of the old Gregorian chant, in which psalms were sung from the days of Gregory the Great, and in its transformation
into the medieval sequence by Frankish monks in the 8th and 9th centuries, Carolingian monasticism made one of its greatest and most
innovative contributions to the birth of Western music (see Crocker, 1975).

Richly illuminated psalters existed in the Roman world as early as the 4th and 5th centuries. The Utrecht Psalter, made in the abbey of
Hautvilliers near Reims, is the finest Carolingian copy of this kind of Early Christian psalter. In its rendering of landscapes, architecture,
people and animals it is full of classical reminiscences, but combines the sketchy illusionism of Late Antiquity with a nervous and lively
linear expressionism that appears to be more typically medieval. This illustration to Psalm XIII shows men doing evil to one another as
described in verses 2-4 (for more information see Dewald, 1932, 9).

IV. 5

THE MONASTERY'S
MILITARY OBLIGATIONS

IV.5.1

MEN & HORSES FOR BATTLE & OTHER
SUPPORTIVE SERVICES

Like all the other landed corporations of the empire, the
estates of the monks were bound to render their share in
the defense of the country (ad hostem). The men of the
church were forbidden to render military service in person,[169]
but they were obliged to furnish to the army an appropriate
contingent from among their vassals.[170] Thus the Abbey of
St.-Germain-des-Prés at the time of Abbot Irminon placed
at the emperor's disposal not only men whom it held in
tenure, but also furnished the army with carts, oxen, beef,
mutton, pork, and wine.[171] In an order issued to him by
Charlemagne between 804 and 811, Fulrad, the Abbot of
St.-Quentin, was directed to join the army at its assembly
place at Stassfurt, in Saxony, on June 17, with his men fully
equipped and armed. The men were to be fitted out in such
a way as to be able to proceed to whatever point in the
country the emperor wished to dispatch them. The order
itemized the type of weapons each man was to carry and the
tools with which each wagon was to be stocked: straight
axes, broadaxes, augers, hatchets, hoes, shovels. The troop
was to be provisioned with rations for a period of three
months, and with arms and clothing for a period of six.[172]

Some of these services were exacted only in times of war;
others were rendered in the form of periodic "gifts" or
"donations" (dona or munera) which had acquired an obligatory
character.[173] The annual "gift" required of each abbey
at the time of Louis the German consisted of two horses,
two shields, and two lances.[174]

In addition to the men the monasteries had to furnish for
the service of the king, they maintained others for the protection
of their own land, and it is on permanent resources
of this kind that the king may have drawn in times of war.
The Chronicle of Hariulf furnishes us with the names of
100 armed men whom the Abbey of St.-Riquier maintained
on its various manors.[175] An inventory of 831 lists the total
number of men then in the service of the Abbey as 110 and
informs us that "each man always has ready for inspection
a horse, a shield, a sword, a lance, and other armaments."[176]
Hariulf defines their duties very clearly: "They served the
abbot and the other officials of the church on land and sea
or wherever else the brothers needed their concourse . . .
accompanied the abbot and the priors on their journeys . . .
They always gathered dutifully at the monastery on the
days of the feast of St. Richarius, Christmas, Easter, and
Pentecost, as thoroughly equipped as each could and by
his presence lending to our church almost the appearance
of a royal court."[177]

It is the maintenance of a military retinue of this kind
which explains the presence in the House for Workmen, on
the Plan of St. Gall of "shieldmakers" (scutarii) and
"grinders and polishers of swords" (emundatores et
politores gladiorum).[178]

In addition to their direct share in the military defense
of the country, the annual presentations to the king (servitium
regis)—and especially those made by the royal abbeys—
might include a considerable amount of eatable livestock
and other agricultural products. Thus the servitium regis of
the Abbey of Werden around 1050 amounted to 8 cows, 83
pigs of various size, 8 peacocks, 195 chickens, more than 95
cheeses, 870 eggs, 47½ malters of bread, 95 sheffels of oat,
172 pitchers of beer, 485 bowls, and 147 beakers.[179] The
volume of services that the monastery rendered to the state
in time of war of course exceeded by many times the revenues
it was required to furnish in time of peace.

