University of Virginia Library

V

THE GUEST AND THE
SERVICE BUILDINGS

INTRODUCTION TO VOLUME II

IN addition to the nuclear block of monastic buildings—the Church, the Cloister, the Novitiate and the Infirmary
—the Plan of St. Gall exhibits a host of subsidiary structures of a type that in the Middle Ages was as common to
secular life as it was indispensable to the economy of a monastic community. Thirty of the forty separate buildings
shown on the Plan are in this category (frontispiece). They can be classified by their respective functions:

• 1 Facilities for the reception of visitors: Hospice for Pilgrims and Paupers; House for Distinguished Guests; House for
  the Emperor's Vassals; House for Servants from Outlying Estates and for Servants Travelling with the Emperor's
  Court.

• 2 Medical facilities: House for Bloodletting; House of the Physicians.

• 3 Facilities for the education of students living outside the regular monastic discipline: Outer School; and Schoolmaster's
  Lodging.

• 4 Industrial facilities: Great Collective Workshop; and House for Wheelwrights and Coopers.

• 5 Facilities for storing, milling, crushing and parching grain: Granary; Mill; Mortar; and Drying Kiln.

• 6 Facilities for baking and brewing: Monks' Bake and Brew House; Kitchen, Bake and Brew House for Pilgrims and
  Paupers; Kitchen, Bake and Brew House for Distinguished Guests.

• 7 Facilities for gardening and for fruit growing: House of the Gardener and his Crew; Monks' Vegetable Garden; Monks'
  Orchard; and the Medicinal Herb Garden.

• 8 Facilities for raising livestock and poultry: House for Horses and Oxen and their Keepers; House for Cows and Cowherds;
  House for Brood Mares, Foals, and their Keepers, House for Goats and Goatherds; House for Swine and
  Swineherds; House for Sheep and Shepherds; House of the Fowlkeepers; Hen House; and Goose House.

In turning from the study of the Church and the claustral complex to that of the monastery's guest and service
buildings we are stepping from the intensely studied precinct of ecclesiastical architecture into the less-known
territory of vernacular building. To determine the appearance of these buildings as three-dimensional entities,

as I have stated earlier in this study, would be a breakthrough both in illuminating the history of monastic building
and in contributing to our knowledge of the vernacular architecture of the period. It would visually reconstruct
the architectural panorama of virtually the entire Carolingian countryside.

I was asked to take on this task in 1963 when, in the planning sessions for the Council of Europe Exhibition
Karl der Grosse in Aachen, the desire was voiced that this display should include a model reconstruction of the
architecture shown on the Plan of St. Gall. Had I not been assured of the support of Ernest Born and his
associate Carl Bertil Lund (who did most of the architectural drafting required for this project) I could not have
accepted responsibility for this task. All of our reconstructions of individual buildings, published in these volumes,
are based on working drawings made for the Aachen model.

We are not, of course, the first to have tried our hand at such a reconstruction. The problems involved have
puzzled students of the Plan for over a century and led to a variety of fascinating and perplexing conjectures. In
reviewing these earlier attempts we are far from merely rendering a plain historiographical account. They strikingly
manifest how unstable are our cultural perspectives. Occasionally they alarmingly reveal how disciplinary bias
may distort historical inquiry.

In 1844 when this story began, the eyes of the learned world were turned toward the great achievements
of classical antiquity. All of the earlier students of the Plan inevitably reflected this overriding cultural preoccupation
by interpreting the guest and service buildings of the Plan of St. Gall in the light of Greco-Roman, Etruscan,
and even Near Eastern prototype forms. The sixth and seventh decade of the last century, by contrast, witnessed
a growing interest in Germanistic studies coupled with increasing curiosity about the vernacular architectural
traditions of the north. As was to be expected, this generated a variety of new interpretations, some clearly incompatible
with the views put forth by the classicists. The movement for Germanistic interpretation found strong
support, toward the close of the century, in a number of literary and philological studies devoted to the subject
of house construction (mainly by Scandinavian scholars), and reached its peak from 1930 onward in a veritable
flood of new archaeological discoveries in the pre- and protohistoric territories of Germany, Holland and the
Scandinavian countries, including such faraway places as Iceland and Greenland. The insights gained by the men
who conducted this work enable us to see the problem of the guest and service buildings of the Plan of St. Gall
in its proper historical perspective. But because their findings were published in journals that lay outside the
reading range of professional architectural historians of the Middle Ages, progress in interpreting the Plan was
impeded.

There have been other deterrents. For generations the history of architecture has been plagued by a peculiar
and seemingly ineradicable prejudice against the study of vernacular building. Because of this bias, vast gaps
exist where knowledge resulting from proper study would help us to solve our problems. Obviously our image of
the design of the guest and service buildings of the Plan of St. Gall depends on the analysis not only of their proto-and
prehistoric antecedents but also of their medieval derivative forms. A good deal of groundwork had to be
done in both fields. In the final analysis the guest and service buildings turned out to be a vital link between past
and present. They are the exponents of a building tradition which has its origins in the second millennium B.C.,
runs in an undisrupted flow through the entire transalpine history of medieval and modern Europe and has as
yet not reached its point of termination. A variety of fascinating modern survival forms affect the rural architecture
of even today.

It has been a refreshing and rewarding experience to close these historical gaps by moving simultaneously
into all of these fields. I shall not regret having had to cut the umbilical cord which tied me to ecclesiastical
architecture in order to find the time required to accomplish this task, nor deplore the delays it imposed on the
completion of this volume.

It is hardly necessary for me to re-emphasize, in the introduction to the second volume of this study of the
Plan of St. Gall, that although the history of architecture is my primary concern this inquiry is not confined to
architectural problems. My objective is to comprehend the whole of life of the people for which these buildings
were planned. This takes us into an analysis of the spectrum of monastic hospitality, the monastery's medical
practices, its share in the education of the secular world, its complex industrial activities (including the use of
water power for the milling and crushing of grain), monastic gardening and, last but not least, the monastery's
practices in the breeding and rearing of livestock.

V. 1

PREVIOUS INTERPRETATIONS

V.1.1.

THE CLASSICAL SCHOOL

FERDINAND KELLER, 1844

The first to speculate about the design of the guest and
service buildings of the Plan of St. Gall was Ferdinand
Keller. In his "facsimile" edition of the Plan, published
in 1844, Keller described them as structures "of oriental
style in which the living quarters are arranged around an
open central court toward which the roof slopes down from
all four sides of the building."[1] Keller explained the squares
—which are designated by the term testu[2] in the explanatory
titles—as "courtyard houses" or "garden huts." He
did not illustrate his views with graphic reconstructions,
but the kind of structures he had in mind must have
resembled the houses sketched in figure 264 A-C. Keller's
interpretation is perplexing because it contradicts the
explanatory titles of the Plan itself, which he had so carefully
transcribed, translated, and annotated. In seven out
of the nine times this house-type appears on the Plan of
St. Gall, the area that Keller interprets as an open inner
court is explicitly designated as the "common" or "principal"
room of the house by inscriptions such as domus
communis (House of the Fowlkeeper), domus ipsa (House for
Sheep and Shepherds), domus familiae (House for Visiting
Servants), domus pauperum et peregrinorum (House for
Pilgrims and Paupers). Keller, however, was not truly
consistent in this matter; for in the case of the House for
Distinguished Guests, where the function of the center
area as an indoor space is visually elaborated by the insertion
of pieces of indoor furniture such as tables (mensae),
benches, and a fireplace (locus foci), he interprets the center
space of the house correctly—and in full accord with its
identifying inscription as "dining room" (domus ad prandendum).
The incompatibility of this interpretation with
that of the other guest and service structures as open courtyard
houses does not appear to have raised any doubts in
his mind of the validity of the latter.

ALBERT LENOIR, 1852

We do not know what specific prototypes Keller had in
mind when he explained the St. Gall house as the descendant
of an oriental courtyard house, but once this idea was
suggested it was inevitable that the design of the St. Gall
house should also be connected with that of the Roman
atrium house. This idea was pursued in 1852 by Albert
Lenoir.[3] Lenoir derived the St. Gall house from a subvariety
of the Roman atrium house that Vitruvius had
called "Tuscan" (tuscanum)—a house with an open inner
court which was partially roofed over (fig. 265), but which
retained in its center a large rectangular "rainhole"
(compluvium) and on the ground below it, the classical
Roman rain catch basin (impluvium).

To the difficulties of Keller's reconstruction, Lenoir
thus added a further one, since testu[do] can be translated
as neither "rainhole" nor "catch basin." Whatever the
specific implications of this term may be, its basic meaning,
"tortoise" or "turtle shell," points in the opposite direction,
namely, to that of a protective shield or cover.[4]

J. R. RAHN, 1876

Probably aware of these inconsistencies in Keller's and
Lenoir's interpretations, the Swiss art historian J. R. Rahn
presented a new solution in 1876, which was incorporated
into a graphical reconstruction of the entire settlement in
a bird's-eye view drawn up for him by Georg Lasius
(fig. 266).[5] Without explicitly refuting or even discussing
Keller's and Lenoir's views, Rahn reconstructed the St.
Gall house as a masonry structure of basilican type with a

large rectangular center room that rose above the outer
rooms and received its light through clerestory windows.
The squares that are inscribed in the Plan alternately as
locus foci and testu[do] Rahn interprets as open fireplaces
surmounted on the level of the main roof by a lantern with
openings for the escape of smoke. This solution was suggested
to him by similar architectural contraptions "still
nowadays in use in certain rural houses of northern
Germany and also occasionally found in England."[7] Rahn's
reconstruction has subsequently found the widest circulation
by being reproduced in Cabrol-Leclercq's Dictionnaire
d'archéologie chrétienne.[8] It also formed the basis for a
masterful three-dimensional model, executed in 1877 by
Julius Lehmann, which found a permanent home in the
Historisches Museum of the city of St. Gall (fig. 267).[9]

The advantages of Rahn's reconstruction over those of
Keller and Lenoir are obvious at first sight. It establishes
correctly, and in accordance with the legends of the Plan,
the large rectangular center space of the house as a covered
room. Second, it associates the term testu[do] with a
device that is compatible with its etymology (protective
shield, or cover). Third, it offers a constructive solution to
the interchangeability of the terms testu[do] and locus foci,
since "hearth" and "lantern," if arranged in the manner
Rahn suggested, would merely be two complementary
aspects of the same device—namely, an open fire with a
smoke hole in the roof surmounted by a lantern.

JULIUS VON SCHLOSSER, 1889

Rahn's reconstruction of the St. Gall house as a basilican
masonry structure with a lantern-surmounted central
hearth had been a purely theoretical venture. He could not
prove—and did not even attempt to prove—that houses of
this description actually existed.

Misconceptions about the "displuviate" and
"testudinate" Roman courtyard house

Julius von Schlosser[10] tried to overcome this weakness by
demonstrating that Rahn's St. Gall house was historically
the descendant of a once widespread Roman house type to
which the ancients referred with the terms "displuviate"
(displuviatum) and "testudinate" (testudinatum). Schlosser's
theory, unfortunately, was based on two erroneous assumptions
that were current in his day, which imparted to the
discussion of the design of the guest and service structures
of the Plan of St. Gall an element of further confusion.
The first of these misconceptions pertained to the precise
meaning of the terms "displuviate" and "testudinate";
the second concerned the origins and structural evolution
of the Roman atrium house.

To begin with the former: what Vitruvius and Varro
designated by the terms "displuviate" and "testudinate"
can under no circumstances be interpreted as structures
of basilican design. They were atrium houses in the full
constructional sense of the term, i.e., houses in which the
living quarters were ranged around an originally open
center space. The terms "Tuscan", "Corinthian", as well
as "tetrastyle", "displuviate", and "testudinate" (tuscanicum,
corinthium, tetrastylon, displuviatum, and testudinatum)
merely referred to the different degree or manner in which
these inner courtyards were roofed over.[11] In the Tuscan
atrium house, for instance, the courtyard roof sloped down
toward the center (fig. 265); in the displuviate house it
sloped upward. But in both cases the courtyard roof
encompassed in its center a rainhole (compluvium) that had
under it not a hearth, but a catch basin (impluvium).
Schlosser did not realize that in connecting the St. Gall
house with the displuviate Roman atrium house, he had
actually retrogressed to Lenoir's views (fig. 265), whose
weakness Rahn's reconstruction (fig. 266) had already
successfully overcome.

The same applied to Schlosser's attempt to connect the
St. Gall house with the courtyard house referred to by
Vitruvius and Varro by the term "testudinate." It is an
atrium house like all the others, as must be inferred not
only from the language of the opening sentence with which

[ILLUSTRATION]

ROMAN ATRIUM HOUSE WITH RAIN
CATCH-BASIN

265.B PERSPECTIVE redrawn after Kähler, 1960, suppl. 53, fig. 31

265.C

265.A PLAN, based on Luckenbach, Kunst and Geschichte, I: Altertum,
Munich, 1910, 94

SECTION, authors' interpretation

The plot, 60 feet wide, is 1/2 ACTUS (120 feet)

See remarks on Roman land surveyor's measure, page III. 140

In the form here shown, the Roman atrium house has its open inner
court partially covered by an inward-sloping roof with its center
open to the rain (COMPLUVIUM); beneath this opening in the center
of the court is a collecting basin (IMPLUVIUM). The dining room
(TABLINUM) lies to the rear of the house and opens onto the garden
(HORTUS). The kitchen stove might have been located in any of the
cubicles adjacent to it.

Vitruvius introduces his subject ("Cava aedium quinque
generibus sunt distincta . . ."; "the inner courts of houses
are of five different styles," etc.), but also from the detailed
descriptions that follow ("Testudinata vero ibi fiunt, ubi non
sunt impetus magni et in contignationibus supra spatiosae
redduntur habitationes . . ."; "Testudinate courtyards are
employed when the span is not great, and they furnish
roomy apartments in the story above").[12] In contradistinction
to the other four types in which the courtyard was only
partially roofed over, the testudinate atrium house was a
house in which the inner court was entirely covered. It was
an atrium house in which the courtyard had lost the character
of an open space by being covered over with a second
story, but it was still an atrium house.[13] The Romans used
this type of construction in houses of relatively small
dimensions, as Vitruvius himself suggests, and probably in
response to restricted land conditions prevailing in the
crowded Roman cities.

The Roman atrium:
an open yard developing into a covered court

Schlosser's misinterpretation of Vitruvius' and Varro's
definitions of the displuviate and testudinate Roman atrium
house was in itself conditioned by the faulty historical
assumption held by many leading classical archaeologists
at that time, that the Roman atrium was originally not a
court but the principal living room of the house which
gradually developed into an open yard.[14] This theory was
taken up and widely propagated by one of the greatest
connoisseurs of Roman house construction, August Mau.[15]
But, curiously enough, it had not originated from any
archaeological evidence, which in fact seemed to contradict
it, but from a questionable etymological speculation by
certain Roman authors who believed that atrium came from
ater ("black") and referred to the blackening of the atrium

[ILLUSTRATION]

266. PLAN OF ST. GALL. BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF A RECONSTRUCTION OF THE PLAN OF THE
MONASTERY

MADE FOR J. R. RAHN BY GEORG LASIUS (1876, fig. 12, 91)

This is the first, and for its period, truly outstanding attempt to show in an accurately constructed bird's-eye view, what the monastery might
have looked like had it actually been built. It formed the basis of the three-dimensional model reconstruction shown in figure 267. Rahn's
interpretation of the guest and service buildings as covered basilican structures with central hearths and openings in the roofs above, serving as
smoke escape and light inlet, was a great improvement over Keller's (fig. 264) and Lenoir's interpretation, but like theirs, suffers from being
modeled after Classical prototypes rather than those historically and archaeologically related to those of the era and location of the Plan of
St. Gall.

[ILLUSTRATION]

267. ST. GALL. HISTORICAL MUSEUM OF ST. GALL

ARCHITECTURAL MODEL. A RECONSTRUCTION OF THE BUILDINGS OF THE PLAN

The model was made by the sculptor Jules Leemann of Geneva, in 1877, on the basis of drawings furnished by Georg Lasius and has ever since
been on display in the Historical Museum of the city of St. Gall. It is a masterpiece of its kind, built to scale, and executed with supreme
craftsmanship. Length of base: 70¼ inches (1.78m). Width: 49½ inches (1.25m). The roofs of the houses, as well as the Church, can be lifted,
exposing the furniture on the ground floor levels. The second stories, the Refectory and the Cellar can be lifted out in their entirety. The
reconstruction of Church, Cloister, and Novitiate are essentially correct. The height of the Church (a little over twice the width of the nave) is
excessive for the period. The reconstruction makes no distinction between masonry and timber. Entirely unconvincing is the design of the majority
of the guest and service structures (see caption, figure 266).

walls by the smoke from its hearth.[16] Since the beginning
of this century, this view has been increasingly challenged
by a trend of thought that holds that, on the contrary,
the Roman atrium was originally an open yard, which
gradually developed into a covered court. The main exponents
of this theory are Antonio Sogliano,[17] Giovanni
Patroni,[18] and Axel Boethius,[19] who believe the Roman
atrium house to be the product of a gradual transformation
of an early Italic farmstead, whose individual buildings
had been scattered loosely around a central open yard, into
an organized architectural system under the hands of the
Etruscan conquerors.

They assume that the principal building of this Italic
farmyard was a prostyle farmhouse with hearth and bedstead.
Through a gradual process of axial co-ordination
of this main house with the subsidiary structures and the
yard enclosure, the Etruscans, according to this theory,
developed the irregular Italic farmstead into the aggregate
depicted in figure 268. Two further developments, in their
opinion, led from this hypothetical prototype form to the
emergence of the classical Roman atrium house, the
"Pompeian primehouse"; the coalescence, namely, of the
roofs of the subsidiary structures with that of the main
house on one hand, and the roofing-over of the courtyard
on the other. As this process unfolds itself, the hearth is
shifted from the original farmhouse (now tablinum) into
one of the adjacent smaller rooms.[20]

Whatever the merits of this theory may be, this much
appears to be certain: we do not know of a single Roman
atrium house, excavated or otherwise attested, that shows
in the center of its covered court either the traces of a
hearth[21] or any evidence in the roof above it for the existence
of a protective lantern (testudo). In the Roman atrium
house this spot is the traditional place for the catch basin
(impluvium) and directly above it, in the roof, for a rainhole
(compluvium), which also served as air or light source
(fig. 265). The hearth lay, as a rule, in one of the smaller
chambers to the side of the tablinum, or in one of the other
peripheral cubicles, but in any case entirely outside the
atrium space. The testudo of the Roman atrium house, then,
is an altogether different architectural entity from the
device that carries this name on the Plan of St. Gall. The
latter device called testu on the Plan of St. Gall is coextensive
with the hearth site (and could very well be interpreted,
as Rahn suggested, as a protective shield or lantern
that covers an opening in the roof above the hearth); the
testudo of the Roman atrium house by contrast is the designation
for a shielding roof which covers the Roman atrium,
either as a peripheral shed (as in the atrium Tuscanum) or
as a continuous roof (as in the smaller and rarer atrium
testudinatum).

The ash-urn house of Poggio Gaiella

The same objections have to be raised with regard to Schlosser's
comparison of the St. Gall house with an Etruscan
ash urn from Poggio Gaiella (fig. 269) and other imitations

[ILLUSTRATION]

268. ARCHAIC ETRUSCO-ROMAN HOUSE. RECONSTRUCTION

REDRAWN FROM PATRONI, 1941, 294

Patroni's ideal conception shows the form that the early Italic farmstead had attained after individual buildings, formerly scattered loosely
around an open yard, were axially aligned into an organized architectural scheme by the Etruscan conquerors of the Italian peninsula about the
12th century B.C. The peak of Etruscan culture was achieved during the 6th century B.C.

of the displuviate atrium as they are found in the architecture
of some Etruscan tombs. All of these specimens belong
to the courtyard type. They have an opening at the very
spot where the St. Gall house calls for a protective cover,
and there is no suggestion whatsoever that their hearths lay
under this opening or had any functional or developmental
relation to this opening. If the St. Gall house were reconstructed
analogous to the house from Poggio Gaiella, it
would have its hearth on the very spot where every squall
of rain or sleet would kill the fire and drench the occupants
of the adjacent benches and tables. As well as it may have
been adapted to the temperate conditions of a southern
climate, the layout of the house from Poggio Gaiella would
hardly meet the housing requirements of a climate where
heavy downpours and freezing temperatures are matters of
course for periods of considerable duration.

