University of Virginia Library

I.9.1

SOME REFLECTIONS ABOUT IT AND
ITS RELATION TO THE
CAROLINGIAN CATHEDRAL
OF COLOGNE

CONCEPTUAL AFFINITIES WITH
COLOGNE CATHEDRAL

With its emphasis on the monastery as a general cultural
institution[160] and its generous allotment of space provided
for the reception of secular dignitaries[161] the layout of the
Plan of St. Gall displays a largesse d'esprit that appears
more akin to the educational and administrative policies
promoted by Charlemagne and his advisors than to the
constrictive atmosphere prevalent in monastic life at the
time of Louis the Pious.

Nowhere is this boldness of approach more clearly
disclosed than in the exuberant dimensions of the Church
of the Plan. Prior to 1948 the idea that an exemplary
Carolingian monastery church could attain a length of 300
feet appeared doubtful to many. The Abbey Church of
Fulda, 321 feet long and 100 feet wide, had always been
considered exceptional, and the rebellion of the monks of
Fulda against its inordinate size appeared to confirm this
view.[162] But Otto Doppelfeld's excavation of the foundations
of the Carolingian church of Cologne brought to
light under the pavement of the present Cathedral the
remains of a church that corresponded to the Church of
the Plan of St. Gall not only in size but also in the essentials
of its layout (figs. 14-16).[163] A late but trustworthy tradition
ascribes the construction of this edifice to Archbishop
Hildebold of Cologne (787-818),[164] a relative of Charlemagne
and one of his most trusted councilors.[165]

Like the Church of the Plan of St. Gall, the church of
Hildebold was about 300 feet long and about 80 feet wide.
As in the former, the nave in the latter had a width of about
40 feet, and the aisles half of that, about 20 feet. In both
churches the transept arms and the fore choir repeat the
dimensions of the crossing square. Both churches had
apses at either end, a semicircular paradise with a covered
walk in the west and an uncovered paradise in the east.
The similarities are very close and so striking, Doppelfeld
concluded, that one must have served as model for the
other. In the plan of the church of Cologne, he believed,
he had found the prototype for the layout of the Church
of the Plan of St. Gall.[166]

RELATIVE CHRONOLOGY

Unfortunately, we do not know precisely when Hildebold's
church was started; therefore, it was to be expected
that Doppelfeld's view of its priority over the Church of
the Plan of St. Gall should be challenged. Adolph Schmidt
voiced the opinion that both buildings might have a
common root in a prototype plan developed during the
two reform synods of Aachen (816-817).[167] Irmingard
Achter, Albert Verbeek, and Fried Mühlberg went so far
as to question the Carolingian origin of Cologne Cathedral
altogether and ascribed it to the time of Archbishop
Bruno (953-956).[168] Doppelfeld never budged from his
original position[169] and further excavations seemed to
confirm his view. In a careful and exhaustive re-analysis of
the entire archaeological and documentary evidence available,
Otto Weyres[170] arrived at the conclusion that the
concept of the church, the foundations of which are
shown in figure 14, is essentially that of Archbishop
Hildebold—a concept created on its initiative under the
impact of the enhanced significance that the empire of the
Franks had acquired through the coronation of Charlemagne
at Rome in the year 800—and for that reason
probably put into effect in the years immediately following
this important event. Hildebold, who held the position of
arcicapellanus at the court of Charlemagne, had witnessed
with his own eyes the construction, step by step, of the
Palace Chapel, Aachen (ca. 790-800). His own cathedral at
Cologne with its thin walls, then already 300 years old,
had become outdated. Before the year 800 Hildebold had
already made an attempt to enlarge it westward with a
semicircular atrium (by more than 20 years older than the
semicircular atria of the Plan of St. Gall).[171] After the
coronation of Charlemagne in Rome, Weyres argues,
Hildebold took the decisive step of tearing down the entire
ancient fabric of the Merovingian cathedral and of laying
the foundations for a new one (fig. 15): an aisled church
with apse and counter apse, a western transept, and an
extended eastern choir. The foundations of this building
(VIIa) are well attested, yet nothing is known about its
elevation. When Hildebold died in 819, the project was not
finished, but it must have been sufficiently advanced at
this time to be identified with him by later generations.
Certain conditions of the masonry and the soil suggest
that after Hildebold's death, construction was disrupted or
moved very slowly. There is good reason to believe that
the building was close to completion when Archbishop
Gunther was deposed in 864, since in the troubled six
years that followed not much could have been done.[172] The
church was solemnly dedicated by Archbishop Willibert
on September 27, 870 in the presence of the archbishops
of Mainz, Trier, and Salzburg and all of the suffragans.[173]
The imprints of two piers on the foundation of the northern
row of arcades disclose that the nave walls of this building
(VIIb) were supported by piers, 5.67 m. long (15 Roman
feet), at a clear interstice of 4.17 m. (14 Roman feet). A
reconstruction of this church, as proposed by Weyres, is
shown in figures 15 and 16. There is no conclusive evidence
that the elevation of this church was identical with that
which Bishop Hildebold had in mind. The imprints of its
pillars were found on a level of the foundations that seemed
to lie above the fabric completed at the time of Bishop
Hildebold.