Admittedly this imposition of military obligations upon
the abbey, as Dom Ursmer Berlière has pointed out, "is in
formal opposition to the constitutive principle of the Benedictine
order," and, further, it is understandable that this
"intrusion of the world into the cloister" should become
one of the primary targets of the reformists in the centuries
that followed.[180] At the time of Charlemagne and Louis the
Pious, the interdependence of church and state was not yet
questioned. In their search for peace and Christian unity
and their common concern to see the will of God embodied
on each, the administration of church and state worked
hand in hand.[181]

[ILLUSTRATION]

262. UTRECHT PSALTER (CA. 830). PSALM LXXXIV (85), DETAIL

UTRECHT UNIVERSITY LIBRARY, CODEX 32, fol. 49v

[courtesy of Utrecht University Library]

The detail here shown forms the lowest register of the illustration. It explicates with various scenes from agriculture and animal husbandry
the phrase "and our land shall yield her increase" (verses 12-13) in the rich and imaginative pictographic style characteristic of the Early
Christian prototype of this psalter.

To the left, a man tills the soil with the primitive Roman plow (not as efficient as the medieval plow). At the right, two men cut sheaves of
grain by hand with sickles, as was done in Roman and medieval times. Below them, oxen and sheep graze along the banks of a stream that
issues from springs to the left of the picture. (For more details and a reproduction of the entire illustration see Dewald, 1932, 38-39.)

IV. 6

THE MONASTERY AS A
MANORIAL CORPORATION

IV.6.1

OUTLYING ESTATES

The agricultural and industrial economy of a Carolingian
monastery was based not only on the produce of the land
that lay in the immediate vicinity and the labor of the monks
and serfs who resided within the monastic enclosure, but
also on the revenues and manufactured goods of a vast web
of outlying estates, the monastery's curtes or villae. Recent
investigations have made it clear that these outlying estates
consisted in part of holdings that formed a reserve exploited
directly for the benefit of the abbey, and in part of tenures
granted to tenants against the payment of tithes[182] or against
the rendering of certain labors or services needed in the
exploitation of the reserve.[183] This arrangement is very
similar, as François Ganshof has pointed out, to the
tripartite division of the fiscal property of a royal domain
prescribed by the famous Capitulare de villis, which earmarks
one-third of the produce of the domain for use by
the manor itself, one-third for use by the court, and another
third for use according to instructions from the palace, or
for sale.[184]

RESPONSIBLE MONASTIC OFFICIALS

The Administrative Directives of Adalhard of Corbie
make it clear that the exploitation of these outlying estates
for the monastic community lay in the hands of the prior,
the chamberlain, and the porter. The prior had the responsibility
of supplying the monastery with its basic food
provisions, and for that reason had under his authority specifically
the cultivation of the fields and vineyards as well as
the supervision of the herdsmen.[185] The chamberlain was in
charge of the monastery's material equipment, including as
one of its indispensable items the monks' clothing.[186] For the
fulfillment of their respective duties, each of these officials
had assigned to him the yield of a specific number of services
or manors, while the porter was charged with the
collection of tithes in those tenures which were subject to
tithing. This included the chore of transportation and storage,
as well as the conversion of the tithes into money when
the produce was sold.[187] The collection of revenues from
outlying, and especially from distant, manors posed problems
of logistics in transportation capable of taxing the wit
of even the most astute abbots. Abbot Adalhard of Corbie
invented a unique plan for reducing the costs of such
deliveries by instituting a barter system through which the
produce from distant lands was made available to the
monastery by being traded in stages from the periphery
toward the center of its economic orbit.[188]

MANAGEMENT BY MONKS OR BY LAYMEN?