FRANZ OELMANN, 1923-1924

A shaky premise

Whatever the merits of Schlosser's theories might have
been—and even if he had been correct in his assumption
that the Etruscan and Roman atrium houses that he discussed
were of truly basilican type—a problem of major
magnitude was still presented by the formidable gap—
chronological, topographical, and cultural—that separated
Rahn's St. Gall house from its presumptive Etruscan and
Early Roman prototypes. To bridge this gap Franz Oelmann,
in 1923/24, attempted to demonstrate that houses
of the Poggio Gaiella type (fig. 269) were common in Roman
imperial times and continued to be in use in the provincial
territories of Germany and Gaul even after they had been
conquered by the Franks.[22]

A faulty interpretation of the
Gallo-Roman courtyard house

Oelmann subscribed to Rahn's idea about the St. Gall
house and felt convinced that Schlosser was right in
defining it as a descendant of the Etruscan urn house of
Poggio Gaiella, which both he and Schlosser, however,
interpreted wrongly as a structure of basilican type. Oelmann
conceded that the city of Pompeii, with all its wealth
of architectural information, "does not furnish any convincing
parallels,"[23] then added, "but in the secular architecture,
not so much of Italy as of the Gallo-Germanic
provinces of the North, we can find analogies for practically
each and every subvariety of the houses of the Plan of St.
Gall."[24] He undertook to support this assertion by assembling
the plans of a considerable number of Gallo-Roman
houses and juxtaposing them, type by type, with what he
believed to be their constructional counterparts on the
Plan of St. Gall. In establishing these parallels, he adopted
a procedure, as unorthodox as it is startling, by simply
reversing the views of the archaeologists by whom these
houses had been excavated. The latter were convinced that
what they had unearthed were the foundations of typical
Roman courtyard houses, i.e., houses in which the rooms
were ranged peripherally around an open central court as
in the Roman atrium house. In two of them, a farmhouse
in the vicinity of the village of Nendeln, Liechtenstein
(fig. 270),[25] and a Roman villa in Bilsdorf, Luxembourg
(fig. 271),[26] they had found the remains of a large impluvium,
tangible evidence of the correctness of this interpretation.
Oelmann did not conceal these facts,[27] but simply
brushed them aside with the contention that what the
excavators declared to be an inner court was in reality a
covered hall, and that the rectangular basins found in the
center of these structures had to be interpreted not as catch
basins—as the excavators thought—but as hearths!

It is difficult for me to see how an experienced excavator
would confuse the straight and careful lining of a Roman
impluvium that had never been exposed to fire with the
scorched and blackened remains of a hearth whose rims
were never as regularly set; but what makes Oelmann's
categorical reversal of the thinking of his predecessors even
more perplexing is the fact that in one case at least, namely
that of the villa at Bilsdorf in Luxembourg, the excavator
had unearthed not only the remains of the catch basin
itself, but also a good portion of its drainage ditch. In his
account of the villa of Bilsdorf, Oelmann is guilty both of
factual distortion and of suppression of vital archaeological
evidence. He does not tell us that from the presence of heat
ducts found in the walls of chambers A and J (fig. 272) the
excavators had concluded that at least the avant-corps of
the villa must have been a double-storied structure. He
leaves us in ignorance about the fact that, while many of
the peripheral rooms were carefully paved with tiles (Rooms
B, C, and F) or opus signinum (Rooms A, M, L, K, and J),
the floor of the court consisted of nothing but stamped
clay. And least to be excused, he furnishes us with a plan

[ILLUSTRATION]

271. BILSDORF, LUXEMBOURG [after Oelmann, 1928, 127]

[ILLUSTRATION]

270. NENDELN, LIECHTENSTEIN [after Oelmann, 1928, 127]

Oelmann's rendering of the villa at Bilsdorf is a highly simplified version of the very detailed and exemplary plan published in 1910 by its excavators, E. and R.
Malget (fig. 272). It suppresses information (given in our caption to figs. 272-273) that makes incontrovertible the fact that the inner part of the house was an open
court surrounded by a covered walk, with a center opening (IMPLUVIUM) beneath which rain collected in a catch basin (COMPLUVIUM). Thus Oelmann's interpretation
of this villa as a house of basilican design is untenable.

The Bilsdorf villa was destroyed by fire, possibly set by invading Franks, toward the end of the 3rd century A.D. A welter of skeletal remains suggests the house burned
in the course of a violent battle. Both Bilsdorf and Nendeln are typical Roman standard houses with living quarters ranging around an open inner court, of the type
commonplace throughout the length and breadth of the Roman empire. For the original excavation report on Nendeln see S. Jenny, Mitteilungen der K.K.
Central Commission, XXIII, 1897, 121ff.

(fig. 271) that wholly suppresses[28] all of the four heating
units (two furnaces, one hypocaust, and one brazier) that
the excavator found in the peripheral chambers (Rooms A,
C, F, and J) and carefully recorded in his own original plan
(fig. 272). All this evidence taken into account suggests
precisely what its excavator thought it to suggest—namely,
that the villa of Bilsdorf was a classical example of the
tetrastyle Roman atrium house, i.e., a house in which a
peripheral suite of rooms, ranged all around a central open
court, was surrounded by a covered walk that had a large
rectangular opening in the middle of the roof through which
the rain drained off into a central basin in the floor beneath
it. The rooms could be heated by classical Roman heating
devices (hypocaust, furnaces, brazier), either in pairs or
individually. In the tetrastyle Roman atrium house, Vitruvius
tells us, the roof of the surrounding gallery of the
court "was supported at the angles by columns."[29] In the
villa of Bilsdorf all of the base blocks of these posts were
found still in their original emplacement. In its vertical
elevation, then, the villa of Bilsdorf bore not the slightest
resemblance to Rahn's St. Gall house, but rather might be
imagined to have looked like the house shown in figure
273.[30]

What I have tried to demonstrate with regard to the villa
of Bilsdorf holds true for all of Oelmann's other comparisons.
In not a single case could he actually demonstrate
on the basis of controllable evidence that his houses looked
as he claimed them to look; and in whatever cases I have
been able to check, his own interpretation of the facts
either contradicted that of the men by whom these houses
had been excavated or were open to at least one other
explanation.

In claiming that Oelmann's attempt to trace the missing
Gallo-Roman prototypes of Rahn's St. Gall house was a
failure, I do not mean to imply that houses of the type that
Oelmann had in mind might not have existed. But as long
as the proof of their existence rests on authoritative assertion
rather than on archaeological demonstration, I cannot
see how such a house type could be used as a prototype
form for the reconstruction of the guest and service structures
of the Plan of St. Gall.

A faulty interpretation of "testu"

While Oelmann agreed with Rahn's interpretation of the
St. Gall house as a structure of basilican type, he took
exception to the latter's explanation of the testu[do] square
as a lantern surmounting a smoke hole in the roof above the
fireplace. Such a device, he claims, is attested to neither by
classical nor by medieval house construction. He suggests,
instead, that what the drafter of the Plan of St. Gall had
in mind is more likely to have been a huge freestanding
chimney stack on pillars or arches, which rose from the
ground to the ridge of the roof, protruding through the
latter, and ejected its smoke into the open air (fig. 274).[31]
But here again the reader is not furnished with any corroborating
historical evidence. That Rahn's testudines have no
equivalents in classical Greek and Roman architecture may
well be the case, but the assertion that they are not attested

to in the Middle Ages is easily contested.[32] And as far as
Oelmann's own suggestion is concerned, it must be pointed
out that all the presumptive medieval parallels that he
adduces turn out upon inspection to pertain not to houses
but to kitchens.[33] The reader will recall that the squares on
the Plan of St. Gall which are alternately designated as
locus foci and as testu[do] are by no means confined to the
houses for distinguished persons. They are an integral part
of even the humblest among the stables. It is difficult to
imagine that an extremely tall and costly masonry stack
such as Oelmann had in mind should have adorned the
houses of swineherds, shepherds, and goatherds at a period
when such devices were a novel rarity even in the dwellings
of the nobles. Most perplexing of all, however, is
Oelmann's identification of the term testu[do] with "chimney
stack"—an equation that finds no support on any
grounds—since it is neither possible to demonstrate that
the term was ever used in this sense in classical or medieval
Latin, nor reasonable to presume that it might ever have
been used in this manner. Its basic meanings (protective
shield, covering lid, tortoise, turtle shell[34] ) are in outright
conflict with the idea of a hollow flue or duct which underlies
the concept of a smokestack.

V.1.2

THE NORTHERN SCHOOL

All the theories heretofore reviewed have in common the
fact that they attempted to explain the guest and service
structures of the Plan of St. Gall in the light of house types
presumed to have existed in Etruscan, Roman, and Gallo-Roman
times. The most ardent exponent of this school,
Franz Oelmann, expressed himself in no uncertain terms
when he summarized his views with the phrase, "The Plan
of St. Gall, then, must be derived in its entirety from the
Classical tradition, i.e., from Roman architecture, and of
Northern influences . . . there can be no question whatsoever."[35]
The uncompromising fervor of this assertion is
clear evidence that at the time these lines were written, the
issue had already entered a highly controversial phase.
And indeed, as early as the last two decades of the nineteenth
century, the views of the classicists had begun to be
progressively challenged by the speculation of an opposing
school that proposed to reconstruct the guest and service
structures of the Plan of St. Gall in the light of northern
rather than classical building traditions. The seeds of this
theory may actually be discovered in the writings of some
of the exponents of the classical school. When Rahn, in
1876, interpreted the testu[do] squares as symbols for a
lantern-surmounted opening in the roof above the hearth,
he breached the thinking of the classicists, since this was a
solution suggested by analogy with northern rather than
with southern building types. Yet, apart from this "intrusive"
detail, Rahn's reconstruction was essentially a product
of the classical school. A square attack on the theories
of the latter, however, was launched in 1882 by Rudolf
Henning.

RUDOLF HENNING, 1882

In a study entitled "Das Deutsche Haus in seiner historischen
Entwickelung,"[36] Rudolf Henning stressed the resemblance
of the plan of the St. Gall house to certain
house types still used in Upper Germany and in Switzerland,
in territories once occupied by Frankish, Alamannic,
and Bajuvarian tribes. In dwellings of this type (fig. 275)
such as is exemplified by a house from the Engadin in
Switzerland, the hearth is, as a rule, located in a common
center room (Eren) from which access is gained to all the
subsidiary outer rooms. It is surmounted by a wooden
smoke flue of pyramidal shape which projects beyond the
roof like a chimney and can be closed and opened by an
adjustable lid. A similar arrangement is found even today
in old farmhouses of Denmark (fig. 276). Henning did not
propose that the St. Gall house was equipped with such a
smoke flue. He believed, on the contrary, that it had an
open hearth and, in the roof above the hearth, a lantern-surmounted
opening that served as a smoke outlet and as a
light source. He imagined the St. Gall house to have been a
spacious, steep-roofed structure with inner wall partitions
that did not obstruct the view of its enclosing walls and
rafters. He felt supported in this assumption by a passage
in the Lex Alamannorum which makes the paternal right
of inheritance dependent on the ability of the newborn
child to encompass the roof and the four corners of the
house as he opens his eyes.[37] The existence of a house of
this description, Henning felt, must be postulated as the
medieval prototype form of the modern Swiss and Upper

[ILLUSTRATION]

BILSDORF (HAUTE SURE), LUXEMBOURG. PLAN OF A ROMAN VILLA

272.A

272.B

[redrawn after Malget, 1909, 354]

Malget describes features of the villa's rooms:

A. Heatable room with brick-column supported, raised floor of limestone-bedded,
crushed rubble. Within it: socle for an altar (a); brick-paved area for the
brazier probably used to heat the room (m); tile smoke flues (d).

B. Room with limestone-bedded crushed rubble floor.

C. Tile-paved room with hypocaust, heated by furnace (e).

D. Room with crushed brick floor.

E. Lodging for slaves (floor material not identified).

F. Room paved with rectangular brick.

G. Unpaved room, probably for slaves assigned to heat F.

H. Room paved with stamped clay; I, room paved with stamped clay, probably,
for slaves heating J.

J. Warming room over hypocaust heated by furnace in I, with raised floor
(unidentified substance) supported on brick columns.

German farmhouses with central hearth and central accessibility
of the subsidiary outer rooms; and, in the houses of
the Plan of St. Gall, he believed to have discovered the
first pictorial evidence of this prototype form. The development
that leads from this archetype to its modern derivative,
Henning assumed, was characterized by the gradual
substitution of a stone-built stove with smoke flue for the
originally open fireplace, and by the removal of the light
source from the ridge of the roof to the walls, which became
necessary when the opening in the ridge was obstructed by
the installation of a central smoke stack.

The beginnings of this displacement of the open fireplace
by stone-built stoves, Henning suggested, may already be
observed in some of the more distinguished structures of
the Plan of St. Gall, such as the House for Distinguished
Guests, where the common central fireplace is already
supplemented by stone-built corner fireplaces.

KARL GUSTAV STEPHANI, 1902-1903, AND
CHRISTIAN RANCK, 1907

Henning refrained from embodying his ideas about the
St. Gall house in a visual form, and in the fifty years that
followed, this theory found neither support nor acceptance.
The views expressed in Karl Gustav Stephani's encyclopedic
work on the early German dwelling and its furnishings,[38]
as well as those in Christian Ranck's percursory but
widely read cultural history of the German farmhouse,[39]
are literal repetitions of Julius von Schlosser and show that

[ILLUSTRATION]

273. BILSDORF (HAUTE SURE), LUXEMBOURG. PERSPECTIVE VIEW

AUTHORS' RECONSTRUCTION

K. Vestibule with damaged crushed rubble floor.

L. Water basin reached from K by steps paved in square brick.

M. Entrance hall with concrete floor of limestone, broken brick, and sand on a
dry-stone bed.

N. Rain catch-basin (impluvium) set in a square of opus signinum; the rest of
the atrium was paved with red clay. (Judging from the many pieces of
slate found scattered through the atrium, we may assume the house was
roofed in slate.)

Figure 273:

Of square plan but for the generous setback of the entrance wing, the villa's
size (over 80 × 80 feet on the ground floor) and its double-storied corner wings
made it a structure of imposing presence. The reconstruction above is based on
Malget's description, which holds a wealth of specific detail.

the work of even those who specialized in the history of the
German house was still entirely under the spell of the
thinking of the classicist. But in the third decade of this
century, the method that Henning had initiated, namely,
that of attempting to reconstruct the St. Gall house in the
light of its modern derivatives rather than of its historical
prototypes, found a sudden revival in a number of visual
reconstructions that marked a complete departure from
the thinking of the classical school. These reconstructions
(figs. 277-281) came from the hands of men who were not
primarily historians but professional architects, and they
were the product of intuitive speculation rather than of
documentative historical study. The first of these was made
by H. Fiechter-Zollikofer in 1936.

H. FIECHTER-ZOLLIKOFER, 1936

Mr. Fiechter-Zollikofer, a Swiss engineer, wrote an article
entitled "Etwas vom St. Galler Klosterplan aus der Zeit
um 820," which was published in the Schweizerische Technische
Zeitschrift,[40] a journal not normally read by the
architectural historian of the Middle Ages. In this article
Fiechter-Zollikofer reproduced not only an over-all reconstruction
of the entire monastery shown on the Plan of St.
Gall, in bird's-eye view (fig. 277), but also a separate reconstruction
of the exterior of the Outer School (fig. 278), the

[ILLUSTRATION]

PLAN OF ST. GALL. OUTER SCHOOL. INTERPRETATION OF OELMANN (1923-4). AUTHORS' DRAWING

274.C WITH ROOFS

Like Rahn (see figs. 266-267) Oelmann interprets the St. Gall
house as a structure of basilican elevation with a large central hall
rising above the roofs of the perpheral rooms and receiving its light
through windows in the clerestory walls.

274.B WITHOUT ROOFS AND WALLS PARTLY REMOVED

In contrast to Rahn (figs. 266-267) Oelmann interprets the squares,
which on the Plan are alternatingly referred to as TESTU (i.e.
lantern) and LOCUS FOCI (i.e. hearth) as freestanding chimneys
rising all the way up to and through the ridge of the house. This
interpretation of TESTU is philologically not convincing.

274.A WITHOUT ROOFS, AND FULL HEIGHT WALLS

The real weakness of Oelmann's interpretation lies in its bases on
purely theoretical considerations, giving no heed to the vernacular
building tradition of the north (not well understood and known in
Oelmann's days) which offers better and more convincing parallels
for the interpretation of the guest and service buildings of the Plan
(see below, pp. 88ff).

Until challenged by student who felt that the guest and service buildings of the Plan should be interpreted in light of the vernacular building
tradition of the north, this interpretation prevailed. But its proponents could not prove that houses of this type existed in Carolingian times.

exterior of the Abbot's House (fig. 254), as well as a number
of perspectives and cuts of the church and the claustral
structures.

Fiechter-Zollikofer was convinced that the traditional
concept of the St. Gall house as a dwelling that received
its light in the Italian manner through windows in its
clerestory walls was incompatible with the climatical conditions
prevailing in transalpine Europe, and that a solution
infinitely better adapted to the rain and snowswept foothills
of the Alps could be found if the St. Gall house were
reconstructed in the light of certain rural timber dwellings
still used in many districts of Switzerland.

Accordingly, he reconstructs the St. Gall house as a
low-roofed, low-walled gable house of logs with corner-timbered
protruding beams (fig. 278). The center room
of this house receives its light through a large tapering
shaft mounted upon the ridge of the roof which could be
opened and closed through an adjustable lid (fig. 279); the
outer rooms were lighted through windows in the peripheral
log walls. Fiechter-Zollikofer's reconstruction is the first
attempt to interpret the guest and service structures of
the Plan of St. Gall in the light of an actually existing
vernacular house type. It is a handsome reconstruction,
but the prototype after which it is modeled, the Alpine
log house, is too closely associated with local conditions to
have been adopted in a master plan that was drawn up for
the whole of the Frankish empire. Log construction depends
on abundant stands of fir trees, such as are available in the
Alps, the Black Forest, and the mountain ranges of Scandinavia;
but in the lowlands this material was lacking.

Moreover, Fiechter-Zollikofer did not enter into any
detailed analysis of the internal layout of these houses. He
did not support his reconstructions with any specific parallels
with comparable structures still in existence, or attempt
to trace this house type to its historical past.

OTTO VÖLCKERS, 1937

Fiechter-Zollikofer's article had barely been published when
the German architect, Otto Völckers, touched upon the
problem of the St. Gall house in a small, handsomely
illustrated book in which he reviewed the history of the
European house from the Stone Age to the present.[41]
Völckers exemplified his views with a reconstruction of
St. Gall's House for Distinguished Guests (fig. 280). This
he imagines to have been a steep-roofed structure, hipped-over
on the narrow ends of the building. The walls are low
and masonry-built with windows giving light to the external
rooms. The center room is lighted by an opening in the
ridge above the hearth site, which also serves as a smoke
outlet and is surmounted by a small protective roof that
shields the opening against any downpour. The heating
units in the bedrooms of the distinguished guests are
interpreted as corner fireplaces with masonry stacks protruding
through the roof above them. Völckers did not discuss

[ILLUSTRATION]

276. DANISH FARM HOUSE

[after Steensberg, 1943, 20, fig. 7]

A north European variant of the house type shown in figure 275.
Chimney-surmounted hearths of this type work well in relatively
small houses, but would involve constructional hazards of frightening
magnitude in most of the larger houses of the Plan of St. Gall.

A BAKING OVEN

B MALT KILN

C KETTLE

D FIRE RECESS

E HEATER

F MANTLE

[ILLUSTRATION]

277. PLAN OF ST. GALL. BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF THE MONASTERY

RECONSTRUCTION BY FIECHTER-ZOLLIKOFER [1936, 405, fig. 2]

A great advance over the reconstructions offered by the classicists (figs. 266, 267 and 274) and the first attempt to interpret the guest and
service structures of the Plan of St. Gall in the light of an existing building tradition—wholly workable in structural terms, yet too dependent
on local alpine conditions (log construction) to be applicable to a document worked out in the heart of the Frankish Empire and conceived to
reflect more general conditions.

the structure in any further detail, but judging from an
interior view of the dining room (fig. 281) which he published
in a subsequent book,[42] he appears to think of the
inner wall partitions as likewise being built as solid masonry
walls.

KARL GRUBER, 1937

The same year that Völckers published his pictorial review
of the history of the German house, and probably independent
of both Völckers' and Fiechter-Zollikofer's proposal,
Karl Gruber published still another reconstruction of the
Plan, in bird's-eye view, in a superbly illustrated book,
entitled Die Gestalt der deutschen Stadt (fig. 282).[43] Like
Fiechter-Zollikofer, Gruber reconstructs the St. Gall house
as a house with low pitched roof and straight gable walls on
the narrow sides. It receives its light from windows in the
supporting walls and emits the smoke of its hearth through
a louver in the ridge of the roof. The latter, as in Völckers'
reconstruction, is rendered as a miniature roof, raised above
the level of the main roof to protect the opening over the
hearth site. Gruber is not specific about the material used
in the construction of his houses. The uniform mode of the
rendering of the walls suggests that he thought of them as
being built in masonry.

V.1.3

A RENASCENCE
OF THE CLASSICAL SCHOOL

ALAN SORRELL, 1966

The interpretations of Fiechter-Zollikofer (1936), Völckers
(1937), and Gruber (1937) represented a radical departure

[ILLUSTRATION]

278. PLAN OF ST. GALL. OUTER SCHOOL

[Interpretation by Fiechter-Zollikofer, 1936, 407, fig. 6]

The St. Gall house is here reconstructed as a low-roofed, low-walled
gable house, of log construction, the center room receiving its light
through a tapering wooden shaft mounted upon the ridge of the
roof (see fig. 279).

from the views of the classicists by discarding all reference
to Roman or Gallo-Roman house construction. In 1965
this trend was reversed by a dramatic reconstruction painting
published in a beautifully illustrated book, The Dark
Ages, under the general editorship of a distinguished
Byzantinist, David Talbot Rice.[44] The painting (fig. 283)
carries the signature of Alan Sorrell and is executed in the
flamboyant chiaroscuro that characterizes the hand of this
great interpretive draftsman to whom we owe so many
other impressive reconstructions of medieval and Anglo-Roman
buildings now in ruin.