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Weyres' conclusions about the date and building sequence
of Cologne Cathedral are persuasive and suggest
that if there were any conceptual links between the Church
of the Plan of St. Gall and the Carolingian cathedral of
Cologne, it was the latter that influenced the former, as
Doppelfeld had proposed in the first place, and not the
other way round.

LIKELIHOOD OF HILDEBOLD'S INVOLVEMENT
IN ORIGINAL SCHEME

My own analysis of the Plan of St. Gall and its relation
to the monastic reform movement[174] has made a good case
for the assumption that someone, or some group, at
Aachen had been charged with the responsibility of working
out a master plan which was to show how the resolutions
taken by the assembled abbots and bishops about monastic
life and ritual reflected themselves in the physical layout
of an exemplary monastery. Bishop Hildebold, or someone
close to him, may have been in charge of this project. The
emphasis that it gives to houses used for the reception of
visitors—and in particular to the reception of the emperor
and his court—[175] makes one want to assign it conceptually
to a man who grew up in the time of Charlemagne rather
than in the time of Louis the Pious. These facilities are
treated with special care, if not a touch of lavish attention,
and give the impression of being devised by a man who
was not only thoroughly familiar with the architectural
needs of the traveling emperor, but also sufficiently convinced
of the unison of regnum and sacerdotium in the
office of the sovereign to justify the inclusion of that much
space for his reception on the hallowed grounds of a
monastery.

We do not know to what extent the prototype plan was
formally approved at Aachen. It may have been discussed
and endorsed in toto. Or it may have been accepted with
certain specific reservations. Some issues, as we have seen,
were controversial.[176]

It was Boeckelmann who first expressed the intriguing
view that at the two synods of Aachen, two parties were
wrestling about the aims of the future reform of the church:
an "old guard" who had reached the peak of their career
under Charlemagne and were now gradually dying out,
and another group of men who supported St. Benedict of
Aniane in his advocacy of more constrictive reforms.[177] My
own studies of Bishop Haito's commentary to the preliminary
acts of the first synod[178] and Semmler's analysis
of the antagonistic views held by such men as Abbot
Adalhard of Corbie (who was put into exile before the
synods started)[179] have confirmed this view. There is good
cause to believe that among the various topics that were
subject to controversy at Aachen—such as the permissibility
of baths,[180] the issue of whether there should be a
secular school in the monastery,[181] and the delicate problem
of where the abbot should sleep and eat—[182] was also the
question of the optimal length of the church.

