I.11.2
THE CAROLINGIAN CONCEPT OF
CULTURAL UNITY (UNITAS):
A COUNTER ARGUMENT
Recent studies have made it clear that the scheme for an
exemplary monastery that is known to us through the
Plan of St. Gall was a statement of policy drawn up on
the highest levels of political and ecclesiastical administration
and conceived within the framework of a monastic
reform movement whose overriding preoccupation was to
establish unity (unitas) where life had been controlled by
disparate traditions (diversitas), to put "a single rule"
(una regula, una consuetudo) in the place of the mixed
tradition (regula mixta).[223]
It is an historical incongruity to propose that a document
conceived in this spirit would have been patched together
from fragments drawn in disparate scales, thus perpetuating
in its technical execution the very disorder that it strove to
overcome on a conceptual level.
The two synods of Aachen did not deal specifically with
the needs for uniformity of scale and measures. Yet
chronologically, the Carolingian battle for standardized
weights and measures even antedates the monastic reform.
The capitularies of Charlemagne abound with directives
promulgated for the purpose of establishing unity where
diversity prevailed. In his Admonitio generalis, issued on
March 23, 789, the emperor rules "that everybody shall
make use of the same and correct measures and of just
and equal weights, in the towns as well as in the monasteries,
whether selling or buying."[224]
The capitulary of
Frankfurt, issued in June 794, speaks of a "recently
established royal modius" (modium publicum et noviter
statutum);[225]
and from the celebrated book of instructions
to the managers of royal estates, the Capitulare de villis,
we learn that standard molds for such measures of capacity
were kept in the royal palace.[226]
Again in 802 Charlemagne
entreats his missi to see to it that "just and uniform
measures" be employed throughout the empire.[227]
It was in
the pursuit of the same drive toward uniform standards
that the emperor dispatched special messengers to Monte
Cassino for the purpose of finding the precise weight of the
pound of bread (libra panis) and the measure of wine
(hemina) that St. Benedict had assigned to the monks as
their daily allowance.[228]
The insistence with which the
capitularies reiterate the need for uniformity of weights
and measures bears witness to Charlemagne's profound
preoccupation with binding rules in such matters. Directives
to maintain established standards and severe warnings
against their adulteration were reissued by Charlemagne in
806[229]
and 813,[230]
and by Louis the Pious in 820,[231]
829,[232]
844,[233]
and 847.[234]
It is true that practically all of the measures specifically
mentioned in these ordinances are measures of weight and
capacity: the "peck" (modius), the "sixteenth part of a
peck" (sextarius), the "bucket" (situla), and the "basket"
(
corbus).
[235]
These measures were essential for the barter and
trade, which formed the basis for the entire Carolingian
economy. They would be the first to be singled out, if a
general principle would have to be illustrated by specific
examples. But it would be absurd to presume that measures
of length were not an implicit part of these directives. The
drive for uniformity was programmatic and universal. It
pervaded the whole of the political, administrative, economic,
and spiritual life of the Carolingian era, both under
Charlemagne and Louis the Pious.
[236]
On the highest level
the aim was the "unity of the empire." A precondition of
the
unitas regni was the "unity of the church." The
unitas
ecclesiae, in turn, depended on uniform standards of
conduct (
una consuetudo) both for the secular clergy and
for the monks. A blueprint for this unity (
forma unitatis)
[237]
were the directives for canons and canonesses which were
framed in the synod of 816 and the rules controlling
monastic life which were issued at this same council and
at the synod of 817.
[238]
The importance of these events for
the whole of the state was underscored not only by the fact
that these directives emerged from assemblies that were
held in the royal palace of Aachen
[239]
but also that they were
subsequently promulgated by the emperor himself in the
form of official capitularies and thus acquired the character
of public laws.
[240]
Surely enough, no truly binding unity might ever have
been attained in all of these segments of life and on all
levels. But to propose—as Reinle's theory of the multiplicity
of scales in the Plan of St. Gall implies—that a blatant
violation of these concepts of unity would have been perpetrated
in a document of paradigmatic significance, drawn
up in the palace itself under the eyes of the country's
leading bishops and abbots, appears to me to be an incongruous
historical assumption.
It is an incongruous assumption even on simple visual
grounds. In his reliance on precision instruments and
modern slide rules Reinle has neglected a powerful tool of
visual analysis: the human eye. For to the naked eye the
consummate conceptual and technical homogeneity of the
Plan reveals itself with infinitely greater strength than
could be disclosed by any mechanical devices. The order
in which the buildings are arranged is immaculate throughout
the entire width and length of the Plan. Since the
Plan is traced without the aid of a straightedge or the
benefit of a compass, it is full of minor irregularities. Yet
despite these shortcomings—inevitable in a freehand tracing,
and especially one of such bulky dimensions—one
cannot fail to observe that each building was developed
within the boundaries of a superordinate building site in
careful alignment with its companion structures, and that
the aggregate of these larger building sites of the Plan form
a mosaic of perfect order and rationality. This order is tight
and consistent. It does not show, at any place, the kind of
break or formal incompatibility that one associates with an
architectural composition pieced together from heterogeneous
parts.