Unluckily, the scholarship that accompanied this drawing
is not commensurate with the skill of its draftsmanship.
The Church with its steep proportions and its elaborate
blind relief of pilasters and arches looks more like a
Romanesque cathedral than a Carolingian monastery

church. The design of the houses for the animals and their
keepers which occupy the tract to the west of the Church,
conversely, is a return to the superannuated concept of the
courtyard house, proposed by Keller in 1844 and by Lenoir
in 1852. The majority of the guest and service structures
are rendered as buildings of basilican design, in conformity
with the views expressed by Rahn in 1876, Schlosser in
1889, and Oelmann in 1923-4. Sorrell was obviously not
familiar with any of the reconstruction drawings published
by the opposing school (Fiechter-Zollikofer, Völckers, and
Gruber), nor for that matter with a reconstruction of my
own published by Poeschel in 1957 and by myself in 1958.[45]

[ILLUSTRATION]

280. PLAN OF ST. GALL. EXTERIOR PERSPECTIVE
HOUSE FOR DISTINGUISHED GUESTS

[as interpreted by Völckers, 1949, 34]

Völkers reconstructs the St. Gall house—correctly in our opinion—as a
steep-roofed structure hipped at the narrow ends, its center room lighted
by an opening in the ridge that is surmounted by a small protective roof.

[ILLUSTRATION]

281. PLAN OF ST. GALL. INTERIOR PERSPECTIVE
HOUSE FOR DISTINGUISHED GUESTS

[as interpreted by Völckers, 1949, 18]

The large center hearth on the Plan is termed "locus foci." Along the
walls are tables and benches where visitors and their servants take meals.
The rooms under the hipped portions of the roof are heated by their own
fireplaces.

His reconstruction gives the impression of being based on
the description of the Plan published in 1848 by Robert
Willis, who recognized that Keller's interpretation of the
St. Gall house as a courtyard house conflicted with the
inscriptions of the Plan, but did not relinquish this interpretation
in the case of houses for animals and their keepers.

V.1.4

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

Thus, by the sixth decade of this century the discussion
of the guest and service structures of the Plan of St. Gall
still remains stalemated by two opposing schools. The
classicists had tried to explain the St. Gall house in the
light of a presumptive Roman or Romano-Etruscan type
of house that antedated the Plan of St. Gall by over a
millennium, and whose existence they could not really
prove. On the other hand, the house types on which the
reconstructions of the opposing school were based reached
no further back than the sixteenth, or at best, the end of
the fifteenth century. The proponents of neither of these
two contending approaches were able to demonstrate that
the type of building they had in mind was actually in use
at the time the Plan was drawn. And the great cultural
alternative that Henning had raised in 1882—the suggestion
that the guest and service structures of the Plan of
St. Gall should be interpreted in the light of northern
building tradition rather than in the light of classical
Roman architecture—still loomed as an unsolved problem
over the entire controversy.

Oelmann had summarized this condition correctly in
1923-4, by stating, "The entire quibble about the Northern-Germanic
or Southern-Roman derivation will only be
decided once the existence of layouts that correspond
exactly can be proven in either one or the other area."[46]
However, he added to this statement a passage of questionable
validity when he amplified it with the remark, "The
North is totally excluded, for neither are any contemporary
house remains preserved which would be worthy of mention,
nor is it possible to infer from later specimens earlier forms
of an identical type."

Doubtful in 1923-4, Oelmann's latter idea had become
untenable by 1971 (when this chapter was written).
It is true that at the time of Oelmann's writing research
into the problem of the Northern house was still in its
infancy. Nevertheless, some significant discoveries about
transalpine house construction in the Middle Ages had
already been made in Sweden and on the islands of Gotland
and Iceland.[47] To be sure these were few and scattered;

[ILLUSTRATION]

282. PLAN OF ST. GALL. BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF THE MONASTERY

RECONSTRUCTION BY KARL GRUBER (1937, 25, fig. 15)

This handsome reconstruction was published in the same year that Otto Völckers published his reconstruction of the St. Gall house (figs. 280-81).
In structural terms Gruber's concept is as workable as that of Völckers and Fiechter-Zollikofer (figs. 277-278), but the conjecture that the guest
and service buildings would all have been constructed in masonry in a part of the world where houses were by tradition built in timber (see
pp. 23ff) is unconvincing.

Very interesting and historically defensible, but not supported by the Plan itself (see I, 163ff) is Gruber's conjecture of a tower over the
intersection of nave and transept. Abbot Haito's church at Reichenau (I, fig. 117) and the abbey church of St. Riquier (I, fig. 196) had such
towers.

[ILLUSTRATION]

283. PLAN OF ST. GALL. BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF THE MONASTERY

RECONSTRUCTION. PERSPECTIVE BY ALAN SORRELL (Rice, 1965, 279-280)

The design of the houses for animals and their keepers (foreground) is based on the superannuated concept of the courtyard house, proposed by
Keller in 1844 (fig. 264). Most of the other houses are interpreted as basilican structures, in conformity with suggestions made by Rahn in
1876 (fig. 266), Schlosser in 1889, and Oelmann in 1923-24 (fig. 274). Sorrell was not familiar with the writing and reconstructions of scholars
who interpreted the St. Gall house in the light of northern building traditions (fig. 277, 278, 280).

but the numerical lack of strong, convincing archaeological
material was made good to a considerable extent by the
availability of a substantial body of literary and textual
references to house construction which had been touched
upon as early as 1882 by Rudolf Henning[48] and was discussed
at length in 1902-3 by Karl Gustav Stephani's
comprehensive treatise on the German dwelling.[49]

During the last three decades this material has been
enriched by a veritable flood of archaeological discoveries
bearing upon the problem. As I propose to deal with this
material at length in a separate study, I shall review it here
only to the extent necessary for the typological identification
of the guest and service structures of the Plan.

V. 2

PREHISTORIC, PROTOHISTORIC
& EARLY MEDIEVAL PROTOTYPES
OF GUEST & SERVICE BUILDINGS
OF THE PLAN OF ST. GALL

V.2.1

LITERARY EVIDENCE

THE NORTH GERMANIC HOUSE OF THE
SAGA PERIOD

In 1889 the Icelandic literary historian and philogist
Valtyr Gudmundsson[50] was able to demonstrate, on the
basis of a careful and painstaking analysis of words and
passages in the Nordic Sagas referring to the layout and
construction of houses, that the Germanic standard house
of the Saga Period (ninth to thirteenth centuries) in Norway,
Sweden, Denmark, and Iceland was a three-aisled
timber structure with an open fireplace (eldr, "fire" or
arinn, "hearth") in the middle of its center aisle (golf);
that this house received its light through an opening in
the roof (ljóri, "light inlet"), which also served as a smoke
outlet (hence also referred to as reykháfr or reykberi, "smoke
hole,") and which could be closed and opened by means of
ropes or poles; that the roof (ráf or ræfr) of this house
was supported by a free-standing inner frame of timber,
composed of two longitudinal rows of uprights (súlur,
stafir, stođir, stolpar, and sometimes more specifically referred
to as innstafir or innstolpar, "inner posts," in contradistinction
to the útstafir, the corresponding "outer" or
"wall posts"), which were connected lengthwise by means
of roof plates (ásar or langvidir, "long beams") and crosswise
by means of tie beams (vagl, vaglbiti or þvertrè,
"crosstree"). Gudmundsson summarized his findings
visually in a plan and a perspective view of the interior of
the Saga house, drawn up for him by E. Rondahl (figs. 284
A-B).[51] He demonstrated that this house type could be used
for a variety of purposes, without changing any of its basic
dispositions. It served, as circumstances demanded, as a
general living house (stofa or stufa), as a dining or festal
hall (drykkjuskáli, veizluskáli), as kitchen or fire house
(elda skáli), as sleeping hall (skáli or hviluskáli), even, as a
hay or cattle barn (hlađa or fjóshlađa). In the early days—
and subsequently in the lower social strata—all these functions
were performed simultaneously under one roof; later,
as increasing wealth and social prestige permitted, they
were progressively relegated to separate buildings.

Gudmundsson could establish that in the general living
house as well as in the festal or banqueting hall the floors
of the aisles (langpallar) and of the cross bay at the upper end
of the house were, in general, raised above the level of the
center floor and covered with wooden planks. Long benches
(langbekkir) and tables (borđ) were set up in the aisles
parallel to the two long walls of the house and also crosswise
along the gable wall at the rear of the house. This raised
section at the innermost part of the house was referred to as
the crossbench (þverpallr).

The chieftain or owner of the house sat on his high seat
(œdra öndvegi, "first seat of honor") in the middle of one
of the two long benches (i miđju bekk) while his principal
guest of honor occupied the second best high seat (úœdra
öndvegi) in the middle of the opposite bench. The women sat
on the crossbench at the rear of the house. The fire
crackled in the middle of the center floor. The entrance lay,
in general, in the center of one of the two gable sides of the
house, and was often separated from the rest of the house by
an entrance hall (forstofa, forskáli) which occupied the foremost
bay of the house, forming a counterpart to the women's
cross bench at the opposite gable. Often this entrance bay
was separated from the main space by a cross partition
(þverpili), which had in its center a second or inner door.
The walls of the Saga house (veggir, or, more specifically,
langveggir, "long wall," and gaflveggir, "gable walls") were,
as a rule, constructed of earth or turf (torfi), and insulated
inside with a wooden paneling (veggþili). The rafters rose
from wall plates (syllr or staflægjur) and converged at the
top in a ridge beam (mœniáss) which was carried by short
king posts (dvergr, "dwarf post") rising from the center of
the tie beams.

From numerous incidental references to the house, made
in the dramatic accounts of battles waged when a householder
and his family were attacked in their sleep and
forced to rise to defend themselves, Gudmundsson could
infer that the sleeping house (skáli) was divided lengthwise,
like the stofa, into a center aisle and two lateral
aisles and received its warmth from an open fire that burned
in the middle of the center floor. As in the stofa, the floors
of the lateral aisles were raised above the level of the center
aisle and covered with wooden planks. But instead of
supporting tables, the aisle floors of the skáli (called set)
were covered with a bedding of straw and subdivided
crosswise into individual sleeping compartments by means
of rugs or "hangings" (sængarklæđi) suspended from cross
beams. Each compartment was sufficiently large to accommodate
two people (sengefeller, "bedfellows") lying parallel
to the walls of the building, one outside (fyrir ofan) or near

[ILLUSTRATION]

284.A THE NORTH GERMANIC HOUSE
OF THE SAGA PERIOD, 9TH-13TH CENTURIES

[after Rosenberg, 1894, 257, fig. 9]

The house is entered through one of its gable walls. Its center floor
(a,a) is made of stamped clay; b,b,b are open fireplaces framed by
stones. The aisles are slightly raised (c,c) and covered with wooden
boards. They accommodate the benches and tables for the men (f,g).
The terminal bay, with the benches and tables for the women (e.g)
is treated in the same manner; h is a table from which food and
drinks are served; i,i are footstools in front of the high seats; j is a
secret door for escape through an underground channel should the
principal entrance be blocked by enemies. The walls are built in a
mixture of earth, rubble and turves.

the wall paneling (vid þili), the other inside (fyrir framan)
or near the sleeper beam (vid stokk, i.e., the floor beam that
forms the edge of the slightly raised level of the aisles). The
bedsteads of the master and his wife were often separated
from the adjoining bedsteads by means of a wooden wall
partition, so as to form a bed closet (rekkja) that could be
locked and was then called a lokhvílu (lockable closet). One
or two further closets of this type were frequently installed
for persons next in rank or for guests of honor.

In like manner the aisles of the cattle barns were subdivided
into individual cross compartments for the stabling
of the livestock.

As one reviews this evidence one cannot fail to be struck
by the amazing similarity of the North-Germanic Saga
house, spatially and functionally, with that of the guest and
service structures of the Plan of St. Gall. Both have as
nucleus an open center space accessible to all, which gives
admittance to a peripheral suite of outer spaces surrounding
the center space on three or all four sides. In both, the
hearth lies in the middle of the center space and has in
the roof above it a shielded opening that serves as a smoke
outlet. In both this layout is used, either separately or
combined, without requiring the slightest alterations of its
basic dispositions, as shelter for the people, as shelter for
their livestock, and as shelter for the harvest.

There are, to be sure, some distinctive differences. The
Saga house has its entrance, in general, in the middle of one
of its gable walls; that of the St. Gall House is, in the
majority of cases, in the middle of one of its long walls. Yet
three of the St. Gall houses belong to the former type.[52]
Another difference is to be found in the fact that in such
buildings as the House for Distinguished Guests and the
Hospice for Pilgrims and Paupers, the tables and benches
are ranged around the periphery of the center space (figs.
392 and 396). In the Saga house they are set up in the
aisles and on the cross bench. Only on extraordinary
occasions, namely, when the throng of visitors was so
great that they could not all be accommodated in the aisles
and on the cross bench, were special rows of chairs set up
in the nave of the hall. A typical case in point is the fateful
wedding banquet given in the winter of 1253 in Gizur
Thorvaldsson's home at Flugumyr (figs. 328A-B). The
number of guests attending this party amounted to well
over a hundred men (á œdra hundradi). Since Gizur's dining
hall was only 26 ells long and 12 ells broad (stofan var
sex álna ok tottugu löng, en tólf alna breiđ), the host gave
orders that in addition to all the seats that could be placed
in the aisles (the seating capacity of the aisles and of the
cross bench had already been doubled by the setting up of
an outer row of forechairs), two further rows of stools
should be set up in the center aisle. The latter were borrowed
from the church. "And lengthwise all along the
two benches there were forechairs and all along the center
aisle church stools were set up on which people sat in two
rows."[53] Finally, the outer spaces of the St. Gall house
appear to have been more rigidly separated from the center
space than was the case in the house of the Sagas. But of
this there will be more to say in a later chapter.

[ILLUSTRATION]

284.B THE NORTH GERMANIC HOUSE OF THE SAGA PERIOD, 9TH-13TH CENTURIES

PERSPECTIVE VIEW OF INTERIOR, MADE FOR V. GUDMUNDSSON by E. RONDAHL [after Rosenberg, 1894, 257, fig. 10]

The hall was warmed by a fire burning in the middle of the center floor. An opening in the roof above the hearth served as smoke escape and
admitted light and air to the interior. In the aisles on either side of the fire: to the left the high seat of the owner, to the right the seat for his
most distinguished guest. Between them: the high seat pillars, part of the roof-supporting frame of timbers, but decoratively carved and sacred
to the gods.

THE EARLY MEDIEVAL HOUSE IN THE TERRITORY
OF THE ALAMANNI, THE BAJUVARIANS, AND
THE FRANKS, IN THE
LIGHT OF CONTEMPORARY LEGAL CODES

Gudmundsson's findings are restricted to the Germanic
territories of Sweden, Denmark, Norway, and Iceland,[54]
and cannot, of course, be automatically applied to continental

[ILLUSTRATION]

THE NORTH GERMAN HOUSE OF
THE SAGA PERIOD, 9th-13th CENT.

285.B EXTERIOR VIEW

285.A INTERIOR VIEW

[author's interpretation modified from Walter Schultz]

These sketches attempt to render the appearance of a typical house
of the Saga Period and to demonstrate in particular that the house
received its air and light not through windows in the walls (which
would have made the dwelling too vulnerable to hostile intrusion)
but through an opening in the roof, which also served as smoke
escape and was itself surmounted by a small roof raised slightly above
the level of the main roof. The walls were built of turves and often
even the roof itself was covered with them (cf. fig. 292), blending
house and landscape in a continuous carpeting of grass.

Europe where conditions may have been more
complex. Fortunately the information that Gudmundsson
could extract from the Sagas can be supplemented by some
extremely informative Continental sources. Significant documentary
evidence concerning house construction in the
territory of the Alamanni, the Bajuvarians, and the Franks
is scattered through a number of early medieval legal codes
that regulate, among other matters, the compensation to
be adjudged for damage wrought upon a dwelling and its
sundry appendages.[55]

LEX ALAMANNORUM

The earliest document of this nature is the so-called Lex
Alamannorum, an Alamannic code of law laid down between
716 and 719 by an assembly of thirty-four dukes, thirty-three
bishops, and sixty-five counts, under the presidency
of Duke Lantfrid I (d. 730).[56] Article 82 of this code, which
fixes the compensation for arson, bears out what Tacitus
had stated some seven centuries earlier about the loosely
scattered character of Germanic settlements. This article
establishes the following sanctions:[57] If at night a man sets
somebody's house (domus) or hall (sala) on fire and is
caught and found guilty, he is bound not only to restore
whatever he has destroyed by fire but, in addition, to pay a
fine of 40 shillings. If he lays fire to any other houses in the
yard (in curte), viz., the barn (scuria or granica) or the
storehouse (cellarium), he must likewise compensate for the
inflicted damage and settle with an additional fine of 21
shillings.

Fines are specified in the same manner for damage and
destruction to all the other service structures, the bathhouse
(stuba), the sheepfold (ovilis), and the pigsty (porcaricia),
as well as the houses and barns for the serfs (servi
domus, scura servi, spicaria servi). From this it follows that

the Alamannic farmstead of the beginning of the eighth
century consisted of a group of separate buildings in a
common yard (curtis); its principal structures were the
house (domus) and the hall (sala). Whether domus and sala
are synonymous or indicate a separation of the principal
unit into a living house (domus) and an eating hall (sala)
remains uncertain.

From another passage in the same Lex Alamannorum
we gather incidentally some insight into the inner architectural
layout of such a dwelling. Article 94 states that if a
mother dies in childbirth, leaving a child who expires
after having lived for one hour and opened his eyes during
this time so that he could see the ridge (culmen) and the
four walls (iv parietes) of the house, the maternal inheritance
will fall to the father.[58] This stipulation presupposes a
building open to the roof with internal subdivisions, whatever
they might have been, that did not obstruct the
simultaneous visibility, from the mother's bedstead, of the
four walls of the house and of the ridge of its roof.[59]

LEX BAJUVARIORUM

Information of a considerably more specific nature can be
obtained from the Lex Bajuvariorum. This code of law,
which is slightly later than the Alamannic Law, on which
it draws in part, was compiled between 740 and 748 at a
time when the territory of the Bajuvarians was already
under the firm control of the Franks.[60] Article 10 deals with
arson and the compensation imposed for the destruction of
buildings or their component structural parts by fire or any
other means. The information contained in this article is
so vital to the history of early medieval house construction
that it deserves to be quoted in full:

[ILLUSTRATION]

BRONZE SCANDANAVIAN ORNAMENT. LATE IRON AGE (6TH CENTURY)
UPPLAND. Length 10cm. Redrawn from Marten Stenberger.

ARTICLE 10

De incendio domorum et eorum conpositione.

1. Si quis super aliquem in nocte ignem inposuerit et incenderit
liberi [vel servi] domum, inprimis secundum qualitatem personae omnia
aedificia conponat atque restituat, et quicquid ibi arserit, restituat
unaquaeque subiectilia. Et quanti liberi nudi evaserint de ipso incendio,
unumquemque cum sua hrevevunti conponat; de feminis vero
dupletur. Tunc domui culmen cum XL solidis conponat.

2. De scoria vero liberis, si conclusa parietibus et pessulis cum clave
munita fuerit, cum XII solidis culmen conponat; si autem septa non
fuerit, sed talis quod Baiuvarii scof dicunt, absque parietibus, cum VI
solidis conponat.

De illo granario, quod parc appellant, cum IV solidis conponant.

De mita vero, si illam detegerit vel incenderit, cum III solidis
conponat.

De minore vero, quod scopar appellant, cum I solido conponat.

Et universa parilia restituatur.

3. De minorum aedificiorum, si quis desertaverit aut culmen eiecerit,
quod saepe contingit, aut incendio tradiderit, uniuscuiusque quod firstfalli
dicunt, quae per se constructi sunt, id est balnearius, pistoria, coquina
vel cetera huiusmodi, cum III solidis conponat et restituat dissipata vel
incensa.

4. Si autem ignem posuerit in domum, ita ut flamma eructuat, et non
perarserit et a familiis liberata fuerit, unumquemque de liberis cum sua
hrevavunti conponat, eo quod illos inunwan, quod dicunt, in disperationem
vitae fecerit, et non conponat amplius nisi tantum quantum
ignis consumpserit.

Ducalis vero disciplina integer permaneat. Et si negare voluerit de
istis, cum campione se defendat aut cum XII sacramentales iuret.

De servorum vero firstfalli uniuscuiusque ut manus recisa conponat.

5. Modo qui [de] domorum incensione sermo perfinitum censemus,
incongruum non est, ut de dissipatione domui aedificiorum conpositione
non edisseremus.

6. Si quis relicti vel quolibet causa, per presumptionem vel inimicitiam
nec et incurie aut certe ebitione, liberi culmen eiecerit, domini domui XL
solidos conponat.

7. Si eam columnam a qua culmen sustentatur, quam firstsul vocant,
cum XII solidis conponat.

8. Si interioris aedificii illam columnam eiecerit quam winchilsul
vocant, cum VI solidis conponat.

9. Ceterae vero huius ordinis conponantur cum III solidis.

10. Exterioris vero ordinis columna angularis cum III solidis
conponat.

11. Illas alias columnas huius ordinis singulas cum singulis solidis
conponat.

12. Trabes vero singuli cum III solidis conponat.

13. Exteriores vero quas spanga vocamus eo, quod ordinem continent
parietum, cum III solidis conponat.

14. Cetera vero, id est asseres, laterculi, axes ve quicquid in aedificio
construitur, singula cum singulis solidis conponat.