Whether the monastery's outlying estates should be administered
by monks or by laymen was a matter of debate
and widely varying practice. In 812 the monks of Fulda
protested before the emperor against the increasing administrative
fragmentation of the holdings of their abbey, declaring
themselves in favor of a single and common manorial
entity (commune ministerium)—managed by the monastery
as a whole through its leading representatives, the deans
and the prior[189] —as preferable to watching their holdings
being surrendered to the "selfish interest of laymen" or to
"malicious serfs."[190] But at the synod of Aachen held in 816,
the assembled bishops and abbots of the empire ruled that
the outlying estates should henceforward be managed by
laymen exclusively. The monks who had been entrusted
with their supervision were ordered to return to the mother
house, and the abbots were admonished to reduce the number
of their visits to the outlying manors to the absolute
minimum.[191] The capitulary of Louis the Pious which
promulgated these resolutions consolidated them into
imperial laws.[192]

SIZE

We are well informed about the size, nature, and location
of these outlying estates by such contemporaneous sources
as the Administrative Directives of Abbot Adalhard of
Corbie,[193] or the famous Polyptique of Abbot Irminon of
St.-Germain-des-Prés,[194] which furnishes us in many cases
not only with a full account of their annual yield in harvest,
equipment, and livestock, but also with the names of many
of their tenants and serfs as well as the deliveries of food
and produce to which they were held. In size these holdings
varied greatly. Some were small, the majority large, a few
colossal. At the time of Abbot Irminon (ca. 800-826), as
we have already had occasion to mention,[195] the total
number of men who lived on the monastery's outlying
possessions was calculated by B. E. C. Guérard (who spent
the better part of his life studying the extent and the form of
management of its holdings) as amounting to nearly
40,000.

As a manorial entity the Carolingian monastery thus differed
little from the fabric of a feudal estate, save that the
corporate community of men for whose sustenance this organization
was maintained consisted of monks who served
God in chant and spent much of their time in reading and
writing. Of the vast fabric of agricultural and industrial
activities which enabled them to devote their lives to these
tasks, the Plan of St. Gall reflects only a small fraction: that
portion which was carried on within the walls of the monastery
itself. An analysis of these activities, the houses,
machinery, and equipment with which they are associated
will form the subject of the second volume.

[ILLUSTRATION]

263. UTRECHT PSALTER (CA. 830). PSALM LXXVII (78), DETAIL

UTRECHT UNIVERSITY LIBRARY, CODEX 32, fol. 45r

[courtesy of Utrecht University Library]

Inspired by the hand of God issuing from heaven a patriarch from Israel (perhaps Moses), having risen from a large chair to stand upon a
rock, announces from a lectern the law of the Lord (verse I) to a host of people who are gathered around him in huge semicircle (only partly
visible in this detail): "the people", "fathers", "children" and "generations to come" referred to in verses 1-8. Three attentive representatives
of the people stand directly before the patriarch. Behind the latter is David, youthful and crowned and carrying a spear in his left hand; in
front of David a few of his sheep (verse 70); behind him the unicorn mentioned in verse 69 (ET AEDIFICAVIT SICUT UNICORNIUM SUUM).

For more detail see Dewald, 1932, 35-36.

To render the principal figures at a larger scale than secondary persons is a stylistic convention frequently employed in Early Christian art,
and used even in Greco-Roman art, to distinguish higher from lesser gods.

The Utrecht Psalter manuscript is comprised of 108 leaves 33.5 × 26cm. The pen
drawings made on parchment, probably in black ink, are now faded to a kind of
bistre. The details shown in figures 261, 262, 263, only crudely simulate the color and
tone of the present state of the manuscript. Each drawing is somewhat enlarged here.

IV. 7

THE MONASTERY AS A
CULTURAL INSTITUTION

IV.7.1

SUPERIORITY IN MORAL AND IN
MANAGERIAL STANDARDS

If there was little difference, then, at the time of Charlemagne
and Louis the Pious between the basic administrative
and economic organization of the great monastic and
secular estates, there remain, nevertheless, a number of distinct
features that set the monastery on a separate, if not
higher plane from its secular counterpart. It is probably
safe to assume that because of its attachment to such inherently
Christian concepts as charity (caritas) and spiritual
discipline (oboedientia),[196] a monastic community was less
susceptible to corruption than the secular fiscs. Moreover,
there is a good likelihood that because of the number of
people it had to sustain as a corporate body, in an architectural
plant that had the appearance of a town rather than a
rural settlement, the monastery reached higher levels of
attainment than its secular counterpart—even in such agricultural
skills as gardening, the scientific management of
crops and viticulture, the art of planting orchards and improving
fruit trees through grafting, as well as in the dissemination
of such important technical devices as water
power for mill and mortar operation, sewage disposal, and
the dissemination of old and new heating devices.

