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

Our primary source of information concerning the circumstances
that led to the making of the Plan is the transmittal
note of seven lines that is written on the upper
margin of the Plan (fig. 2):

Haec tibi dulcissime fili cozƀte de posicione officinarum
paucis exemplata direxi. quibus sollertiam exerceas tuā.
meamq. deuotionē utcumq. cognoscas. qua tuae bonae uolun
tati satisfacere me segnem non inueniri confido. Ne suspiceris
autem me haec ideo elaborasse. quod uos putemus nr̄īs indigere
magisteriis. sed potius ob amorē dei tibi soli pscrutinanda pinxisse
amicabili fr̄n̄itatis intuitu crede. Uale in xp̄ō semp memor nri am̄.

Translated freely into English this text reads:

For thee, my sweetest son Gozbertus, have I drawn this briefly annotated copy
of the layout of the monastic buildings,[52] with which you may exercise your ingenuity
and recognize my devotion, whereby I trust you do not find me slow
to satisfy your wishes. Do not imagine that I have undertaken this task
supposing you to stand in need of our instruction, but rather believe that
out of love of God and in the friendly zeal of brotherhood I have depicted this
for you alone to scrutinize. Farewell in Christ, always mindful of us, Amen.

This transmittal note provides the following points of
information:

1. In undertaking his task the author of the Plan of
St. Gall had available for his guidance a prototype plan,
since he refers to his own work as exemplata, that is,
"copied."[53]

2. The Plan was to be used for some specific building
program, since it was transmitted to its recipient, Gozbert,
with the remark "with which you may exercise your
ingenuity."

3. The Plan must have been made at Gozbert's request,
since its maker states: "Whereby I trust you do not find
me slow to satisfy your wishes."

4. The writer of the transmittal note was a person of
higher standing in the administrative hierarchy of the
church than its receiver, since otherwise he could not have
addressed him as "my sweetest son."

[52]

Like Bernhard Bischoff (in Studien, 1962, 67ff) and Wolfgang Hafner
(ibid., 178ff), I am translating officina in the comprehensive sense of
"monastic buildings" rather than in the limited sense of "workshops"
suggested by Poeschel (1957, and in Studien, 1962, 29ff). Cf. below
pp. 50ff.

[53]

Faulty translation of exemplata, past participle of the verb exemplare
—"to copy" or "to transcribe"—has confused the discussion of the
Plan of St. Gall ever since Robert Willis (1848, 87) interpreted exemplare
in the sense of "to make" or "to work out." Keller (1844), Campion
(1868), and Cabrol-Leclercq (VI:1, 1924) by-passed the issue by not
translating the transmittal note. Reinhardt (1937, 277, note 2; and 1952,
16) translated the term exemplare in the sense of "to make by way of
example." The first to suggest that exemplare must be translated in the
sense of "to copy" was Alphons Dopsch (1916, 67). His view was shared
by Konrad Beyerle (I, 1925, 82), and by Hecht (I, 1928, 23). The latter
translated the passage into German: "Mein süsser Sohn Gozbert, ich
habe diese Kopie der Anlage des Klosters an dich gesandt . . ." Bischoff's
convincing arguments (Studien, 1962, 67-68) have settled this problem
once and for all. See also Horn (Studien, 1962, 79-80); and below,
pp. 15ff.