Et si una persona haec omnia commiserit in alterius aedificio,
amplius non cogatur solvere quam culminis deiectione vel ea quae
maiora huius commiserit criminis; minora huius personae non secuntur,
nisi tantum restituendi secundem legum.[61]

[ILLUSTRATION]

286. HOUSE OF THE LEX BAJUVARIORUM

8th CENTURY

RECONSTRUCTION BY KARL GUSTAV STEPHANI

[I, 1902, 326; redrawn]

Stephani correctly interpreted WINCHILSUL ("columna angularis")
and "caterae columnae huius ordinis" as, respectively, cornerpost
(A-A) and posts standing in the walls connecting them (B-B). Not
mentioned in the text and therefore purely arbitrary are entrances
to porch and main house (D, E), hearth (F), and porch itself (L-L).

The "columna a qua culmen sustentatur quam firstsul vocant"
Stephani correctly interpreted as ridge post (C), but incorrectly
presumed that it referred to a single massive timber erected in the
center of the living space. He also overlooked the reference in the
text to an inner order of posts ("ordo interioris aedificii").

The scale of Stephani's plan as it is drawn seems illogical. Evidence
from site excavations supports the contention that a ridge post such
as he postulates could not have been larger than ca. 18″ × 18″.

This dimension, applied to his drawing as a scale indicator, would
make his proposed living space about 14 feet square, or drastically
less than that needed to accommodate a Bajuvarian freeman's
family and servants. As a diagram, the plan is wholly deceptive with
little of constructive value.

ARTICLE 10

On arson and the compensation payable therefor.[62]

1. If someone sets fire at night to somebody's property, and
ignites the house of a free man (or of a serf) he is bound, first of all,
to pay a fine according to the rank of the person and make restitution
for all of the buildings; and whatever he sets on fire there,
furnishings and equipment, he will have to restore. And with all
free men who have escaped from said fire without their clothes on,
he will have to settle according to their wound money; in the case of
women, however, this will have to be doubled. Moreover, for the
roof of the house, he will have to settle with a fine of 40 shillings.

2. And in the case of the barn[63] of a free man, if it is enclosed
with walls and provided with a lockable bar, he will have to settle
for the roof with a fine of 12 shillings; if, however, it is unenclosed,
what the Bajuvarians call a scof,[64] i.e., a shed without any walls, he
will have to settle with a fine of 6 shillings.

In the case of such a granary, however, as they call a parc,[65] he
will have to settle with a fine of 4 shillings.

But in the case of a mita,[66] if he un-roofs it or sets it on fire, he
will have to settle with a fine of 3 shillings.

But in the case of a smaller one, which they call a scopar,[67] he
will have to settle with a payment of 1 shilling.

And everything he will have to restore in like.

3. In the case of smaller buildings, if someone devastates them,
or tears their roofs down, as often happens, or surrenders them to
fire, which they call firstfalli,[68] he will have to settle for every one
which is separately built, such as a bathhouse, a bakehouse, a
kitchen house, or any other structure of this sort, with a fine of 3
shillings and will have to restore whatever is destroyed or burned
down.

4. However, if he sets fire to a house so that it bursts into flame
yet the house does not burn down and is saved by the members of
the household, he will have to settle the wound money for each of
the free people, because he inunwan[69] them, as they say, i.e., put
them in fear of their life, and beyond that he will not have to make
any further compensations in excess of that which has been consumed
by the fire.

The fines forfeited to the duke, however, remain unaffected.
And if he wishes to contest any of these he will have to defend
himself with a champion or must take an oath supported by 12
oath helpers.

As far as the serfs are concerned the destruction of a house
(firstfalli) will have to be settled in like manner as the cutting off of
a hand.

5. And now, since we deem our ruling on the burning of buildings
completed, it is not inappropriate that we explore in greater
detail the fines imposed upon the destruction of the living quarters
of a household.

6. If someone with criminal or any other intent, through arrogance
or hostility, through negligence or a certain lack of understanding,
tears down the roof of a free man, he will have to settle
with a fine of 40 shillings.

7. If [he tears down] that post by which the ridge is held in place
and which they call firstsul ("ridge post"), he will have to settle
with a fine of 12 shillings.

8. If he tears down in the interior of the building that post which
they call winchilsul ("corner post"),[70] he will have to settle with a
fine of 6 shillings.

9. For the other posts of this order, however, he will have to
settle with a fine of 3 shillings.

10. But for the corner posts of the outer order he will have to
settle with a fine of 3 shillings.

11. For all the other posts of this order he will have to settle, for
each individually, with 1 shilling.

12. For the tie beams,[71] however, he will have to settle each with
a fine of 3 shillings.

13. For the outer beams, however, which we call spanga[72] [literally,
"clamp"] because they hold together the order of the walls,
he will have to settle with a fine of 3 shillings.

14. For everything else, however, that is the boards,[73] the
shingles,[74] and the bracing-struts,[75] or whatever else is used in the
construction of a building, he will have to settle with 1 shilling each.

And if a person has inflicted all of this damage to the building
of another person, he shall not be compelled to pay more than what
is due for the destruction of the roof and whatever crimes he has
committed greater than this. Minor infractions of this person are
not to be prosecuted with the exception of those for which restitution
has to be made according to law.

*

The article then goes on to define the compensation set
for damage to the yard, the braided wattle enclosures, the
pastures, roads, and pathways.

Of all surviving literary sources on early medieval architecture
this article of the Lex Bajuvariorum offers the
fullest and most detailed information on the nature of
contemporary domestic building. In the first place it
confirms what had already been demonstrated by the Lex
Alamannorum, namely, the fact that the West Germanic
farmhouse of the eighth century consisted of an aggregate
of separate structures, which included a living house (domus),
a bathhouse (balnearius), a bakehouse (pistoria), and a
kitchen house (coquina), plus an entire group of agricultural
service structures, such as the various barns and stables
(scoria, granarium quod parc appellant, etc.). But more
importantly, in paragraphs 6-14 we are furnished with an
item by item account of the component members of the
roof-supporting frame of timber. Their functions are defined
by their names, listed often both in Latin and in their
vernacular Old High German form; and their varying
size and structural importance are reflected in the weight
of the fine that is placed upon their damage or destruction.
Listed in the sequence of their constructional importance
they are:

1. Culmen or first: the "ridge" or "ridge beam" to
which the head of the rafters is fastened. Its demolition
entails the collapse of the entire roof; hence, the largest
fine is set for its destruction (40 shillings). In the Lex
Bajuvariorum the term is alternatingly used in the specific
sense of "ridge" or "ridge pole" or as pars pro toto for the
entire roof of the house.

2. Firstsul: "the post by which the ridge is carried" (eam
columnam a qua culmen sustentatur). The structural importance
of this column finds recognition in the fact that the fine
imposed upon its demolition is set at 12 shillings, almost a
third of the fine imposed for the destruction of the whole
house.

[ILLUSTRATION]

HOUSE OF THE LEX BAJUVARIORUM. 8TH CENTURY

287.B

287.A

287.D

287.C

RECONSTRUCTION BY OTTO GRUBER (1926, 24, fig. 13)

The principal characteristic of the house type on which Gruber modeled his reconstruction of the Bajuvarian standard house is that its roof is supported
by three parallel rows of posts, the center row carrying a ridge beam, the outer rows roof plates or purlins. Gruber calls this a "ground floor house for man
and livestock" (ebenerdiges Wohnstallhaus). The earliest extant examples date from the end of the 15th century. They are found on both the Swiss and
German sides of Lake Constance, the Aargau, the Kanton of Bern in the southern parts of the Black Forest, and less frequently in the Saar river basin
and the Eifel Mountains.

In late and post-medieval times the interior of this house was divided, in accordance with the transverse alignment of its posts, into a series of compartments
used for hay or harvest storage (Schopf), usually under a hipped portion of the roof; for livestock (Stall); as central access area to other compartments
(Tenne) and in winter also for wagon storage; as kitchen (Küch); and as a withdrawal area often subdivided by an axial wall into two private rooms
(Stuben), under the roof at the end of the house opposite the Schopf.

In general structural organization this house may well derive from that of the Lex Bajuvariorum, but whether the latter may have been divided into
compartments cannot be decided on textual evidence. (For extant examples see O. Gruber, 1926, and a posthumous study by him, Bauernhäuser am
Bodensee, edited by K. Gruber, Lindau and Konstanz, 1961.)

3. Winchilsul: this member is explicitly said to stand in
the interior of the building (interioris aedificii). It is part of
a columnar order whose individual posts (assessed at 3
shillings) rate only half of its own value (6 shillings).
The context leaves no doubt that winchilsul was the Old
High German designation for the four corner posts of the
freestanding inner frame of timbers which carried the roof
plates and separated the house internally into a center
space and a peripheral suite of aisles. The corner posts
were obviously of a heavier make than "the remaining
posts of this order" (ceterae huius ordinis), since they were
rated twice their value. But rising only midway up to the
roof, they rate in turn only half the value of the ridge-supporting
firstsul.

4. Columna angularis exterioris ordinis: "the corner
column of the outer order of posts." Its penal value amounts
to 3 shillings, in contradistinction to the "other members
of this order" (aliae columnae huius ordinis) which are
assessed at 1 shilling each.

The relative value assessed to all of these members
suggests that the outer wall posts had only half the strength
of the posts of the inner frame.

5. Trabes: the horizontal long and cross pieces ("tie
beams" and "roof plates"), which frame the principal
uprights together. The relation of paragraph 12 to paragraph
13 leaves no doubt that trabes is used as a generic
designation for all those horizontal timbers which connect
the uprights lengthwise and crosswise. Paragraph 12 deals
with the trabes of the inner order, i.e., the "tie beams"
and "roof plates" which connect the principal inner posts
that separate the nave from the aisles of the hall. Their
penal value (3 shillings) is identical with that of the supports
on which they rest, save for the heavier corner posts
(winchilsul) which rate twice that value. Paragraph 13
deals with the trabes of the outer order (exterioris vero) and
refers to them with the Old High German designation:

6. Spanga, "clamp," so-called "because they hold the
walls together." The fine assessed for the destruction of
these timbers, in modern architectural terminology referred
to as "wall plates," is identical with that of the corresponding
pieces of the inner order (3 shillings).

7. Asseres, laterculi, and axes, the "rafters," the "shingles,"
and the "bracing struts". Their penal value is 1
shilling each.

We are not the first, of course, to try our hand at a
reconstruction of the Bajuvarian standard house based on
this meticulous enumeration of its component structural
members. A first attempt of this kind, consisting of a plan
only, was made in 1902 by Karl Gustav Stephani (fig.
286);[76] a second, consisting of a plan and various sections
and elevations, in 1926 by Otto Gruber (fig. 287);[77] and a
third, in the form of an isometric perspective, in 1951 by
Torsten Gebhard (fig. 288).[78]

Stephani's interpretation (fig. 286) of the house as a one-room
structure with a porch on one of its narrow ends
misses the basic message of the text, which makes a clear
distinction between an "inner" and an "outer order of
posts" and within each of these between their "regular
members" and their "corner posts." This suggests a house
that is composed of a center space and a peripheral belt of
outer spaces. Even more untenable is Stephani's explanation
of firstsul as a ridge-supporting center post. I presume
that it was the fact that this term is used in the singular
which induced Stephani to interpret the passage to mean
that the ridge of the Bajuvarian house was supported by a
single post that stood in the very center of the building.
Such an arrangement is constructively incongruous and
must be refuted on both linguistic and architectural
grounds. Linguistically, one finds, the singular form appears
again in the very next paragraph, and there it refers
to a structural member (winchilsul, "corner post") which
by definition cannot have possibly existed in a singular
form, since a house with one corner post would be a logical
absurdity. Constructionally, a ridge beam may be supported
by a center post, but a center post alone could not
possibly hold it in place; its stability required additional
supports at each end of the beam. It must have been
Stephani's faulty exegesis of the text that induced Dehio
to remark with regard to the Lex Bajuvariorum that "the
attempt to reconstruct the Bajuvarian standard house is
unconvincing."[79] The criticism is fully justified when
applied to Stephani, but it would be wrong if it implied, as
the context suggests, that the source did not lend itself to a
convincing reconstruction.

Gruber's reconstruction (fig. 287) comes considerably
closer to the truth; but his internal subdivision of the house
into areas used as stables, barns, and living quarters are derived
from post-medieval house forms (Old Upper Suebian
farmhouse and Hotzen house) and are, therefore, purely
conjectural. Decidedly wrong in Gruber's reconstruction
is the application of the term winchilsul to all the members
of the "inner order" (designated with the Arabic figure 2
in his plan), because the text distinguishes clearly between
the "corner posts" (winchilsul) and the "other columns
of this order" (ceterae vero huius ordinis).

By far the most convincing of all the existing reconstructions
is that of Thorsten Gebhard (fig. 288). As a point of
minor criticism it might be noted that there is nothing in
the Lex Bajuvariorum which would suggest that the center
space was boarded off against the outer space by the solid
wooden paneling shown in Gebhard's reconstruction;
while, conversely, this reconstruction fails to show a feature
that is explicitly mentioned in the text, namely, the "remaining
posts of the inner order" (ceterae huius ordinis
[columnae]). Gebhard is probably right when he assumes
that the Bajuvarian standard house had its principal
entrance in the middle of one of its long sides, but again

[ILLUSTRATION]

HOUSE OF THE LEX BAJUVARIORUM

288. AXONOMETRIC VIEW

8TH CENTURY

[reconstruction by Thorsten Gebhard, 1951, 234, fig. 3]

In overall appearance this reconstruction of the house of the Lex Bajuvariorum
is fairly convincing. But like Stephani, Gebhard fails to account
for the inner order of posts ("columnae interioris aedificii") which, the text
states, stood between the cornerposts (winchilsul).

The horizontal timbers connecting the heads of these posts could not have
carried the roof load over very wide spans without additional posting as
described in the text; unsupported, they would surely have sagged or broken.
The same holds true for the ridge purlin. Nor is there any indication in the
text that the center space of the house was separated from the peripheral
spaces by a solid wall partition, as Gebhard shows.

*

The orientation of the large group of buildings at Zwenkau-Harth (fig. 288.X.a) is
conspicuous in the treatment to be found in Quitta, 1958, and was possibly to gain advantageous
solar exposure, or protection from the wind.

[ILLUSTRATION]

ZWENKAU-HARTH NEAR LEIPZIG, GERMANY

288.X.b SECTION

3RD MILLENNIUM B.C.

[after Quitta, Neue Ausgrabungen in Deutchland, 1958, 69 and 75]

Houses divided lengthwise into four aisles by three axial rows of posts,
carrying ridge beam and purlins, were among main characteristics of the
architecture of the Banded Pottery People (Bandkeramiker) who introduced
agriculture and animal husbandry into Central Europe between 50003000
B.C., and who, owing to their sedentary life of seeding and harvesting,
became the first European village builders.

A distinctive construction feature of their houses is the transverse alignment
of the roof-supporting posts that divide the house crosswise internally
into a sequence of compartments—a trait perplexingly similar to the partitioning
of the late and post-medieval houses studied by Gruber (fig. 287).
The house of the Lex Bajuvariorum, as well as its late medieval derivatives,
may have its first roots in this Neolithic house tradition, but the precise
manner in which these concepts might have been transmitted over three
milennia is not known. (For possible Bronze and Iron Age links, see fig.
289.A)

this is a purely conjectural feature. In my reconstruction
(fig. 289) I have limited myself to showing only those members
which are explicitly mentioned in the Lex. The Lex
does not tell us anything about the position of the hearth,
but the location of the hearth is not in question. In structures
of this type the hearth was always in the middle, or
somewhere else along the axis of the center space, at
maximal distance from the incendiary timbers of the walls
and the roof.

Dehio, then, greatly underrated the importance of the
Lex Bajuvariorum for the history of early medieval house
construction. This code not only lends itself to a structural
reconstruction of the Bajuvarian standard house, but it does
so with singular explicitness, and from the information thus
obtained we can draw general conclusions that are of
importance for the broader issues of our study. Foremost
among these is the recognition that during the eighth
century a European house type existed with a general
design that closely resembled the North Germanic house of
the Saga period. Like the latter, it is a skeletal timber
structure and is covered by a large pitched roof, whose
rafters converge in a ridge pole.

There are some distinctive differences, to be sure. In the
Saga house, as has been pointed out, the ridge pole was carried
by short king posts (dvergr) that rose from the center of
the cross beams. In the house of the Bajuvarians the ridge
was supported by posts that rose from the ground. The
Saga house was three-aisled like the Germanic all-purpose
house discussed below, pp. 45ff. The house of the Lex
Bajuvariorum is four aisled, bearing striking, yet so far
inexplicable, resemblance to a house type common in
Central Europe in the 3rd millenium B.C. (see caption,
288X).

CAROLINGIAN CROWN ESTATES AND THEIR
HOUSES, IN THE LIGHT OF
CONTEMPORARY ADMINISTRATIVE ORDINANCES
AND PROPERTY DESCRIPTIONS

In contradistinction to the Alammanic and Bajuvarian law,
the law of the Franks (Lex Salica)[80] is a disappointingly
unrewarding source of architectural information. It does
not include a special chapter on arson, nor does it otherwise
define the fines imposed upon the demolition of the whole
or any part of the Frankish house. But this deficiency is
compensated for, to some extent, by the survival of two
administrative ordinances of the Frankish court which give
us some insight into the architectural layout of a royal
crown estate, the Capitulare de villis and the so-called
Brevium exempla.

CAPITULARE DE VILLIS

The Capitulare de villis,[81] an ordinance formerly assumed
to have been drawn up in 794 or 795 by the young Louis
the Pious in order to correct certain abuses that had
arisen in the administration of the royal estates of Aquitania,
is now believed to have been issued by Charlemagne
shortly before 800 as a directive to the entire empire
(except Italy) in part to curtail mismanagement, in part to
set a program for the future. Among the seventy-odd
articles of which it is comprised, there are some that refer
to architecture. They read like a description of some of the
guest and service structures of the Plan of St. Gall, and
exhibit with vivid distinctness the basic similarity of the
architectural layout of a secular and a monastic Carolingian
manor. In fact, being laid down for the specific purpose of
defining what buildings are considered to be indispensable
components of a royal estate, they form literary counterparts
to the agricultural service structures of the Plan of
St. Gall. While providing us with a comprehensive picture
of the diversity of buildings associated with Carolingian
crown estates, they unfortunately do not tell us anything
about their design or construction.

I am extracting from these articles whatever appears to
have a bearing on architecture, without regard to the order
in which this material appears in the original.

Article 27 prescribes: "At all times our houses [casae
nostrae] shall be provided with fireplaces and fire[?]guards
[foca et wactas habeant] so that they do not suffer any
damage."[82]

Article 42 specifies the household equipment of the
royal supply room (camera). It stipulates that it be provided
at all times with its full complement of bedding,
tableware, cutlery, cooking equipment, and all other kind
of utensils, so that one will never be in need of sending for
them or borrowing them from outside. It contains nothing
further that would shed any light on the layout of the
royal mansion itself.[83]

Article 41 provides, "that the buildings in our estates
[intra curtes nostras], and the surrounding fences [sepes] be
well guarded and that the stables [stabulae], the kitchens
[coquinae], the bakehouse [pistrina], and the presses [torcularia]
be planned with care, so that our men [ministeriales
nostri] can perform their functions properly and with
cleanliness."[84]

[ILLUSTRATION]

289.A HOUSE OF THE LEX BAJUVARIORUM. 8TH CENTURY

PERSPECTIVE WITH ROOFING REMOVED, SHOWING STRUCTURAL SCHEME

AUTHOR'S INTERPRETATION

The relative severity of the penalties imposed by the Lex Bajuvariorum to compensate a householder for willful damage done to his dwelling
(see fig. 289.B) is clearly related to the size and structural importance of the particular timber involved. The preoccupation of the text with
penalties for "pulling down" house timbers presumes that in general the overall framework of the typical house was sufficiently light, and its
key timbers sufficiently accessible, to make this mode of revenge an attractive nuisance.

Timbered early medieval houses with a central row of posts supporting the ridge parlins have, since this chapter was written, appeared in
excavations in Manching and Kirchheim, near Munich (see Schubert, Germania, L (1972), 110ff, and Dannheimer, IBID., L1 (1973), 168ff.
For sporadic Bronze and Iron Age antecedents see Zippelius, 1953, 19, fig. 2; Reinerth, I, 1940, 16, fig. 4b; Pl. 6 opposite p. 26; 28, fig. 7;
139, figs. 60-62; 198, fig. 85.)

I am not aware of the existence of any Central European Bronze and Iron Age houses with three parallel rows of roof-supporting posts. The
connection of the house of the Lex Bajuvariorum with those of the Banded Pottery People suggested in fig. 289.X must therefore be treated
with caution.

In West and North Germanic territory, houses with a row of center posts for carrying ridge purlins are a great rarity. Notable exceptions are
the two Iron Age houses of Wijchen, shown below, figs. 300 and 301.