I shall deal with these contributions individually, at their
proper places later on in this study. In the present context
they must be touched upon only to the extent to which they
are part of a general picture, the whole of which does not
emerge in the discussion of its individual components.

IMPROVEMENT OF TREES BY GRAFTING

The Plan gives us an accurate account of the wide variety
of vegetables,[197] fruit-bearing trees,[198] and medicinal herbs[199]
that were grown within the confines of a Carolingian monastery.
The great estates of the crown, as we learn from certain
administrative directives such as the famous Capitulare
de villis,[200] had planting programs of comparable richness,
but it is very unlikely that the average secular manor was
equally prolific and advanced in these standards of planting,
and there can be no doubt that the art of improving trees
through grafting, as it was practiced on monastic lands,
must have had a stimulating effect on the agricultural management
of the secular manors with which its holdings were
interspersed.

IMPROVED METHODS IN MANAGEMENT:
BREEDING OF LIVESTOCK

The same might be said about contributions made by the
monks in setting standards for the management and breeding
of livestock. An analysis of the houses set aside for this
purpose shows that the monastery of the Plan of St. Gall
had room for eleven horses and eleven oxen,[201] forty to seventy
cows,[202] eleven foaling mares and their offspring,[203] seventy
to one hundred sheep,[204] about a hundred goats,[205] and some
twenty-one sows with litters.[206] All of these were breeding
stock and therefore only a small portion of the monastery's
total number of chattel. Again, one might venture the proposition
that by the sheer weight of the number of men it
had to sustain, the monastery would tend to nurture a more
systematic approach to such tasks as housing, breeding,
and feeding of stock. Few royal abbeys had less than 250
men to be fed within the monastic enclosure alone—while
some had as many as 400, 500, or 600. To provide for a
steady flow of supplies for the sustenance of such a concentration
of men was a logistic problem of the first order.

NEW STANDARDS IN MANAGERIAL
PRACTICE AND THEORY

The monasteries, whose schools produced the intellectual
leaders of the period, brought resources of formidable ingenuity
to deal with this problem in a superior and exhaustive
manner. This is attested by such milestones in the
history of managerial organization as the Administrative
Directives of Abbot Adalhard of Corbie,[207] the Constitution of
Abbot Ansegis of St. Wandrille,[208] and the Polyptique of
Abbot Irminon of St. Germain-des-Prés.[209] The two former,
full translations of which are given in our last volume, are
a complete analysis of the volume of revenues and labor
required for the sustenance of a settlement of some 350 to
400 people, setting forth when, how, and by whom these
revenues should be rendered and received; the latter is an
exhaustive inventory of the land, people, chattel, and
produce down to the smallest basket of cheese and eggs
from a web of estates so vast as to accommodate in its
totality as estimated 40,000 human beings.

These documents have parallels in certain directives issued
by the crown, such as the Capitulare de villis or the
Brevium exempla,[210] but there are no equivalents from any

of the lower rungs of the feudal ladder, and even on the
level of the Crown there are no parallels of comparable
complexity until three and a half centuries later, when
William the Conqueror took it upon himself to tighten his
grip over England by instituting that hated survey of people,
chattel and land (1085-1086) to which his Anglo-Saxon
subjects referred derisively as the Domesday Book.

IV.7.2

SUPERIOR TECHNOLOGICAL
STANDARDS

NEW OR UNUSUAL HEATING DEVICES

Because of the number of men it had to sustain, the monastery
must have played a significant role in acceptance and
diffusion of new or unusual heating devices. The primordial
and common way of heating houses north of the Alps from
the Stone Age onward, was the open fireplace that burned
in the middle of the living room emitting its smoke through
an opening in the roof that was protected by a lantern.
This device, as our analysis will show, appears in all of the
guest and service buildings of the Plan of St. Gall.[211] But
the Plan of St. Gall teaches us also that an exemplary
monastery of the time of Louis the Pious was provided
with two further methods for heating. In one of them the
heat is generated by a furnace (caminus) built against
one of the outer walls of the building, conducted into trenches
beneath the floor and from there released through
openings in the room above. This method—an obvious derivative
of the Roman hypocaust system—was capable of
producing an even flow of heat for large spaces and therefore
used for rooms where the entire community of monks
and novices slept or worked together.[212] In the other one,
found in the lodgings of the higher ranking members of the
monastic community as well as in the private bedrooms of
the distinguished guests, the heat was produced by a hooded
corner fireplace (caminata) that emitted its smoke through
a chimney stack.[213] Both these systems are highly sophisticated
and have no parallels in the secular early medieval
world, save for a few isolated occurrences on the highest
social levels, namely in the palaces of kings.[214]