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In 817 Abbot Ratgar of Fulda was deposed from his
abbacy by Emperor Louis the Pious, apparently on the
ground that Abbot Ratgar, in erecting at Fulda the largest
church then existing north of the Alps (321 feet long and
100 feet wide), had taxed the brothers' physical and mental
resources beyond endurance, ruined the monastery's
economy, and shortened the lectio divina, neglected the
traditional hospitality due pilgrims and other guests, and
forced the monks to violate time-honored customs in
many other ways.[183] These events show clearly enough that
the issue of what the desirable length of a monastic church
should be was very much alive at the time of the synods.
It is quite possible, therefore, that the reduction of the
length of the Church of the Plan of St. Gall from 300 feet
(shown in the drawing) to 200 feet, as stipulated in one of
its explanatory titles is, as Boeckelmann suggested, not the
expression of a change of spirit that occurred between the
time when an original scheme was drawn (816-817) and
the time when the copy was made (around 820), but a
corrective measure imposed upon the original scheme
when it was discussed and endorsed at Aachen.[184] In
adopting this change in his copy, Bishop Haito did not
take it upon himself to alter the drawing. He retraced the
layout of the prototype plan as he found it on the original
drawing.

AN ORNAMENTAL DETAIL SUGGESTING THE
COURT SCHOOL AS THE CONCEPTUAL HOME OF
THE PROTOTYPE PLAN

There is an interesting ornamental detail on the Plan of
St. Gall which suggests that the prototype plan might,
indeed, have been drawn by a hand that was trained in the
scriptorium of the court of Charlemagne, namely the
"tendril"-shaped design which designates the trees in
the Monks' Cemetery (fig. 17).[185] This motif has close
parallels in a group of sumptuously illuminated manuscripts
formerly designated as "Ada School" (after the
legendary donor of one of its principal manuscripts) but now
generally ascribed to the Court School.[186] The motif appears
first in the Godescalc Gospels, the earliest richly illuminated
manuscript of the group, written and illuminated
by the monk Godescalc (781-783) upon the request of
Charlemagne (fig. 18).[187] There one also finds its classical
prototype form (fig. 19). It reappears in the canon arches
of the Ada Gospels, written around 800 by a certain "Ada
Ancilla Dei," reputed to have been a sister of Charlemagne
(fig. 20).[188] It is found again in the canon arches of the
Harley Gospels (fig 21),[189] and the Gospels of St. Medard de
Soissons,[190] both from the beginning of the ninth century,
as well as in various places of the Lorsch Gospels (figs. 22
and 23), one of the latest and most illustrious manuscripts
of the Court School, written and illuminated around 810,
presumably upon the request of Charlemagne (now in
part in Alba Julia, Roumania, Bibliotheca Documentara
Batthyaneum; in part in the Vatican Library, Pal. lat. 50).[191]

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The motif does not appear to be common to any of the
other major schools of the period.[192] I am tempted to
ascribe the drawing of the prototype plan to a man who
was trained in the tradition of the Court School. For
reasons already given, this man must have worked in close
association with Bishop Hildebold of Cologne, who as
sacri palatii arcicapellanus (a title which he held from
791 to the day of his death in 819) continued to remain,
even under the reign of Louis the Pious, the highest
ranking churchman in the empire. More evidence in favor
of the supposition that the original scheme of the Plan was
developed by someone close to the imperial court is to be
found in the striking similarities between the geometrical
square-grid pattern used in the dimensional layout of the
Plan with those which were employed, almost two decades
earlier, in the layout of the palace grounds at Aachen.[193]

There is no reason to assume that the scheme of the
prototype plan differed in any appreciable manner from
that of the copy. The very fact that the copy was made by
tracing precludes this. Even the textual annotations must
have been an integral part of the original, since without
them, the purpose of a great number of buildings of
virtually identical design would have remained incomprehensible.[194]
Clearly not part of the original plan, of course,
were the letter of transmission and the inscription of the
main altar of the Church, which relate to the specific
purpose of the copy.[195]

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