[ILLUSTRATION]

289.B HOUSE OF THE LEX BAJUVARIORUM. 8TH CENTURY

PLAN. STRUCTURAL MEMBERS IDENTIFIED, WITH FINES LEVIED TO COMPENSATE DAMAGE

AUTHOR'S INTERPRETATION

Article 23 prescribes: "Our superintendents shall see to
it that each of our estates be provided with its dairy
[vaccaritia], its piggery [porcaritia], its facilities for raising
sheep [berbicaritia], its facilities for raising goats [capraritias],
and its facilities for raising billy goats [hircaritias];
and of all this they shall have as much as they can handle;
and none of our estates shall be without these installations."[85]

Article 46 prescribes, "that the enclosures for animals
commonly referred to as brogli lucos nostros, quos vulgus
brogilos vocat be well guarded, and always kept in good
repair, and that one should not wait until it is necessary to
rebuild them anew; and the same applies to all of the buildings."[86]

Article 50 prescribes, that each superintendent determine
the number of chickens that should be kept in each stable
(stabulo) and the number of caretakers to be stationed with
them. (In Article 19 it had already been established "that
not less than 100 chickens and 30 geese shall be kept in the
barns of our main estates [ad scuras nostras in villis capitaneis]
and not less than 50 chickens and 12 chickens and
12 geese in our outlying settlements [ad mansioles].")[87]

Article 45 prescribes, "that each of our superintendents
see to it that he have skillful craftsmen [artifices] in his
district [in suo ministerio], that is: blacksmiths [fabros ferrarios],
goldsmiths [aurifices], silversmiths [argentarios], shoemakers
[sutores], lathe workers [tornatores], carpenters [carpentarios],
shieldmakers [scutarios], fishermen [piscatores],

[ILLUSTRATION]

KÄNNE (STAVGARD), PARISH OF BURS, GOTLAND,
SWEDEN

GERMANIC LONGHOUSE, 3RD-5TH CENTURY

PLAN [after Stenberger, II, 1955, iii, fig. 357]

The house was built in two stages. Its northern half (the original dwelling) had
a floor of stamped clay. The inner walls were lined with heavy granite boulders.
The roof was covered with turves that fell into the house as its supporting
timber frame collapsed, smothering the fire that destroyed it.

The floor of the southern half of the house was paved with fine gravel. Its roof
was of lighter construction and its walls less solidly built than the northern half.
Entrances were in the gable walls.

falconers [aucipites id est ancellatores], soapmakers [saponarios],
brewers [siceratores], that is, those who know how to
make beer [cerevisam], apple cider [pomatium], pear cider
[piratium], and any other kind of drink; the bakers [pistores],
who make pastry for our table, the netmakers
[retiatores] who know the art of making nets for the hunt,
as well as for fishing and for the catching of birds; and all
such other craftsmen [reliquos ministeriales] which it would
be too long to enumerate."[88]

BREVIUM EXEMPLA

The Brevium exempla ad describendas res ecclesiasticas et
fiscules consist of three specimen descriptions of property,
more or less fiscal in character, and were presumably
drawn up for the guidance of the royal agents who assessed
the produce of the domain.[89] The first description is of the
possessions of the see of Augsburg on an island in Staffelsee
in Bavaria, the second is part of a register of the possessions
of the Abbey of Weissenburg in Alsace, and the third is
the survey of five royal fiscs directly belonging to the crown.
Two of these are listed by name, viz., the estates of
Asnapium (Anappes in France, dép. Nord, arr. Lille,
cant. Lannoy), and the estate of Treola (no longer identifiable,
probably in Alamannia); three others are left anonymous
(perhaps the hamlets of Vitry, Cysoing, and the
Soumain near Anappes). The date of the Brevium exempla
is uncertain, but the prevailing view is that they were
written about 812.

Considerably less interesting from a general historical
point of view than the Capitulare de villis, the Brevium
exempla have the virtue of being more detailed and factual
in their reference to architectural conditions. Here we are
given a precise account not only of the number and type of
buildings found on each of the five aforementioned
estates, but also of the construction materials, and in the
case of the royal mansions, even the number and type of
rooms. The following passages from the Brevium exempla
describe portions of the crown estates of Anappes and its
outlying settlements, Treola, and three holdings ("anonymous
estates") not cited by name.

The crown estate of Anappes and its outlying
settlements

Invenimus in Asnapio fisco dominico salam regalem ex lapide factam
optime, cameras III; solariis totam casam circumdatam, cum pisilibus
XI; infra cellarium I; porticus II, alias casas infra curtem ex ligno
factas XVII cum totidem cameris et ceteris appendiciis bene compositis;
stabolum I, coquinam I, pistrinum I, spicaria II, scuras III. Curtem
tunimo strenue munitam, cum porta lapidea, et desuper solarium ad
dispensandum. Curticulam silimiter tunimo interclausam, ordinabiliter
dispositam, diversique generis plantatum arborum.[90]

[ILLUSTRATION]

LOJSTA, GOTLAND, SWEDEN

291.C

291.B

291.A

GERMANIC HOUSE

3RD-5TH CENTURY

RECONSTRUCTION BY G. BOETHIUS
AND J. NIHLEN

[photos: Statens Historiska Museet, Stockholm]

A. Foundation of house after excavation.

A magnificent and one of the first excavated
examples of an aisled Germanic house of the
Migration Period. Its walls were made of
earth carefully lined with stones. The roof
was supported by two rows of wooden posts
rising from flat stones all of which were still
in place. These supports must have been
framed at their heads into stable trusses by
means of cross beams and long beams. The
entrance was in the western gable wall; the
hearth in the middle of the center floor
toward the inner end of the hall.

B and C. Reconstruction of the dwelling.

Reconstructed at full scale on the original
site in 1932, the dwelling follows drawings
submitted by the excavators. Although now
questioned in the rendering of certain
details, this reconstruction nevertheless
gives a very accurate impression of the
unitary quality of the interior space
unmarred by the fact that its roof-supporting
frame divides into a multiplicity
of bays. The roof may not have been
covered with thatch but with turves. The
walls were originally a little higher, and
the entrance wall was probably not straight
but hipped at the eastern end of the roof.

[ILLUSTRATION]

292.A ÞÓRSÁRDALUR VALLEY, ICELAND. HALL STÖNG

PLAN OF HOUSE [after A. Roussel in Stenberger, 1943, 78, fig. 137]

I. Fore room, Jorskáli

II. Sleeping house, skáli, divided by transverse partition into room for men,
karlskáli, and room for women, kvennaskáli

III. Living house, stofa

IV. Dairy, mjólkrbûr

V. Room for cold storage, kjátlari

The house had only one entrance and no windows; it received light and air through a lantern-surmounted opening in the roof. Its turf walls were raised on a stone
foundation two courses high; the roof likewise was covered with turves. The center floor of the main house (II) was of stamped clay and contained a fireplace. Two rows
of posts divided this space into three aisles, the two side aisles being raised and boarded, and partitioned transversely into men's and women's sleeping quarters. A
square area boarded off at the inner end of the south aisle probably formed a sleeping alcove for the farmer and his wife.

The living room (III) contained a hearth for cooking, a stone box 50cm deep. The dairy (IV) was accessible only from inside the house and contained three round
impressions in the floor, presumably from large vats. Its walls were lined with lava stones to a height of 1.1m. A room presumably for cold storage (V) was accessible
only from the fore room (I).

The photograph (fig. 292.B) taken from the door of the living room shows the excavation of the main hall, and reveals with great clarity how the aisles and floor of
the fore room were raised above the level of the center floor. The banked earth of these side aisles was retained by staked boards. Large flat stones at 2-meter intervals
provided footing for the roof posts. Smaller stones set along the walls, pieces of wood still attached, show the house was wainscotted. Absence of personal effects indicates
the residents were forewarned of the eruption of Mt. Hekla, in 1300, that destroyed the house and converted the fertile valley into a wasteland of lava and ash.

The reconstruction (fig. 291.C) portrays the ingenious simplicity with which man could, in a harsh Atlantic climate, make a dwelling not only secure against attack, but
warm and homely as well. The compact top-growth of Iceland terrain is well suited to turf-cutting. For timber the chieftains of the Saga Period relied on wood
imported from Norway, or on driftwood swept in by Atlantic storms from distant North American coasts. The only locally available building material was a dwarf
birch whose fine branches were used as matting for the roof turves.

[ILLUSTRATION]

292.C INTERIOR VIEW OF HOUSE. REDRAWN FROM ROUSSEL, 1943, 211, fig. 144

[ILLUSTRATION]

292.B FOUNDATIONS OF HALL AFTER EXCAVATION. PHOTO COURTESY OF A. ROUSSEL

[ILLUSTRATION]

293. EZINGE (GRONINGEN), THE NETHERLANDS

FOUNDATIONS,

HOUSE A OF WARF-LAYER VI, 4th CENTURY B.C.

[photo by courtesy of A. E. Van Giffen]

The remains of this flatland-level farmhouse show that its interior was divided into a broad center space and two aisles, each roughly half the
width of the nave, by two rows of roof-supporting wooden posts of young, unscantled oak. Their stumps, cut a few feet above the original floor
level when the house was dismantled to make a new settlement on higher ground, were well preserved to a depth of several feet. Braided
wattlework walls formed an enclosure slightly inside the perimeter of outer posts and independent of them. The corners of the house were rounded,
suggesting that the roof was hipped over its narrow ends. A cross partition divided the interior into a dwelling area containing a fireplace, and
a much larger byre for livestock. The building was entered on one of its long sides. In a rectangular yard extending to the north, nine rows of
posts formed supports for a wooden platform presumably used to store fodder and other produce.

This settlement was dismantled after about a hundred years, because the rising waters of the North Sea made it unsafe to live on this horizon.
As centuries passed and the inundation level continued to rise, the site developed as a dome-shaped mound on successively higher, broader levels,
formed by earth, turves, and manure thrown up by the dwellers. The growth of the settlement is traceable through six layers over seven
centuries. The mound attained a diameter of 450m and a center height of 5.5m. The terrain elevation seen at the right is an undisturbed
portion of the present surface of the mound, now occupied by the church and houses of modern Ezinge.

We found on the royal estate of Anappes the royal hall built in
stone, in the best manner, three chambers, the entire house surrounded
by solaria; with eleven heatable rooms[91] and below one cellar;
two porches; seventeen other houses within the main yard,[92] built
in timber, with the same number of chambers, and other appendices,
all well constructed; one stable, one kitchen, one bakehouse, two
grain barns, three other barns. The main yard well protected with
a fence,[93] with a masonry gate, and above this, a solarium. The
smaller yard likewise enclosed with a fence built in the usual
fashion and planted with various types of trees.

The document subsequently lists the dead and live stock
at Anappes down to the smallest detail, and then turns to
the inventory of the outlying settlements:

In the estate of Gruson[94] we came upon the outlying settlements.
There are three barns, and the yard is surrounded by a fence. . . .

On another estate we found the outlying settlements and the
yard protected with a fence, and inside three barns. . . .

On a third estate [literally, on "that estate"] we found the
outlying settlement to be comprised of two barns, one granary, one
garden and the yard well protected with a fence. . . .

The crown estate of Treola

Invenimus in Treola fisco dominico casam dominicatem ex lapide optime
factam cameras II cum totidem caminatis, porticum I, cellarium I, torcolarium
I, mansiones virorum ex ligno factas III, solarium cum pisile
I; alia tecta ex maceria III, spicarium I, scuras II, curtem muro
circumdatam cum porta ex lapide facta. . . .[95]

We found on the crown estate of Treola the royal mansion built
excellently in stone, two chambers with the same number of heatable
rooms, one porch, one cellar, one press-shed, three houses for
men, built in timber, a solar with one heatable room, three other
houses [literally, "roofs"] in masonry, one granary, two barns,
the yard surrounded with a wall and [provided] with a stone-built
gate. . . .

The first anonymous estate

Repperimus in illo fisco dominico domum regalem, exterius ex lapide et
interius ex ligno bene constructam; cameras II, solaria II. Alias casas,
infra curtem ex ligno factas VIII: pisile cum camera I, ordinabiliter
constructum; stabolum I. Coquina et pistrinum in unum tenentur.
Spicaria quinque, granecas III. Curtem tunimo circumdatam, desuperque
spinis munitam cum porta lignea. Habet desuper solarium. Curticulam
similiter tunimo interclusam. . . .[96]

We found on that crown estate the royal house, externally built in
stone and inside well constructed in timber; two chambers, two
solars. Within the main yard eight other houses built in timber; a
heatable room with one chamber built in the usual fashion, one
stable. Kitchen and bakehouse built together, five grain barns,
three granaries. The court surrounded with a fence, above provided
with spines, with a wooden gate. It has above a solar. The smaller
yard likewise enclosed by a fence. . . .

[ILLUSTRATION]

294. EZINGE (GRONINGEN), THE NETHERLANDS

PLAN [after Van Giffen, 1936, Beilage I, fig. 5]

HOUSE A OF WARF LAYER VI, 4th CENTURY B.C.

Plan of the house and storage platform, the remains of which are
shown in the preceding figure. The excavated area is identical with
that shown in figure 296, which shows the next stage of the
settlement.

[ILLUSTRATION]

295. EZINGE (GRONINGEN), THE NETHERLANDS

EXTERIOR VIEW OF SETTLEMENT, 4th CENTURY B.C.

[redrawn from reconstruction by H. Reinerth, 1940, 88, fig. 25]

The discovery of this Iron Age village in 1931-34 was a great landmark in the history of premedieval house construction in transalpine Europe.
The find showed that a house well portrayed by Albrecht Dürer (fig. 335) and Peter Bruegel the Elder (fig. 336) was already fully developed
and in common use for close to 2,000 years.

Later excavations brought the even more startling discovery that this same house type was a standard construction form as early as 1250 B.C.,
and perhaps even in the 14th century B.C. (fig. 323). In the lowlands of Holland and Northern Germany, the same house is used even today
with only minor modifications, for the same purposes for which it was originally conceived (Frisian Los-hus, Lower Saxon Wohnstallhaus).
Its life span is at least 3,300 years, and does not yet appear to have entered its terminal phase.

The most distinctive trait of this type of structure is that it offers, with only a minimum of materials, an ingeniously simple method of covering
large spaces beneath a vast roof carried by a frame of light timbers; these divide the interior of the house lengthwise into nave and two aisles
(figs. 297, 298) and crosswise into a multitude of separable yet transparent bays.

The building type owes its longevity to its ability simultaneously to offer spatial
unity and spatial divisibility. In pre- and protohistorical times almost exclusively
confined to dwelling, sheltering of animals, and harvest storage, the structure entered,
in response to growing complexities of medieval life and social organization, a
virtually explosive phase of functional variety, and came to fill many diverse needs.
On the highest of society, it appeared as residential and administrative seat for
feudal lords and their retainers (figs. 339, 340, and 344-348), including the king
himself. It was used as church (Horn, 1958, 4, figs. 3-8) and Horn, 1962); as
hospital for the sick and infirm (figs. 341-343); as meeting and council hall for the
guilds. And from the 12th century onward in response to the rise of international
trade it became, in Paris and countless smaller towns of France, the standard form
for urban market halls, under whose sheltering roofs the local peasants and traders
from distant places could rent stalls from which to sell produce and goods (Horn
1958, 15ff; Horn and Born, 1961, Horn, 1963).

The second anonymous estate

Invenimus in illo fisco dominico casam regalem cum cameris II totidemque
caminatis, cellarium I, porticus II, curticulam interclusam
cum tunimo strenue munitam; infra cameras II, cum totidem pisilibus,
mansiones feminarum III, capellam ex lapide bene constructam; alias
intra curtem casas ligneas II, spicaria IV, horrea II, stabolum I,
coquinam I, pistrinum I; curtem sepe munitam cum portis ligneis II et
desuper solaria.[97]

We found on that crown estate the royal house with two chambers
and the same number of heatable rooms, one cellar, two porches,
the smaller yard enclosed by a well-built fence; inside, two chambers
with the same number of heatable rooms, three houses for women,
a chapel well constructed in stone, two other timber houses in the
court, four grain barns, two hay barns, one stable, one kitchen, one
bakehouse. The main yard protected with a fence with two wooden
gates and solaria above.

The third anonymous estate

Repperimus in illo fisco dominico domum regalem ex ligno ordinabiliter
constructam, cameram I, cellarium I, stabolum I, mansiones III,
spicaria II, coqinam I, pistrinum I, scuras III, Curtem tunimo circumdatam
et desuper sepe munita. . . Portas ligneas II. . . .[98]

We found in that crown estate the royal house constructed in timber
in the usual fashion, one chamber, one cellar, one stable, three
dwellings, two grain barns, one kitchen, one bakehouse, three
barns. The yard surrounded with a wall, protected above by a
fence . . . two wooden gates. . . .

While failing to reveal anything about the architectural
design of the enumerated structures, the Brevium exempla
are of particular value because they offer concrete information
about the relative use of stone and timber in the architecture
of a Carolingian crown estate. The account of the
sala regalis at Anappes—as we had occasion to point out in
an earlier chapter—[99] with its open solariums, heatable
rooms, and two galleried porches reads like a description
of the Abbot's House on the Plan of St. Gall. Like the
latter, it was composed of several stories and built in
stone. The Brevium exempla, however, make it equally
clear that stone was not considered to be the ordinary
material. With the exception of the chapel of the second
anonymous estate and the two gate houses at Anappes and
Treola, stone appears to be the exclusive prerogative of the
royal mansion, and the superlative form of the epithets
associated with the use of this material (ex lapdie optime
factam) is indicative of the high esteem in which this
material was held. However, only two out of five royal
mansions recorded in the document were entirely stone
structures, those of Anappes and Treola. The domus regalis
of the first anonymous estate had its outer walls constructed
in stone, but everything else inside is in timber (exterius
ex lapide et interius ex ligno bene constructam.) The domus
regalis of the third anonymous estate was built entirely in
wood (ex ligno ordinabiliter constructam). Timber, we will
also have to assume, was used where no specific reference
to any material is made for the casa regalis of the second
anonymous estate. All the other structures of the five
estates either are explicitly said to be built in timber or

must be assumed to be built in timber because of the
absence of any statement to the contrary. And the timbered
buildings formed, of course, an overwhelming majority.

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

If we review the evidence obtained from the analysis of the
legal and administrative documents discussed on the preceding
pages, we find ourselves confronted with results of a
widely varying nature. The most illuminating of the considered
sources is doubtlessly the Lex Bajuvariorum. It has
furnished us with a body of specific and detailed architectural
information that enables us to reconstruct the Bajuvarian
standard house of the beginning of the eighth
century. The Lex Alamannorum conveyed a clear idea of the

[ILLUSTRATION]

297. EZINGE (GRONINGEN), THE NETHERLANDS

INTERIOR, HOUSE B, CLUSTER SETTLEMENT, Warf-layer V, 4th-3rd centuries B.C.

[author's reconstruction redrawn by Walter Schwarz]

House B of Warf-layer V played a dominant role in our attempt to identify the constructional features of the guest and service buildings of
the Plan of St. Gall (see below, 77ff). Like the majority of the latter, it is entered broadside through a long wall, and in layout consists of a
spacious inner hall with open fireplace in the axis of the house, and a peripheral suite of outer spaces accessible only from the center floor and
used for more specialized functions such as sleeping, or the stabling of livestock.

This is a reconstruction of the interior of House B, which appears at the bottom right of the plan of Warf-layer V, fig. 296 (and at a larger
scale in fig. 327). The drawing first published in Horn, 1958, 7, fig. 13, was made before the excavator realized that the animals stood with
their heads not inward, but toward the outer walls of the dwelling (cf. below, p. 53 n. 64). The braided wattle mats running along the posts on
either side of the center aisle were found to be manure mats, not fodder mats as previously supposed. Since the artist is no longer alive, and
since his handsome drawing portrays quite persuasively the general character of the space in the dwelling, we decided against trying to retouch
the drawing; the animals remain incorrectly positioned.

general layout of a West-Germanic farmstead of this
period with its principal living unit, the domus or sala, and
its variety of special service structures scattered throughout
the yard and the fields. But they told us little, if anything,
about the architectural design of these structures. The
Capitulare de villis gave us an insight into the administrative
complexity of a Frankish crown estate. The Brevium
exempla, finally, provided us with a precise statistical
account of the number and type of buildings to be found
on five such Carolingian crown estates, and illustrated how
on this highest level of Frankish society a new material,
stone, began to intrude into the northern tradition of building
in timber. They told us a good deal about the number
and type of rooms of which the individual buildings were
composed—but they told nothing about the constructional
features of these rooms, or the houses of which they were a
part.

Thus we would still remain thoroughly ignorant about
the architectural layout and design of a Carolingian residence
and its agricultural service structures were it not for
the light that has recently been thrown on this question by
our colleagues in the field of archaeology.