SYSTEMATIC USE OF WATER POWER

Another major cultural contribution made to Western
life by the medieval monastery was its use of water power
for such vital operations as the grinding and crushing of
grain and, perhaps, for fulling. Our analysis of the machinery
used for these purposes on the Plan of St. Gall will
show that they were water-driven.[215] The system was known,
but for peculiar reasons never widely employed in Rome.
Again, it must have been the need for producing basic
staples in bulk rather than the more modest quantities required
for scattered individual households that prompted
monastic planners to use water power and hydraulic machinery
programmatically and from the very outset. The
economic advantages of these power plants were obvious
to anyone who had eyes to see, which explains fully enough
why the secular lords, in imitation of the examples set by
the large corporate organizations of the monks, reserved
the right of milling for themselves and made it a primary
means of feudal exploitation.

IV.7.3

SUPERIOR STANDARDS IN THE ART
OF WINE MAKING & IN LARGE
SCALE PRODUCTION OF WINE & BEER

It would be a grave mistake to overlook in this context
the impact the medieval monastery had on modern viticulture
as a guardian and transmitter of standards established
by the ancients: the art of moving, storing and aging wine in
quantities sufficiently large to guarantee to every member of
the community the daily ration of wine permitted by St.
Benedict.[216] And it would be an even greater mistake to
overlook the contribution the monasteries made to the
modern brewing industry, by producing this beverage on a
scale that had no parallels in the secular world, where beer
in general was brewed in the home, and for the consumption
of small groups of people.[217] Nor can one disregard the
effect which the monastic wine and brewing industry had
on the cultivation of that highly specialized and proficient
skill of manufacturing for the transportation and storage of
these liquids, those large and ingeniously constructed
casks which in addition of being perfectly tight, when filled,
and of resisting considerable internal pressure during
fermentation, must also be capable of bearing the strain of
transportation to great distances.

IV.7.4

SUPERIOR METHODS OF SANITATION

It is equally clear that accounting for the needs of a concentrated
body of people would foster the invention of
superior methods of sanitation. Our account of the privies
attached to the various homes shown on the Plan of St. Gall
discloses that the standards of sanitary hygiene in a paradigmatic
monastery of the time of Louis the Pious were far
advanced not only over those of any of their classical protoand
antetypes, but—with the sole exception of modern deluxe
hotels—even conspicuously superior to common
standards of modern sanitation.[218]

IV.7.5

CULTIVATION OF LINGUISTIC
INTELLECTUAL SKILLS

Yet all of this fades into insignificance if viewed against
the contributions which the monastery made to Western
life in the fields of learning and in the arts. Early monastic
asceticism generated disgust rather than sympathy for
classical learning. But the teaching and dissemination of
the Faith depended on the availability of a substantial body

of sacred texts, which necessitated the establishment of libraries
and of schools of writing both in the secular and the
monastic churches. It was inevitable that the linguistic and
intellectual skills required for the copying and writing of
these books would engender an interest in the study of the
great secular legacy of classical writing as a preparatory education
for religious teaching.[219] The great protagonists of
this school of thinking were such giants of Early Christian
learning as St. Augustine (354-430) and Cassiodorus (c.
490-585). From them a direct line leads to Alcuin (735-804)
who formulated, under Charlemagne, the educational policy
that made the establishment of schools of learning a primary
monastic obligation, and who was himself the founder of
some of the greatest monastic schools of writing, including
the school that flourished at the Palace itself.