V.2.2

ARCHAEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE

Until the end of the second decade of this century the
literary sources discussed on the preceding pages were all
that students of early medieval house construction had to
lean on when discussing the question of Northern parallels
for the guest and service structures of the Plan of St. Gall.
To be sure, some isolated excavations had already been
made in Sweden and Iceland,[100] but this fact was not
widely known; and the procedure for unearthing houses
whose structural members, in many cases, could be identified
only by a shadowy patch of soil discoloration left in
the ground as they rotted away, had as yet not developed
into that highly accomplished technique so successfully
practiced today. But in 1928-1931 this situation began to
change when John and Nils Nihlen laid bare on the island
of Gotland two three-aisles houses of the Migration Period
which looked like physical embodiments of Gudmundsson's
Saga house. In 1930-1934 the Dutch anthropologist Albert
Egges van Giffen initiated a new era of northern house
research with the excavation of an Iron Age dwelling
mound in a hamlet called Ezinge (Groningen) in Holland,
which revealed that a very similar type of dwelling was in
use as early as the fourth century B.C. in the territory of the
Frisians, a West Germanic tribe. In the two following
decades the information gathered from these excavations
was broadened by an increasing number of further discoveries.
At the date of this writing we are able to trace, on
the basis of several hundred excavated dwellings, the
development of the timbered three-aisled house in the
Germanic territories of transalpine Europe from its beginnings
in the Middle Bronze Age through the Iron Age, into
the Early Middle Ages, and through the Middle Ages to
its modern survival form

KÄNNE, BURS, GOTLAND, SWEDEN

The first example of this long line of excavations, as just
remarked, was a three-aisled dwelling, excavated in 1928 by
John and Nils Nihlen, in a place called Känne, in the
parish of Burs, in East Gotland (fig. 290).[101] It was 33 feet
wide (10 m.) and had the extraordinary length—not as
yet matched by any dwelling subsequently unearthed—of
203 feet (62 m.) A recent review of the site has disclosed
that the hall was constructed in two successive phases, and
in its original state was only half as long.[102] Its roof was
supported by two rows of freestanding inner posts, rising
in pairs, at intervals of 9 to 13 feet (3 to 4 m.). Each of
these uprights was firmly secured in the ground by a
ring-shaped wrapping of stones. Over fifty charred beams
and numerous fragments of wood were found on the floor;
among these were the remains of two large beams which
were jointed into each other at right angles. The walls
consisted of solid banks of earth heavily interspersed with
small stones and were faced, outwardly and inwardly, with
a strong lining of heavier stones. The roof must have been
covered with sods of turf, as no other material would have
smothered so effectively the fire that destroyed the house
yet preserved so much of the timbered frame of the roof.
The hall received its warmth from two hearths which lay in
the middle of the center aisle, one of them 33 feet (10 m.)
long. "Longfires" of this kind are well attested from the
Sagas, where they are referred to as langeldar or máleldar.[103]
The general character of the accessories found in the house
pointed to about the year A.D. 200 as the approximate
period of construction.

LÖJSTA, GOTLAND, SWEDEN

The second house, a structure of more normal proportions,
85 feet by 33½ feet (26 m. × 10.5 m.), was excavated in
the summer of 1929 in the vicinity of castle Lojsta in
Gotland (fig. 291A-C).[104] It was the same construction type
except that here the roof-supporting posts were not sunk

[ILLUSTRATION]

298.B EZINGE (GRONINGEN), THE NETHERLANDS. CATTLE BARN OF Warf-LAYER IV, 2nd CENTURY B.C.

[author's reconstruction, drawn by Walter Schwarz]

[ILLUSTRATION]

298.A PLAN
REDRAWN FROM VAN GIFFEN

1:150

[ILLUSTRATION]

299. EZINGE (GRONINGEN), THE NETHERLANDS. CATTLE BARN OF Warf-LAYER IV, 2nd CENTURY B.C.

[excavation photo by courtesy of A. E. Van Giffen]

This building, like those unearthed above and beneath it, owes its magnificent state of preservation to the fact that each settlement stratum in
which houses were buried in the course of successive inundations was sealed by sterile layers of sand and clay deposited after flooding, sealing
their content against the infiltration of air and thus protecting it from decay. The roof-supporting posts of oak, the braided walls and cross
partitions (wattled saplings of birch) were preserved to a height of 4 feet. The manure mats were found to be in such good condition that they
could be walked upon without breaking. The building was 29 feet wide (7.20m) and over 75 feet long (23m) but was never excavated to its full
length. Its construction was identical with that of the houses found in the earlier Warf layers (figs. 293-297).

The systematic division of the aisles into stalls, together with the absence of any fireplaces, suggests that it was used for the stabling of livestock
exclusively. Since every stall had room for two head of cattle, this barn must have been able to hold at least 48 animals, striking evidence of
the economic wealth of these early shoreland farmers. Livestock entered and left the building through doors in the two narrow ends—a feature
found in many other early Iron Age houses (figs. 304, 310, 312, 315, 316), and today in the Lower Saxon Wohnstallhaus and the Frisian
Los-hus, modern descendants of this building type.

[ILLUSTRATION]

PRE- & PROTOHISTORIC CARPENTRY JOINTS

300.A

300.B

300.C

300.D

[after Zippelius, 1954, figs. 1, 2, & 5]

A. Forked posts (Neolithic)

B. Post with slit head

C. Mortice and tenon joint in post and plate assemblage
(Neolithic)

D. Mortice and tenon joint in post and ground sill assemblage
(Bronze Age)

in the ground but rested on slabs of stone. All of these
stones were still in their original position (fig. 291A). The
posts themselves had disappeared. Rising freely from stones
as they did, they could only retain their vertical position by
being framed together at the top by means of cross beams
and long beams. Slight irregularities in the longitudinal
alignment of the posts suggested that the cross beams lay
underneath the long beams. The excavators felt so sure of
their interpretation of these conditions that they undertook
to reconstruct the entire hall on its original site (figs. 291B
and C). Some of the details of this reconstruction have since
been questioned, but the doubts amount basically to no
more than that in the original house the walls were probably
a little higher than they are shown at present.[105] The
pottery found in the house suggests as period of construction
the third century A.D. In the fifth century, for unknown
reasons, the hall appears to have been abandoned.

In the two decades that followed probably more than
sixty houses of the Lojsta type were unearthed on the
islands of Gotland and Öland, on the mainland of Sweden,
in Norway and in Denmark,[106] and, last but not least, in
Iceland, the country whose literary tradition introduced us
to this type of dwelling.

STÖNG, ÞÓRSÁRDALUR VALLEY, ICELAND

Iceland was the subject of an expedition undertaken between
1934 and 1939 by a joint excavation team of Danish,
Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish, and Icelandic archaeologists.[107]
I show as a typical example of the results of this
expedition, the plan and excavation photos of the dwelling
of a farm called Stöng in þórsárdalur Valley (fig. 292A-C)
which was settled during the landnám period at the end of
the ninth century and covered by the ashes of nearby
Mount Hekla in an eruption in the year 1300. The dwelling
unit of this farmstead consisted of a long house 98 feet
long, divided into foreroom, sleeping house, living house
(forstofa, area I; skáli, area II; stofa, area III), milkhouse
(area IV), and cooler (area V). The sleeping hall was
54 feet long and 19 feet wide. Its aisles were raised so
as to form continuous "benches"—the langpallar of
Gudmundsson's Saga house. Inserted into the curbs
of these benches about every 6 feet were large blocks
which served as base stones for the wooden uprights that
once supported the roof of the hall (fig. 292B). The fireplace
lay in the middle of the center floor. Two shallow stone
foundations which bisected the aisles crosswise suggest that
the sleeping hall was subdivided by means of wooden cross
partitions into a sleeping house for men (karlskáli) and
another for women (kvennaskáli)—a distinction also well
known from the Sagas. And judging from the presence of
two rows of stones ranged carefully along the base line of
the two long walls, the hall must have been wainscotted
its entire length (the veggþili or langþili of the Sagas).
There was a "crossbench" (þverpallr) on the entrance
side of the hall, raised like the aisles and screened off by a
wooden cross wall. I am drawing attention to this house not

only because it is the keystone of cumulative archaeological
evidence that established the correctness of Gudmundsson's
literary work, but also because this dwelling may date from
the same century in which the Plan of St. Gall was drawn.
During the Iceland expedition of 1934-39 a total of eight
such houses was unearthed. But by the time these excavations
were conducted, discoveries of even greater significance
were in progress on the Continent.

EZINGE, PROV. GRONINGEN, THE NETHERLANDS

The low-lying coastlands of the Netherlands and northern
Germany are dotted with man-made circular earthen works
on which the cattle-raising Iron Age settlers of this territory
erected their dwellings in order to protect themselves from
the heavy tides that flooded the surrounding flatlands
during the storms that lashed the shores of the North Sea
in the winter and spring. These dwelling mounds, called
Warfen or Wurten in German,[108] terpen in Dutch,[109] are
the product of the struggle of man against a geophysical
event of major importance which started some ten thousand
years ago, has as yet not subsided, and is even today only
temporarily checked by an elaborate system of dikes. Since
the retreat of the last great glacial cap of ice the shorelands
of Holland and northwestern Germany have gradually
sunk away in the course of a geological action in which long
periods of sinking alternated with shorter and less effective
periods of uplift.[110] The last of these cycles of sinking
started in the centuries immediately preceding the birth
of Christ and is still in progress. Prior to its inception the

[ILLUSTRATION]

302. WIJCHEN (GELDERLAND), THE NETHERLANDS

PLAN [after Bloemen, 1933, 6, fig. 7]

Alternation of heavy posts with saplings in the outer walls of both
houses reveals that the braided wattle walls did not form an
independent envelope, as with the Ezinge houses, but stood in line
with the outer posts.

[ILLUSTRATION]

303.A FOCHTELOO (FRIESLAND), THE NETHERLANDS

HOUSES OF A WEALTHY WEST GERMANIC FARMER AND HIS FOLLOWERS, 1ST-4TH CENTURIES A.D.

303.A VIEW FROM THE AIR LOOKING NORTHWARD. RECONSTRUCTION BY A. E. VAN GIFFEN, 1954, fig. 85 [drawing based on a sketch by L. Posterna]

303.B PLAN OF SETTLEMENT SHOWN IN AIRVIEW

[ILLUSTRATION]

303.B

This large dwelling was associated with a hamlet of three
similar houses approximately the same width, but only half
its length. It was excavated in 1938 on a sandy elevation
of the Dutch Geest. The presence of roof-supporting timbers
was determined by discoloration in the ground from where
they had rotted away. By this evidence it was ascertained
that the roof of the main house was supported by two rows
of free-standing inner posts, ten in each row, and that they
were of quarter-split oak sunk, rounded side inward, 0.75m
into the earth. This building was buttressed by a large
number of exterior posts set at an angle to help neutralize
the outward thrust of the roof. The walls were of wattle-daubed
clay; the rounded corners and absence of any timbers
capable of supporting a gable suggest that the building's
roof was hipped over its narrow ends. Both main house and
adjacent hamlet were protected by a pallisaded fence, and
the main house additionally by a ditch.

dwellings of the coastland farmers of northern Germany and
Holland lay level with the flat land; but as the land began
to sink away, the water of the North Sea rushed in with
steadily increasing frequency and furor, and forced the
settlers to remove their dwellings to successively higher
levels. This they did by packing the floor level of their
houses with thick layers of turves and animal manure and
by re-erecting new dwellings on these mounds above the
inundation level of the heavy winter tides. As this process
continued century by century, it gave rise to a landscape of
man-made dwelling mounds attaining in their ultimate
stage a diameter of twelve or fifteen hundred feet and a
maximum inner height above the surrounding land of as
much as twelve to eighteen feet.

The effects, although not the cause, of this peculiar
geological phenomenon were known to Pliny the Elder,
who visited this territory probably in A.D. 47 and transmitted
his observations to posterity in a derisive yet
highly descriptive passage of his Historia Naturalis:

A vertical profile cut through such a tumulus or Warf
shows as a rule a sequence of several convex layers of soil
in different coloration; the cultural remains reveal layer by
layer the story of the settlement as it was abandoned and
re-erected on each successive level. The physical composition
of these mounds offers unusually favorable conditions
for the preservation of organic materials, such as wooden
uprights, wattled fences or walls, or even objects made of
leather, since each abandoned settlement was covered by a
solid layer of clay which sealed its contents against the
corrosive action of the air.

In 1930 Albert Egges van Giffen dug a trial ditch through
a mound of this type at Ezinge (Groningen), Holland, and
the ensuing excavation (1932-34)—a landmark in the history
of European house research—enabled him to trace the
development of a West-Germanic settlement from its
beginnings in the fourth century B.C. to its end in the third
century A.D.[112]

The earliest settlement of this site (layer VI) was a
single farmstead (figs. 293 and 294), erected early in the
fourth century B.C. on the natural ground of the flatland. It
consisted of a three-aisled house with walls of wattlework,
and a vast enclosure almost entirely taken up by a platform
for the storage of hay or harvest. The timbers of the roof of
the house had disappeared, but the roof-supporting posts
and the braided walls of the house were preserved to a height
of almost a feet (fig. 293). They consisted of five pairs of
freestandings inner posts and a perimeter of thinner outer
posts. The wattle walls ran independently of this system,
slightly inside the ring of outer posts.

[ILLUSTRATION]

FOCHTELOO (FRIESLAND),
THE NETHERLANDS

304.A

304.B

HOUSE OF A WEALTHY GERMANIC FARMER

1ST-4TH CENTURIES A.D.

PLAN AT LARGE SCALE (A. E. VAN GIFFEN)

Plan of the main house (A) shows that aisles of the six westermost bays are cross
partitioned into stalls for 24 cattle. Entrances in the middle of each long wall lead to a
center bay that separates stock from the dwelling (four eastern bays). B and C: Plans
of the main house, final condition.

[ILLUSTRATION]

305.A LEENS (GRONINGEN), THE NETHERLANDS

AISLED HOUSE WITH TURF WALLS, A.D. 700-1000

PLAN [after A. E. Van Giffen, 1935-40, fig. 16]

The plan above is at level B noted on the transverse section below
306.A) with horizontal fold shading. Shown at right (306.B) is another
building.

[ILLUSTRATION]

305.B SECTION, EXCAVATION,

scale horizontally & vertically, 1:150

Ground penetration at right is about 3.5m = 11.5 ft.

[ILLUSTRATION]

LEENS (GRONINGEN), THE NETHERLANDS

306.A

306.B

AISLED HOUSE WITH WALLS, A.D. 700-1000

TRANSVERSE SECTION [after Zippellius, 1953, 32, fig. 5f]

Dwellings excavated at Leens were of great historical importance since they offered the
first archaeological proof that the aisled Germanic Wohnstallhaus continued to be built
in the Middle Ages. Fig. 306.A shows a house of Warf layer B of seven strata
spanning roughly 3 centuries. The structure was 38 feet long, 16 wide (11.5 × 4.8m).
Layer B also held a house with wattlework walls, the soil structure of which indicated
it was almost 72 feet long.

When the water level of the North Sea had risen high
enough to make living on the flatland intolerable, the
single family dwelling of layer VI was buried under a
man-made mound of sods and turves (layer V) which,
after having reached a height of roughly 4 feet and a diameter
of approximately 90 feet, gave birth to a hamlet that
now comprised a total of five houses (figs. 295-297). These
houses belonged to the same construction type as did the
preceding settlement and were equally well preserved.
Three of them were provided with hearths, and hence
must have served as dwellings for people; one was inhabited
by both men and animals, evidenced by the
presence of both a hearth and two narrow strips of wattle-work
in front of the roof posts, which the excavator
interpreted as fodder mats, but which later excavations
proved to be dung mats.[113] The same condition appears to
have existed in the large house in the center, if this house,
as seems likely, had a hearth in its unexcavated eastern
section. Another smaller house, built at right angles against
this dwelling, had neither hearth nor dung mats, and hence
may have served as barn or general storage area. In the
houses that accommodated livestock the aisles were subdivided
into bays, or stalls, by means of braided cross
partitions, each of the thus-created boxes yielding sufficient
space for the stabling of two heads of cattle, facing the
outer wall perimeter of the house. Three of the houses had
their entrance broadside, two were entered axially. Pottery
shards and other cultural accessories associated with this
settlement permit a rough dating of the third century B.C.

In the second century B.C. the hamlet of layer V was
abandoned and the mound on which it stood was enlarged
to more than twice its original diameter and raised to a
level of 6 feet above the natural ground. On top of this
elevation a new village was built in a circle around an
open yard with the longitudinal axes of the house pointing
radially to the center of the Warf (layer IV).

The houses of this layer were of the same construction as
those of the preceding layers, but in general considerably
more spacious, as one may gather by glancing at the
extraordinary cattle barn reproduced in figures 298-299.
It had a length of over 75 feet (23 m.) even in its uncompleted
state of excavation. The posts and carefully
braided walls of this structure (twigs of birch daubed with
cow manure) were preserved in almost original freshness,
in spots to hip and even shoulder height. The building
contained no hearth, but dung mats ran along the inner
roof supports along the entire length of the structure, and
the aisles were systematically subdivided into stalls by
braided cross partitions.

The circular village to which this barn belonged was in
use from the second century B.C. to the first century A.D.,
but the life span of its houses was found to be considerably
shorter than that of the preceding layers. In certain sectors
van Giffen found that five to ten houses had been superimposed
upon one another in rapid succession; and intermittent
stratification of this settlement horizon with sterile

[ILLUSTRATION]

307. HODORF (HOLSTEIN), GERMANY

AISLED FARM HOUSE, 1st-2nd CENT. A.D.

PLAN [by W. Haarnagel; after Schwantes, 1939, 272, fig. 10]

At the lowest level of the Hodorf WARF lay a flatland farm consisting of a
three-aisled main house divided into living and livestock areas, and an unaisled
barn built in axial prolongation of the house. In the layout of the plan two
measures are clearly discernible, the longitudinal measure of column interval A
and its half measure A/2. This measure and submeasure make up the length of
the house and its AMBAU (= 111 feet). The width of the house (17 feet) appears
to be uniformly twice that of the center aisle. While the observation is simple and
even superficial, it hints, at this period and in this region, of an emerging
awareness of systematic measure in simple building practice and agriculture. All
trace of bulging curvature of wall line, or boat-like plan, has disappeared in
favor of a rather uniform rectangular geometry. Discipline of measure prevails
over scattered spacing and casual positioning of posts. A knot tied midway
between the ends of a braided rope could graphically solve the problem of
division by 2 for men unversed in the mystery of abstract arithmetic. It would,
too, lead to successive halving in series.

courses of sand gave evidence that this village, in its
initial stages at least, was still dangerously exposed to the
destructive action of the heavy winter tides.

In the centuries that followed, the second and third
centuries A.D., the Warf had to be raised again on two
successive occasions (layer IV-III). The house type remained
the same, except that in the later stages the wattle
walls were frequently reinforced externally by heavy layers
of turf. Toward the close of the third century, finally, the
village perished in a fire—an event that van Giffen connected
with the intrusion into the Frisian territory of the
first westward-moving Anglo-Saxons. The spacious three-aisled
houses were now superseded by small rectangular
huts which are of no interest to this study.

The excavation photos shown in figures 293 and 299 convey
in persuasive terms the unusual state of preservation in
which the Ezinge houses were found. They furnished
conclusive evidence about the construction of the walls and
the nature of the principal roof-supporting members (in
places preserved to a height of 4 feet above the ground),
but they told us nothing about the manner in which these
members were framed together at the top into a stable
roof-supporting system, nor how the roof itself was constructed.

There are, nevertheless, a few inferences that can be
made with relative safety from the conditions of the walls
and the placement of the posts. One of these is that the
roof must have been hipped over the narrow ends of the
house. This must be inferred from the fact that the two
end-walls of the house are not provided with posts that
could have carried a gable. The reconstruction of the roof
shapes shown in figures 295 and 297 render this condition
correctly.[114] Second, the principal posts must have been
framed together lengthwise by long beams which were
needed for the support of the rafters. There is no unity of
opinion, however, on whether the posts were in addition
connected transversely by crossbeams. Van Giffen felt
that, provided the posts were set sufficiently deep into the
ground, no such cross-connections were needed; and this
was also, in part at least, the opinion of Joseph Schepers.[115]
The technical soundness of this view, however, was questioned

[ILLUSTRATION]

308. HODORF (HOLSTEIN), GERMANY

EXTERIOR VIEW, AISLED HOUSE

1st-3rd CENTURIES A.D.

[by courtesy of W. Haarnagel]

Although conjectural in many details, this model in the
Niedersachsische Landesstelle für Marschen- und Wurtenforschung,
Wilhelmshaven, is nevertheless a very convincing reconstruction of
the main house of the flatland farm of Hodorf unearthed in 1936-37.
It demonstrates that the Lower Saxon Wohnstallhaus,
surviving examples of which date only to the 15th century, is in fact
a modern derivative of a prehistoric building type.

As in the similar Ezinge houses, the rafters of the roof were carried
by a row of posts placed slightly outside the independent wattle
walls. The rounded corners of these walls, and the absence of any
strong support at the building's narrow ends, suggest that its roof
was hipped. Four round posts around the hearth (fig. 307) and
unaligned with the principal posts, are correctly interpreted as
supports for a canopy raised slightly above the main roof with lateral
openings for light, and smoke escape—a device well known through
the Sagas (see p. 23ff) and crucial for interpretation of the guest
and service buildings of the Plan of St. Gall (see below, pp. 117ff).

by T. Hermanns and Adelhart Zippelius[116] who
pointed out that if the posts were only connected by long
beams, the roof-supporting frame would still be exposed
to the danger of bending and buckling under the strain of
heavy loads of snow or the thrust of the wind during
storms. Moreover, cross connection is suggested by the
extremely accurate transverse alignment of the post, as it is
found in all of the Ezinge houses, as well as in the majority
of Warf dwellings subsequently unearthed. Whether the
cross beams lay beneath the longitudinal timbers, or above
them, must remain an open question.

There appears to be general agreement that the peripheral
row of posts—standing either within the walls of the house
or at a slight distance away from them—consisted of
short uprights terminating in a fork and carrying in that
fork a course of horizontal timbers which served as footing
for the rafters. The wattle walls themselves would have
been too weak to carry the roof. In some of the Ezinge
houses the outer posts were found to lean inward in close
adjustment to the angle of the roof thrust—a feature that
was encountered again in many houses subsequently
unearthed.[117]

The construction of the roof itself has been the subject
of some penetrating, yet careful and equally cautious,
observations made by Adelhart Zippelius.[118] Zippelius feels
that the layout of the Ezinge houses suggests that they were
covered by a continuous sequence of coupled rafters
(Sparrendach). The absence of any trace of posts along the
central axis of the house precludes the assumption of a
ridge pole. In primitive ridge-pole construction the two
sides of the roof were, in general, formed by means of
poles (in German called Rofe) which were hooked into the
ridge piece with their heavy ends upward and suspended
in the pole by a hook formed by the stub of a former
branch. This type of roof construction (Rofenkonstruktion),
ideal for houses of relatively smaller dimensions, could also
be employed in connection with aisled houses, but only if
the width of the nave was not much greater than the width
of the aisles.[119] Zippelius contends that in the Ezinge houses,
where the nave is generally twice the width of the aisles,
this system would not have worked, since the overhanging
portions of the roof poles (over the nave) would have outweighed
the lower portion of the roof, which covered the
aisles. The structural stability of the Ezinge houses required
that the roof poles were laid upon the supporting frame
with their light ends upward. Conjectural as all this may
be, it is based on sound speculation, and in the absence of
more tangible archaeological evidence provides us with as
good a working hypothesis as can be found at present.

Zippelius made some further, no less persuasive, assumptions
about the manner in which these timbers might have
been jointed. The easiest, simplest, and oldest method of
carrying a horizontal log is to lay it upon a row of timbers
terminating in a natural fork (fig. 300A)—a method that
continued to be employed long after more sophisticated
forms of joining had come into use, and is practiced even

[ILLUSTRATION]

EINSWARDEN (NORDENHEIM), GERMANY

309.B

309.A

POST AND WATTLE HOUSE, around the birth of Christ

PLAN AND RECONSTRUCTION [after Zippellius, 1953, 38, fig. 8]

The site is on the estuary of the river Weser. The construction of
this house is virtually identical in all respects with the houses of the
cluster settlement of Layer V of the Ezinge Warf (figs. 295-97 and
fig. 327). Like most of those, as well as the chieftains's house at
Fochteloo (fig. 304), its living quarters (two westernmost bays) are
separated from the stables (two easternmost bays) by a center bay
entered through a door in the middle of the southern long wall,
while the cattle enter through a door in the eastern end wall. The
house is 33 feet long and 16½ feet wide.

today by primitive men throughout the entire world. When
natural forks of the desired height could not be found
among the available logs, the fork had to be shaped with
tools. The closest man-made imitation of the natural fork—
and here again I think Zippelius is correct—is a joint to
which he refers as Pfostenzange and which is obtained by
simply cogging the notched portion of a large beam into a
corresponding slit in the head of the upright beneath it
(fig. 300B). Another way of locking posts into horizontal
timbers (either at the top, bottom, or in-between) is by
means of mortice and tenon joints (Verzapfung), as shown
in figure 300C and D, or by halving them into one another.
Halving would also appear to be the most sensible joint for
the tips of the rafters, the connections being given additional
strength at this point, perhaps, by some braided strands of
willow. The reconstructions shown in figures 297 and 298
attempt to conform with this thinking.[120]

WIJCHEN, MAAS ESTUARY, THE NETHERLANDS

When the Ezinge houses were discovered in 1930-34 they
were a new and entirely isolated phenomenon on the
Continent. But in the five years that followed, before the
outbreak of World War II, every subsequent summer
brought new results. While van Giffen was still at work at
Ezinge, F. Bloemen unearthed under less favorable soil
conditions another group of aisled houses of the first
century B.C. on a mountain range near the estuary of the
river Maas, near Wijchen.[121] The ground plans showed the
transverse alignment of inner and outer posts, which was
typical of the houses of layer V and IV of the Ezinge Warf.
The outer walls consisted of an alternating sequence of one
heavy and two lighter posts; the heavy posts stood in line
with the principal posts (figs. 301, 302). In other aspects,
however, the construction differed. The houses had posts
along their central axes, an arrangement that is in general
interpreted as an indication of the presence of a ridge pole.
The excavation showed that ridge-pole construction, although
unusual, was nevertheless not absent in this territory,
an observation that was confirmed by later finds in
other places.[122]

[ILLUSTRATION]

310.X ISOMETRIC VIEW

[ILLUSTRATION]

310. CROSS SECTION

The house was 102 feet long, 29 feet wide. The nave and one aisle were 10½ feet
wide, the narrow aisle 8 feet wide. The distribution of stones—some for pavement
some for lining or packing of wall-post sockets, others for footing of principal
roof supports—reveals that the house was divided lengthwise into a nave and two
aisles, and crosswise into fourteen bays. In the first ten, only the center floor was
paved, and the aisles were strewn with sand. In the last four bays the pavement
ran across the width of the dwelling. This is the well-known T-shaped floor plan
of the Lower Saxon Wohnstallhaus.

In the house above, bay depth in the stable was 6½ to 8¼ feet. In the living area
the distance between trusses increased, and in the terminal bay containing the
hearth is almost twice as deep as the others. Since the principal inner posts of
the house were footed on stone blocks rather than in post holes, they must have
been framed at their heads by long beams and cross beams somewhat in the
manner shown above. The ANKERBALKEN (cross beams terminating in long
tenons morticed into the main posts a few feet below the tie beams) shown in
Rieck's reconstruction (Reick, 1942, fig. 2) appeared to us to be an anachronistic
feature for so early a structure and for that reason has been omitted in our cross
section.

AALBURG, near BEFORT, LUXEMBOURG

AISLED HOUSE, 5TH CENTURY B.C.

[ILLUSTRATION]

311. PLAN [after G. Rieck, 1942, 27, fig. 1] 1:125

FOCHTELOO, RHEE, SLEEN, AND LEENS,
THE NETHERLANDS

Bloemen's excavation was followed with the discovery by
van Giffen in 1935, 1936, and 1937 of a group of settlements
of the first and second centuries A.D. near the
villages of Fochteloo, Rhee, and Sleen; and in 1938, again
near Fochteloo,[123] of a settlement of the same period which
van Giffen believed to be the farm and residence of a
chieftain (figs. 303-304). This settlement comprised a long
house, protected by fence and ditch, and a nearby hamlet,
likewise fenced in, consisting of three smaller houses and
a couple of open barns. All of these houses were aisled and
were entered broadside by two entrances lying opposite
one another in the middle of the long walls and giving access
to a median crosswalk that separated the stables for the cattle
from the living quarters of the people. The long house of
the chieftain had a third additional entrance at the rear of
the stables, primarily for the use of livestock. This house
was 70 feet long and 21 feet wide (21·40 m. × 6·50 m.).

The great significance of van Giffen's excavations of
Ezinge was that they solved an enigma that had puzzled
students of European house construction for over a century.
They brought to light the prehistoric prototypes of two well-known
and closely related modern house types, namely
that of the Lower Saxon "Wohnstallhaus" and of the
Frisian "los-hus." The oldest surviving specimens of these
two widespread house types date from the early sixteenth
or, at the most, from the end of the fifteenth century.[124]

Van Giffen's excavations demonstrated that this type
was infinitely older than anybody had heretofore presumed
it to be, and their immediate prototypes could now be
traced back as far as the fourth century B.C. It was clearly
only a matter of time for the connecting medieval links to
be found. Once more it fell to van Giffen to lead the way
in this search. A trial ditch run through a Warf in the
vicinity of the village of Leens (Groningen), Holland,
revealed the profiles of a settlement whose life span started
approximately at the point where that of Ezinge ended.
And in a systematic excavation of this Warf conducted in
the subsequent year, van Giffen[125] could trace his aisled
Iron Age house through seven successive layers from the
end of the seventh century A.D. to the beginning of the
eleventh. Altogether some twenty-three houses came to
light: some of them built with wattle walls, others with
walls of turves; but all of them had their roofs supported by
two rows of freestanding inner posts. I reproduce as a
typical example the plan of a house of Layer B (fig. 305),
after van Giffen, and a cross section of this house (fig. 306),
as suggested by Zippelius.[126]

HODORF, SCHLESWIG-HOLSTEIN, GERMANY

Van Giffen's work in Holland was only a beginning. In
1936 Werner Haarnagel launched the first of an equally
exciting series of excavations in the adjacent coastlands of
northern Germany, where he discovered a Germanic flatland
farm of the first and second century, near the village
of Hodorf, Schleswig-Holstein, on the banks of the river
Stör, not far from its confluence with the river Elbe.[127] It
consisted of a three-aisled dwelling with hearth, to which a
one-aisled barn was added axially at a slightly later date
(fig. 307). The construction method employed in this dwelling
was identical, in all details, with those of van Giffen's
houses at Ezinge: six pairs of inner posts serving as principal
roof supports, an outer perimeter of wall posts serving
as footing for the rafters, plus the customary envelope of
wattle walls running in total independence of the supporting
members. The aisles were divided into cattle stalls in the
rearward part of the house, as in Ezinge, except that in
Hodorf this area was entirely matted with wattlework. A
distinctive feature of the Hodorf farm was that its hearth
was framed by four posts which were out of line with the
principal roof supports and also differed from the latter by
being round. They were obviously not part of the regular
structural system. Haarnagel thought that they might have
carried a smoke flue, or that they belonged to a separate
inner armature of poles which carried an elevated section
of the main roof over an opening in the ridge above the
hearth site, serving as light source and as smoke outlet. A
similar arrangement of poles ranged in a square around the
hearth had been observed in other Iron Age houses in
vastly distant places.[128]

Haarnagel has reconstructed the Hodorf house in a handsome
model which is displayed at the Niedersächsische
Landesstelle für Marschen- und Wurtenforschung in the
city of Wilhelmshaven (fig. 308). While many of the details
in the roof section of this model must by necessity remain
conjectural, the concept of the house as a whole is unquestionably
sound. The pottery found in the Hodorf house
indicated as time of occupancy the first and second century
A.D. Toward the close of the second century the site was
imperiled by tidal inundations. Its inhabitants made an
attempt to save the house by filling it up inside with sand,

[ILLUSTRATION]

312. WILHELMSHAVEN-HESSE, GERMANY

EXTERIOR VIEW, AISLED HOUSE, 6TH-9TH CENTURIES

MODEL IN THE NIEDERSÄCHSISCHES LANDESINSTITUT FÜR
MARSCHEN- UND WURTENFORSCHUNG

[after Haarnagel]

The excavation of Warf of Wilhelmshaven-Hesse (trial ditch in
1939 disrupted by World War II, resumed in 1949, continued in
1950) offered the first evidence that the aisled and timbered Iron
Age hall known through the excavations of Hodorf (figs. 307-308)
and Einswarden (fig. 309) continued to be used in the coastlands of
northern Germany in early medieval times. As it was excavated the
Warf revealed, in settlement horizons extending from the 7th through
10th centuries A.D., aisled and bay-divided houses ranging in
length from 39½ to 59 feet, and in width, 17½ to 21 feet.

The house model shown here is a reconstruction of one of the larger
houses of the Warf. Like those of Fochteloo and Einswarden, it had
an axial entrance for cattle in one of the narrow walls and a lateral
entrance to the living area close to the opposite end of the house.

a little more than 2 feet above its original floor level. A
number of posts were reset on this occasion, and the roof
may have been replaced entirely, but in all other respects
the house remained the same, except that now it was used
exclusively as a dwelling. It continued to be used in this
form until the end of the third century when it made room
for a new but smaller house of the same construction type.

EINSWARDEN, GERMANY

The operations at Hodorf had barely been completed, when
in the winter of 1937/38 Haarnagel was called to a site in
the vicinity of the village of Einswarden,[129] on the left bank
of the estuary of the Weser river, where the heavy machinery
of a modern land improvement project had edged into the
core of an ancient dwelling mound. Systematic excavations
were undertaken in the summer of 1938 but remained confined
to only a small sector of this large mound.

They brought to light three post-and-wattle houses of
the period around the birth of Christ and below these
dwellings, in an even earlier settlement horizon which
reached back to the second and third centuries B.C., four
additional houses of the same type. The largest of the
upper settlement measured 56 feet by 21 feet (17 m. ×
6·5 m.); the smallest, 33 feet by 16 feet (10 m. × 5 m.).
The latter, having its wood work practically intact to a
height of 16 inches (40 cm.), was especially well preserved.
Haarnagel could observe that the outer posts of house II
leaned inward. He assumed that the posts that he found
were the lower portions of rafters that rose from the ground
directly, and reconstructed the house accordingly.[130] Albert
Genrich[131] and Zippelius[132] consider it more likely that these
oblique outer posts were short, that they carried an outer
frame of horizontal poles that served as footing for the
rafters, and leaned inward in order to counteract the outward
thrust of the roof, as shown in figure 309 B.

AALBURG, NEAR BEFORT, LUXEMBOURG

With the outbreak of World War II, all of this excavation
ceased. Save for an isolated excavation conducted by Gustav
Rieck during the German occupation of Luxembourg at
Aalburg, near Befort,[133] nothing new was added to our
knowledge of the early history of the three-aisled timber
house. Rieck uncovered the foundations of an aisled timber
hall of extraordinary dimensions (102 feet long and 29 feet
broad [31 m. × 8·8 m.]) which antedated even the earliest
Ezinge houses (figs. 310, 311). Here, it seems, in a dwelling
that had been constructed as early as 500 B.C., in territory
where Celtic and Germanic influences intermingled, the
excavator had come upon a floor plan that anticipated by
one millennium the T-shaped Flet and Dele arrangement
of the Lower Saxon farmhouse. The roof-supporting posts
of this house were not sunk into holes but rose freely from
base blocks above the ground, attesting overhead a solid
frame of cross and long beams. This site raised the interesting
question, whether the aisled West-Germanic timber
house might not have been adopted at a very early date in
the territory of the neighboring Celts.

WILHELMSHAVEN-HESSE, GERMANY

When excavation work could be resumed after the war had
ended, Haarnagel added a number of excavations to his
preceding work, which enabled him to trace the history of
the aisled timber house both further back and further
forward in time. A trial ditch dug in 1939, just as the war
broke out, in Hesse, one of the suburbs of the city of
Wilhelmshaven, had suggested the presence, in a settlement
stratum of the seventh century A.D., of aisled houses of
the Hodorf-Einswarden type, such as he had previously
been able to assert only for the span of 300 B.C. to A.D. 200.
Systematic excavations undertaken in 1949 and continued
in 1950[134] surpassed all expectations by establishing the
existence of this house type in settlement layers not only of
the seventh, but also of the eighth and ninth centuries A.D.
And in 1951-53 this span was further extended into the
eleventh, the twelfth, and thirteenth centuries through the
excavation of a medieval trading settlement in the city of
Emden.[135] The result of these excavations is visually summarized
in a reconstruction model of one of the houses of
Wilhelmshaven-Hesse, here shown as figure 312.

JEMGUM, NEAR LEER, GERMANY

Conversely, in an excavation conducted in 1954 Haarnagel
had the good fortune of unearthing in a place called Jemgum
near Leer,[136] on the left bank of the river Ems, an
aisled house with pottery shards and artifacts ranging from
the beginning of the seventh to the end of the fifth century
B.C. (transition from Bronze Age to Early Iron Age.) The
walls of the Jemgum house (figs. 313-314) were a different
construction type from those of the previously discovered
houses. They were built of horizontal logs of ash, squared
off, and held in place by vertical ash saplings. In the middle
of each long wall there was an entrance protected by a
projecting porch. The roof was carried by four freestanding
inner posts of a diameter of eight inches (20 cm.), dug
sixteen inches (40 cm.) into the ground. The hearth lay in
the middle of the center aisle, in the northeastern half of the
house. On the opposite side of the house the ground was
covered by a wooden floor covering of alder planks, which
suggests that this section of the house was used as a living
and sleeping unit.

FEDDERSEN-WIERDE, NEAR BREMERHAVEN,
GERMANY

Haarnagel's most successful excavation—begun in 1955,
continued every subsequent summer, and still in progress
at the time of this writing—was undertaken on an Iron Age
Warf called Feddersen-Wierde on the right bank of the
river Weser not far from Bremerhaven. As this dwelling
mound was peeled off, layer by layer, it released the remains
of forty-eight houses; the majority were in excellent condition,
reflecting the various stages of growth of a settlement
that had started as a flatland farm at about the time
Christ was born, and was subsequently raised, in seven
stages, to successively higher levels, until around the year
400 it had reached an ultimate height of 13 feet (4 m.)
above its original starting point and a diameter of about
656 feet (200 m.). The results of this extraordinary excavation
are known so far through preliminary reports only.[137]
In figure 315 I reproduce a plan of settlement period IIB,
which shows the Warf in the stage it had reached sometime
during the first century. At this time the settlement consisted
of a principal Warf and a secondary smaller Warf,
both protected by a peripheral ditch. The principal Warf,
some 295 feet long and 98 feet wide (90 m. × 30 m.),
accommodated a cluster of four houses; the smaller, a
cluster of only two. The houses varied considerably in
size, the largest measuring 97 feet by 21 feet (29·50 m. ×
6·75 m.); the smallest, 33 feet by 16 feet (10·00 m. ×
5·00 m.) Each house formed a self-sufficient agricultural
entity, combining under one roof the living quarters of its
owner and the stables for his livestock (fig. 316). The hay
and harvest was stored in separate open sheds to the side of
the house. The layout of the main houses is identical with
that of the contemporaneous houses that van Giffen had
encountered at Fochteloo (figs. 303-304). Like them, the
houses of the Feddersen-Wierde had their principal entrance
arranged in opposite pairs in the long walls, giving
access to a crosswalk which separated the quarters of the
humans from those of the animals. In the smaller houses
where the areas of living quarters of the owner and the
stables for his livestock were more or less equal, this led to
a fairly balanced arrangement with the entrances often
exactly in the center. But in the houses of the leading
families, superior wealth in cattle led to an elongation of the
stables and to the addition in the latter of a subsidiary

[ILLUSTRATION]

C. ELEVATION

principal members only, shown; for more complete
assembly see exterior view on next page.

[ILLUSTRATION]

B. CROSS SECTION

[ILLUSTRATION]

A. PLAN

detail of plan at jamb of doorway

[ILLUSTRATION]

313.A. B, C
JEMGUM, LEER, GERMANY

AISLED HOUSE, 7TH-5TH CENTURIES B.C.

[redrawn from W. Haarnagel, 1957, 21, Plan. No. 7]

The site is on the left bank of the estuary of the river Ems. The house was small, no more than 15 feet wide and 25 feet long. It was used
exclusively as a dwelling and gave no evidence of ever having sheltered animals. In the middle of each long wall, slightly off center, were
opposing entrances protected by projecting porches.

The roof was carried by two pair of inner posts (unscantled oak trunks, dia. 20cm) dividing the house into a central area of roughly 6½ × 13
feet asymmetrically placed, and with aisles all round it. The hearth lay in the axis of this center space, in the western half of the house which
had a simple clay floor and must have served as kitchen.

The floor of the space between the eastern pair of posts and the eastern end wall was covered with wooden planks cut from alder trees; this
area, better insulated from dampness than any other in the house, must have served as living and sleeping quarters. All structural members of
the dwelling that were posted into the ground, or that lay atop the ground, were found to be in good condition, many of the boards forming the
wooden floor of the presumed sleeping area were still in place.

[ILLUSTRATION]

314. EXTERIOR VIEW

JEMGUM, LEER, GERMANY

AISLED HOUSE, 7TH-5TH CENTURIES B.C. [redrawn from W. Haarnagel]

Drawings and models are in the Niedersächsisches Landesinstitut für Marschen- und Wurtenforschung

The walls of the house were made of squared ash logs, of which the bottom course was still well preserved. They were held in place at distances
varying between 5 and 6½ feet, by paired saplings pointed and driven into the ground to a depth of about 2 feet, with five pairs in each long
wall, and three in each end wall. At their meeting points in the corners of the house, the ash logs had rotted away, and for that reason, it could
not be ascertained in what manner they were jointed. It seems reasonable to assume that they were notched into each other at right angles,
since otherwise these timbers would have been subject to displacement from the thrust of the rafters.

Since the free-standing inner posts were only set 15¾ inches into the ground, they must have been framed crosswise at their heads by tie beams,
and lengthwise by longitudinal plates serving as footing for the rafters, or supporting them in midspan. There were no roof-supporting posts in
the end walls, indicating that the roof was probably hipped over the building's narrow ends. The construction of the walls, although common in
heavily wooded areas of Scandinavia and Alpine regions, is atypical for this part of Europe.

[ILLUSTRATION]

315. FEDDERSEN-WIERDE. PLAN [after Haarnagel, 1957, fig. 2]

AISLED HOUSES OF WARF-LAYER II B, 1ST-2ND CENTURIES

Haarnagel's exploration of this Warf, conducted from 1955 onward under the auspices of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, was the
German counterpart to van Giffen's excavation of the Warf of Ezinge (figs. 292-99). The site, on the right bank of the estuary of the Weser,
was carefully selected after many sample drillings from a chain of nine dwelling mounds running in an almost straight line south to north over a
distance of 15 kilometers. The Warf encompassed seven settlement horizons, a new one every 50-80 years, to compensate for the steadily rising
innundation level.

The earliest settlement was a flatland farm built around the birth of Christ. The Warf was abandoned around 400 A.D. when it had reached
a height of about 13 feet (4m). The dwellings buried in its various layers were as well preserved as those of Ezinge and for the same reasons
(see caption, fig. 299); and were of the same construction type. The plan above shows the Warf in the stage it had reached toward the end of
the first century A.D.