To define what went on in these scriptoria would mean
to write half of the intellectual history of the Middle Ages
and half of the history of its visual arts. Apart from the important
task of providing the books that were indispensable
for the conduct of the religious services, there was a demand
for a great variety of original compositions, the writing of
the lives of the saints, the writing of the monastery's own
history, often reaching out to include a rich account of
events that took place in the secular world, the creation of
new hymns, and lectionaries, new antiphons, and numerous
other liturgical innovations. The ever increasing preoccupation
with these concerns—as students of medieval intellectual
history have pointed out—"made men into historians,
prose writers, poets and composers."[220]

IV.7.6

MONASTIC TIMETABLE & ITS
EFFECT UPON THE CREATION OF A
MODERN CONCEPT OF TIMING

Not among the least of the monastic contributions to
Western life is the impetus which it gave to the modern
concept of timing. Max Weber was one of the first to sense
this connection when in his analysis of the role of Christianity
on economic development, he wrote: "In that epoch
the monk is the first human being who lives rationally, who
works methodically and by rational means toward a goal,
namely the future life. Only for him did the clock strike,
only for him were the hours of the day divided for prayer."[221]

The division of day and night into twelve hours is a concept
that the Greeks appear to have learned from the Babylonians,
but one that does not seem to have had a deep effect
on the actual conduct of the daily life of the Greeks.[222]
Because the hour was calculated as 1/12 of the span of the
day, from sunset to sunrise, its length varied not only with
each successive day, but also between each day and each
night. Only during the equinoxes were the hours of day
and night of equal length. Astronomers and scholars could
cope with the daily adjustments subsumed in this system,
but in rural life, both in Greece and in Rome, man continued
to determine time, as he had done in the most
remote ages, by measuring the length of his shadow with
the sole of his foot.[223] Sundials, which measured shadows in
a more systematic manner, as well as water clocks were
well known in ancient times and seem to have been of some
importance in Roman public life.[224] But in the Middle
Ages, the only corporate segments of society where the
whole of the daily cycle of activities was regulated by the
striking of a bell, were the church and the monasteries.[225]
The humble task of seeing that the services began at the
right time, varying with the seasons, required careful
thought and no mean knowledge about the movement of
the stars. St. Benedict considered this task to be of such

extreme importance that he entrusted it to the care of the
abbot, whom he admonished to perform this duty either in
person or to delegate it to a brother so careful "that everything
may be fulfilled at its proper time."[226] Computus, i.e.,
the study and transmission of the knowledge about the
Christian calendar, became a primary curricular subject of
monastic learning, for which Bede (as Charles W. Jones has
shown) played the role of prototypal master as author of
De Temporibus, which became a textbook for centuries to
follow.[227] In later monastic practice the timing of the
religious services, no easy task, became the charge of the
sacrist[228] who, if he struck the bell for the meals or various
parts of the divine office too late or too early, committed a
breach of duty. For such a defection he was bound to give
satisfaction at the next chapter meeting or, in the case of
graver negligence, during the divine service, by standing at
the foot of the steps of the presbytery with his body bent
to the ground (stans incurvus) and retaining this penitential
position throughout the Kyrie eleison until the completion
of the service with the end of the Deo gratias.[229]

On clear days and nights the relative length of each hour
could be established with the aid of a sun dial or by the
position of the stars. Rachel L. Poole published the text of
a monastic star time-table of the eleventh century which
gives accurate instructions to be followed by the night
watchman of a monastery near Orleans.[230] A typical example
follows:

Similar directives concerning the relative position of stars
to predetermined architectural features, at the desired hour,
are given for the nights of all of the other important
offices of the year.

On dull days and nights, however, neither the sun
quadrant nor the stars were of any use. On these occasions
the sacrist's only recourse was the water clock. Excavations
conducted in 1894 in the ruins of the Cistercian Abbey of
Villers brought to light five fragments of slate, incised in a
delicate cursive minuscule of the second half of the thirteenth
century, with a series of minute instructions to the
sacrist of Villers for regulating the monastery's water
clock.[232] The texts disclose that this water clock ran in
cycles of 32 hours, that it had to be refilled when three-fourths
depleted,[233] and that its deficiencies in precision
were checked by the angle of the shadows cast by the sun
upon the jambs of the windows in the apse of the abbey
church.[234]

There was no need in any institution of the secular world
to transmit or nurture similar skills. The life of the medieval
peasant was controlled by such simple and ever recurring
events as the rising and setting of the sun, the waning and
waxing of the moon, events whose seasonal variations
placed little strain on the human ability to time action
through observation. Even in military life where failure to
maintain schedules might become a matter of survival,
there were no timing needs of comparable complexity, comparable
duration, or comparable consistency. Between the
military division of the night by the Greeks and Romans
into watches marked by the change of sentries and the
time-controlled activities of the modern professional man
who regulates the hours of both his work and his leisure
(even his sleep!) by a portable timepiece attached to his
wrist, there lies historically the monastic practice of dividing
the day into a carefully calculated sequence of religious
services (matin, lauds, prime, terce, sext, none, vespers, and
compline) in which the 150 psalms could be cited in their
entirety in the course of a week.

IV.7.7

DEVELOPMENT OF NEW CONCEPTS
IN ARCHITECTURE

Our account of the monastery as a cultural institution
would widen into a panorama of kaleidoscopic complexity
were we to raise the question of the monastery's contribution
to the development of western architecture. Up to the
very close of the eleventh century all truly important architectural
innovations were made in the great monastic compounds.
Centula, Fulda, St.-Martin-du-Canigou, Tournus,
Jumièges, Cluny, Santiago, Canterbury and Durham, to
mention only some of the most obvious examples, are highlights
in a spectacular pageant of monastic churches. The
Church of the Plan of St. Gall with its modular schematism
pointing centuries ahead in the development of medieval
church construction—its apse and counter apse, its dual
system of crypts—bears favorably the test of comparison
with any of these great architectural innovations.

[ILLUSTRATION]

263.X CHRIST IN MAJESTY. DETAIL

GOSPEL BOOK OF GUNDOHINUS (A.D. 754). Autun, Bibliothèque Municipale, MS. 3, fol. 12v [after Porcher-Hubert-Volbach, 1970, fig. 62]

Made upon the order of a lady named Fausta and a monk, Fuculphus, this Gospel book was written by the scribe Gundohinus, in an unidentifiable monastery called
Vosevium. The book's historical position at the start of a new era of Western life, marked by the coronation at St.-Denis of Charlemagne's father Pepin by Pope
Stephen II, has been persuasively defined by Jean Porcher (op. cit., 71ff):

"The book was completed in 754, the third year of the reign of King Pepin, the very year in which by a remarkable coincidence the Carolingian dynasty officially
began. . . . Nothing like it had yet been seen on the continent north of the Alps. The history of the Carolingian book begins with Gundohinus, just as the Carolingian
dynasty begins with Pepin."

Drawn with a clumsy hand, in lines intoxicated with a naive sophistication, this sensitive head of Christ—whose frontal stare has distinguished antecedents in Imperial
Roman art—is, among other things, a reflection of the deep cultural shock to which the Northern barbarians, with their nonfigurative art, were exposed in this first
encounter with the anthropomorphic imagery of the Christian South.

[ILLUSTRATION]

MUSÉE D'HISTOIRE ET D'ART, LUXEMBOURG. FIFTH CENTURY A.D.

Two doves confront each other on either side of a vase. The engraved marble fragment from Ettelbrük bears an Early Christian
inscription commemorating a man who, dead at the age of 38, was mourned by his wife Dalmatia.

AN END OR A BEGINNING?

A symbol of expectation of eternal life awaiting the faithful who, as doves, pluck flowers from the fountain of life, the composition
is a fascinating link between Roman, Early Christian, and medieval art. In Roman times, the motif was primarily
decorative. But stripped of the sculptural plasticity and the pictorial realism which it then possessed, enriched with Christian
symbolism, and recast in the flat, linear style favored by the barbarian conquerors of Rome, the fragment displays a freshness
of spirit that heralds the ascendancy of a new cultural mood—a new feeling for life that, interacting with the heritage of
Antiquity, was to generate a cultural synthesis of rich and unprecedented sophistication. The Carolingian Renaissance
which among other great accomplishments produced the Plan to which these volumes are
dedicated, was one of the first great peaks of this cultural encounter.