[ILLUSTRATION]

FEDDERSEN-WIERDE, NEAR BREMERHAVEN, GERMANY

316.B AUTHORS' RECONSTRUCTION (DRAWN BY WALTER SCHWARZ)

SEE FIGURE 175. PAGE 216, VOL. 1, FOR A LARGER INTERPRETATION OF THIS DRAWING

316.A PLAN [after Haarnagel, 1956, Pl. 3]

AISLED HOUSE OF A CHIEFTAIN, Warf-LAYER II B, 1ST-2ND CENTURIES

With the cattle barn of Ezinge (figs. 298-99) this is one of the finest examples of a house type widely diffused in the Germanic territories of
Holland and Northern Germany during the first millenium B.C. and throughout the entire Middle Ages. The house was 97 feet long (28.50m)
and 21 feet wide (6.75m). It combined under one roof the owner's living quarters and the stables for his livestock. In the area used by animals
(eastern 52½ feet of the house) the roof-supporting trusses were more narrowly spaced, leaving in the aisles between each pair of posts a stall
for two head of cattle (32 head altogether).

As in the chieftain's house at Fochteloo (fig. 304) stables and living area were separated by an entrance bay accessible through doors in the long
walls, while animals entered through a gate in the eastern end wall. The walls and all the internal cross partitions were done in wattlework,
daubed with manure. The stable area had the traditional mats of wattlework on which the manure was gathered, with cess trenches beneath to
allow for drainage. The walk between these mats was paved with turves laid between floor beams running parallel with the trenches.

[ILLUSTRATION]

317. FEDDERSEN-WIERDE, NEAR BREMERHAVEN, GERMANY

HOUSE OF THE EARLIEST SETTLEMENT HORIZON. DETAIL

[photograph by courtesy of W. Haarnagel]

These are remains of two of the principal roof-supporting posts of the house, for which the builder used the round trunks of relatively young
and slender oaks without debarking them. The superb state of preservation of both timbers and the wattlework of which the walls and cross
partitions in the aisles were formed owes to the fact that whenever a house was abandoned because of floods and then rebuilt on higher ground,
its remains were soon covered by layers of fine silt deposited during floods, thus sealing its contents against air and bacterial decay.

axial entrance, primarily used for livestock. The house thus
attained the distinctive T-shaped floor plan which later
became the hallmark of the Lower Saxon farmhouse. The
long house in the northwest corner of the main Warf of
settlement period II-B of the Feddersen-Wierde is one of
the finest of this type of Iron Age house known to date. In
figure 316A I reproduce its plan, after Haarnagel, and in
figure 316B a tentative reconstruction of my own. The excavation
photo shown in figure 317 of one of the cattle boxes
of house I of the oldest settlement horizon of Feddersen-Wierde,
gives an idea of the magnificent state of preservation
in which the walls and roof-supporting posts of some
of the older houses of this site were found.

The occupants of settlement-horizon II of the Warf
Feddersen-Wierde were field-ploughing and cattle-raising
farmers. In settlement-horizon III (first to second century
A.D.) the economy, and with it the entire social structure of
the village, begins to change. The dominant architectural
feature now, as well as in all the subsequent horizons (IV,
V, VI, and VII, ranging from the third into the fifth
century A.D.), is a large aisled hall (without stalls for cattle
and carefully fenced in), used as the residence of a person
of conspicuous wealth and prominence. Next to this hall is
a second hall (likewise without cattle stalls) which Haarnagel
believes was used as an assembly place for the entire
community. Animal husbandry and agriculture give way
to industry and trade, and the growth of a new class of
workmen who lived in smaller houses and worked in the
service of their trading chieftain.

[ILLUSTRATION]

ELISENHOF, NEAR TÖNNING, SCHLESWIG, GERMANY

319.

320.

AISLED HOUSE, 9TH CENTURY A.D. [excavation photos courtesy of A. Bantelmann]

The overview (fig. 319) of the Warf shows the remains of the houses; below (fig. 320), the detail shows a portion of the wattled walls of the
house with inclined posts carrying a peripheral course of poles on which the rafters were footed.

The great historical significance of the excavation of this Warf is that it closed the gap between the Iron Age and Migration Period houses
(shown in figs. 293-318) and their medieval derivatives (figs. 339-354). The settlement was started on flatland in the 7th century; its subsequent
development could be traced clear into the 11th century. In layout and construction its houses were virtually identical with those of Ezinge
(figs. 293-299), and Feddersen-Wierde (figs. 316-317). They were in some places preserved to a height of 7 feet.

[ILLUSTRATION]

321. ANTWERP, BELGIUM. UNAISLED AND AISLED HOUSES

PLANS, EARLY 11TH CENTURY A.D.

[after A. Van de Walle, 1961, 128, fig. 35]

The house plans and reconstruction shown here and in fig. 322 are in themselves of no particular architectural distinction. But they do mark the
historical point at which the aisled and bay-divided timber house, the premedieval history of which has been briefly traced in these pages,
attempted to gain a hold in the new and rapidly developing medieval cities.

Excavations conducted in 1955-1957, in what was then the old city of Antwerp (and is now the center of the modern town) brought to light
three medieval habitation levels in an average depth of 5 to 7 feet (1.50-3.50m) beneath the present street level. By pottery and other artifacts
these strata could be dated: the lowest to about 850-976, the middle to about 976-1063, and the top level to 1063-1225. On each horizon the
excavator found three houses in a row, side by side, gable walls facing the street. The houses shown here belong to the middle level. The larger
one to the right is aisled; the others, narrower and shorter, are unaisled. These two are divided internally into a main hall with hearth, and with
one or more partitions to the rear perhaps serving as private or storage rooms.

Aisled houses were well suited to the open terrain of the nonurban countryside. But in the densely built cities, with open land at a premium, the
aisled structure of one story had limited utility and future. Some wealthy individuals or institutions could, to be sure, acquire enough urban land
upon which to build expansive aisled houses on one level, and could afford the expense of their maintenance. Such was the case with ecclesiastical
overlords (see figs. 339-340) or corporate bodies such as the Church (figs. 341-343) or the guilds. But for the most part, aisled dwellings were
impractical in, and proved antithetical to the function of the city. The type came to be replaced by narrower structures of multiple stories
providing space above ground level, set with gable walls toward the street and side walls almost touching, a picturesque and early characteristic
of new urban architecture.

[ILLUSTRATION]

322. ANTWERP, BELGIUM

AISLED HOUSE, EARLY 11TH CENTURY

[the reconstruction illustrated is redrawn from A. van de Walle, 1961, 129, FIG. 36]

This isometric rendering, conjectural in detail yet fairly
certain in general lines, illustrates more persuasively than
the plans of the preceding figure why it was that aisled
houses could not survive the pressures of dense urban
development. The low, aisled house of the open country, in
the struggle to adapt it to urban row-house conditions,
soon proved to be a wasteful use of costly and limited
city space. Therefore this house type was, in the cities
quickly discarded.

In process of adaptation, the remaining nave (after
aisles were eliminated) could, to be sure, have been raised;
but the skeletal construction of the old northwest European
all-purpose house was never intended to bear the load
of superincumbent stories. A new type of timber framing
with strong load-bearing walls evolved to make timber
framing possible in construction of narrow urban houses.
But because of its total vulnerability to fire, the timber
house eventually came to give way, as the cities grew, to
masonry houses.

BÄRHORST, NEAR NAUEN, GERMANY

To the successful excavation work by van Giffen and
Haarnagel in the coastlands of Holland and northwestern
Germany, one has to add the work of others. As early as
1935-37 Otto Doppelfeld had unearthed a palisaded village
of an estimated fifty aisled houses, on the Bärhorst,[140] a
shallow, sandy plateau in a marshy swale near Nauen
(Berlin). The site had been discovered in the course of
trenching operations undertaken before the installation of
a giant sewage disposal plant. Remnants of pottery and
other cultural accessories showed that the village was
constructed around A.D. 250 and that it was held in occupancy
for about a century. Since it lay in an environment
that was utterly unsuited for successful agricultural exploitation
and perished in a fire that seems to have been
associated with a planned and systematic abandonment (no
objects of any use were left), Doppelfeld concluded that it
might have been the temporary site of a wandering Germanic
tribe who discarded the site when they found prospects
for the conquest of more suitable land. While basically
adhering to the same construction type, the Bärhorst houses
showed a great variability in the treatment of their walls
(fig. 318). Some of the houses had simple wattle walls; in
others the walls were formed by boards mounted horizontally
or vertically between the wall posts. Still others
were braided from thin split pieces of straight wood (leftovers
from the hewing of the structural timbers). The
Bärhorst village showed that the aisled pre-medieval timber
house extended into the third and fourth century A.D. eastward
as far as the longitude of the modern city of Berlin.

TOFTING AND ELISENHOF, NEAR TÖNNING,
SCHLESWIG-HOLSTEIN, GERMANY

Albert Bantelmann, on the other hand, pressed the search
northward by excavating, in the summers of 1949 and 1950,
a dwelling mound at Tofting (Schleswig-Holstein)[141] at the
mouth of the river Eider, close by the Danish border. His
excavations showed that conditions in the homeland of the
Anglo-Saxons were identical with those which van Giffen
and Haarnagel had found prevalent in the adjacent territories
of the Frisians.

Tofting was a relatively modest site; but from 1957
onward, in annual excavations as yet not terminated,
Bantelmann peeled off, layer by layer, in the Warf Elisenhof,[142]
near the town of Tönning at the mouth of the
river Eider in Schleswig, the remains of a village that was
founded in the seventh or eighth century A.D. and remained
in continuous occupation deep into the High Middle Ages.

The earliest settlement, which is so far known only
through a preliminary report, was built on natural ground
on one of the banks of the river Eider. Later the site was
raised and peripherally expanded by heavy deposits of
manure and clay, until it finally comprised an area of
roughly seven hectares. The occupants of the earliest settlement
were cattle-raising farmers, which is attested by the

[ILLUSTRATION]

CHEDDAR, SOMERSET, ENGLAND

AISLED PALACE HALLS, 12TH & 13TH CENT.

[courtesy of P. Rahtz, and Ministry of Building and Works, Crown
Copyright]

324.A

The composite plan shows the layout of East Halls I, II, and III. The original ten-bay
building dates to the early 12th century. It was replaced 100 years later by a smaller
six-bay hall 71 feet by 48 feet. At this time the roof supports were set into new square
post holes, some of which overlapped the round ones of the original hall. Toward the
end of the 13th century the second hall was replaced by a third of yet smaller size
66 by 42 feet) and without aisles.

324.B

At the time of Henry I (1100-1135) the hall was an aisled, ten-bay structure, 110 feet
long and 54 feet wide. The course of the outer walls could be identified by large post
holes, at 8-foot intervals, linked by ground timbers. The roof-supporting posts were
apparently rough-scantled logs over 15 inches in diameter, set into round post holes
packed with gravel.

presence of bone deposits of cattle, sheep, pigs, and horses
in, respectively, decreasing magnitude. The predominant
dwelling in all layers was the aisled post-and-wattle house,
giving shelter to humans and animals under the same roof.
Layout and construction were in all essential features
identical with those of the houses of Ezinge and Feddersen-Wierde,
and the state of preservation left no feature in
doubt (figs. 319, 320). Main posts and wattle walls survived
in certain cases up to a height of 7 feet (2 m.). In some
houses the outer posts consisted of inward leaning timbers
of unusually heavy scantling (fig. 320)—no doubt the supports
of a peripheral course of poles that served as footing
for the rafters. The floors of the houses were formed by
turves of clay, heavily matted with roots. The section of
the house that contained the hearth and served as living
quarters invariably lay on a higher level than the part that
contained the stalls for the cattle. From the higher level
the floor gradually slanted down to reach its lowest point
at the end of the stable section, thus affording easy drainage
for the liquid waste of the animals, which was conducted
downward in carefully constructed flues—the same type of
flues (one groundboard and two sideboards) used today
in the farmhouses of the same district, where it is called
Grüpp.

The length of the houses varied with the number of
cattle owned by each farmer. The width amounted uniformly
to about 17 feet (5 m.)—as it did in van Giffen's and
Haarnagel's early Iron Age houses—a dimension obviously
conditioned by the fact that it offers a comfortable minimum
of space for two rows of animals and a central lane of
access with drains for the waste products. As in the Iron
Age houses, the roof received its main support from two
ranges of freestanding inner posts. The cattle stood in
pairs in each stable, their heads turned toward the walls of
the house. The cross partitions by which their boxes were
formed consisted of split logs set into the ground in palisade
fashion. The outer walls were wattled, with the twigs
wound around a sequence of thin posts alternating at
regular intervals with heavy posts which must have supported
the wall plates. Only a small percentage of the
houses was oriented from east to west. The determinant
factor in the choice of the axis appears to have been the
slope of the Warf, as it offered best drainage.

Besides the standard house there was a variety of non-aisled
smaller buildings, some with wattle walls, others
with walls of turf; the latter, apparently used as weaving
houses. Two of these smaller houses were in ridge-pole
construction.

The Elisenhof is altogether a spectacular site. Its full
evaluation, which is forthcoming, will unquestionably give
us new insights into the constructional aspects of its houses.
The same may be expected from the excavation of a ninth-century
village on the Grothenkamp near Neumünster in
Holstein, which came to light in an emergency dig undertaken
in 1962.[143] Also not to be overlooked, in this connection,
are three houses (one of them aisled) which A. van de

Walle excavated in 1955 in the ancient town center of
Antwerp in a settlement-horizon that could be dated in the
eleventh century.[144] I reproduce in figures 321 and 322 a
plan and a reconstruction of this house as proposed by van
de Walle.

The great importance of these settlements, together with
those of Leens, Emden, and Wilhelmshaven-Hesse, is
that they have helped to close the gap between, on one
hand, the Iron Age houses of Ezinge, Jemgum, and Befort
and, on the other, isolated medieval house sites found in
Germany in such places as Wilhelmshaven-Krummer Weg
(eleventh-twelfth centuries), Ramm (thirteenth century),
Hungersdorf (about 1400), Hardesbüttel (thirteenth-fifthteenth
centuries);[145] and in Holland in such fourteenth-century
sites as Lievelde, Waalhaven, and in Boudewijn
Hartsland.[146] Thus, pre- and protohistory were connected
to the modern period with the story of a house type whose
historical life span, it now seemed, would have to be counted
by millenniums rather than by centuries. In this matter,
too, the last six years have brought a sensational surprise.

ELP, PARISH OF WESTERBORK, THE NETHERLANDS

After Haarnagel's excavation at Jemgum (figs. 313-314), it
was generally believed that the aisled hall had been
traced back to the period of its earliest appearance (seventhfifth
centuries B.C.). However, a Bronze Age settlement in
Elp (parish of Westerbork, province Drenthe, Holland)
excavated in 1960-62 by H. T. Waterbolk[147] disclosed that
the aisled long houses of the Ezinge-Feddersen-Wierde
type were in use as early as 1250 B.C. The excavation brought
to light the ground plan of some thirty houses of different
types belonging to a farmstead composed of a main building
and about four subsidiary buildings, all of which were rebuilt
on various occasions during a period of occupation
that lasted from roughly 1250 to roughly 850 B.C. The main
houses vary in length between 82 feet (25 m.) and 135 feet
(41 m.). They are internally divided into two equal parts.
In one half, which was used for living, the posts are
widely spaced. In the other half, which served as stables,
the interstices between the posts are smaller. Some of them
are not sunk into the ground as deeply as the principal
posts and therefore, probably, served as mainstays for stall
partitions. I show as a typical example the ground plan of
house 9 (fig. 323), which illustrates this point particularly.
A similar distinction of the post interstices between living
quarters and the stall sections of the house could be observed
in Feddersen-Wierde (figs. 315-316), in Hodorf
(fig. 307), in two Iron Age houses excavated in 1954 by
P. J. R. Modderman near Deventer (Oberijssel), Holland,[148]
and—although not quite as markedly—in Fochteloo (fig.
304). As in the later Iron Age houses, so in Elp, the narrow
ends of the house were rounded, which suggests that the
ends of the roof were hipped. The houses appear to have
been entered broadside through a passage way that separated
the living quarters from the section that was occupied
by animals—another feature that was to become a characteristic
trait of the later house tradition. Waterbolk had
reason to believe that the house type of Elp already existed
several centuries before the settlement of Elp was founded;
and before the manuscript of his preliminary report on Elp
was finished, he received the news that J. D. van der Waals
had come across a Bronze Age site with an aisled house
118 feet (36 m.) long at Angeloo (Emmen). It had many
features in common with the Elp houses, and, to judge from
its pottery, appeared to be older than the Elp settlement.[149]

The Elp settlement was occupied by an autochthonous
Bronze Age population of Holland,[150] which may or may not
be proto-Germanic. The later Iron Age sites of northwest
Germany and Holland were in the territory of the Frisii,
the Chauci, and the Saxons.[151] The homeland of the Saxons
was east of the river Elbe at the bottom of the Danish
peninsula. Their westward move into the territory of the
Frisians, around 300 A.D., seems to have led to the destruction
of the settlement of Ezinge. Toward the middle of the
fifth century, in several successive waves, they moved
across the channel into England.

YEAVERING, NORTHUMBRIA, AND CHEDDAR,
SOMERSET, ENGLAND

Until the summer of 1956, England, peculiarly enough, had
not yielded a single house site comparable to any of the
Continental finds. A small settlement, of aisled post-and-wattle
houses excavated in 1946 by Gerhard Bersu on a
promontory of the shore of Ramsay Bay on the Isle of
Man,[152] was probably not an Anglo-Saxon settlement but
an outpost of a Norse raiding party which was occupied
only intermittently. In the summer of 1956, however,
Brian Hope-Taylor came upon the site of a royal Anglo-Saxon
palace of the seventh century at Old Yeavering in
Northumbria (Bede's villa regalis ad Gefrin),[153] which contained
the remains of no fewer than twenty-five timbered
houses, most of them aisled; and in 1960-62 Philip Rahtz

[ILLUSTRATION]

WARENDORF, WESTPHALIA, GERMANY

325.A EXTERIOR VIEW REDRAWN FROM WINKELMANN

325.A.1 PLAN. HOUSE 47, LEVEL A, PERIOD 4

HOUSE TYPES OF EARLY MEDIEVAL SETTLEMENTS. 650-800 A.D.

[after Winkelmann, 1958, 500, fig. 5]

Excavations conducted in 1951 by Wilhelm Winkelmann in Warendorf, on the south side of the Ems, brought to light traces and remains in the
soil of no fewer than 186 separate buildings, which could be accurately dated by pottery and other associated artifacts. The settlement was
rebuilt four or five times, in most cases—as the remains of charcoal and fired clay found in many postholes indicate—after houses of the previous
settlement had been destroyed by fire.

Analysis of the successive stages of the site disclosed that each inhabited level consisted of a group of four to five farmyards occupying an area
of about 984 feet (100m) square. Each farmyard held a large dwelling, and fourteen to fifteen smaller auxiliary buildings (barns, stables, sheds,
weaving houses). The variety of these service structures is shown in figs. 326.A-F.

The reason for the boat shape of House 47, a feature very common in early Scandinavian architecture, is obscure. For other examples of
longhouses of this type see below, V. 17. 3.

[ILLUSTRATION]

WARENDORF, WESTPHALIA, GERMANY

325.B EXTERIOR VIEW REDRAWN FROM WINKELMANN

Arrow indicates general direction from which exterior view above is taken

325.B.1 PLAN. HOUSE 7, LEVEL A, PERIOD 1

HOUSE TYPES OF EARLY MEDIEVAL SETTLEMENTS, 650-800 A.D.

[after Winkelmann, 1958, 504, fig. 8]

Plans and reconstructions on these pages are typical of the man or principal dwellings of the Warendorf settlements. By virtue of both size and
architectural distinction, as well as the presence of a hearth, they are unquestionably the dwellings of the owners of the land. They were boat-shaped
(fig. 325.A) or of rectangular plan, as above, varying in length between 45 and 95 feet (14-29m), in width between 14½ and 32 feet
(4.5-7.0m). Their roofs were supported by a perimeter of heavy posts set vertically into the ground, each buttressed from outside by a second,
lighter post rising at an angle to meet the inner post near its head. The triangulation counteracted the thrust of the roof. Wall panels between
vertical posts were daubed with clay.

The axes of these dwellings, and most of the subsidiary structures, ran from west to east. This feature, characteristic of many pre- and
protohistoric buildings in these latitudes, was apparently determined by the desire to expose only a gable wall to the prevailing (here, western)
winds. The houses were entered on their long walls through two opposing entrances in midwall, each protected by a porch. The hearth lay in the
eastern half of the house.

[ILLUSTRATION]

WARENDORF, WESTPHALIA, GERMANY

326.A

326.B

326.C

HOUSE TYPES OF EARLY MEDIEVAL SETTLEMENTS, 650-800 A.D.

[redrawn after Winkelmann, 1958, 504, fig. 8]

These pages give a visual account of the variety of service structures that one might have expected to find in the farmyards of Warendorf.
They have been redrawn from models made under the direction of Wilhelm Winkelmann, and are on display at the Museum für Vor- und
Frühgeschichte, Münster, under the aegis of which the excavations at Warendorf were conducted.

There were forty service buildings of rectangular plan with vertically boarded walls at Warendorf (326.A), used as barns and stables. Small
houses with hearths built in the manner of the larger dwellings presumably provided housing for serfs (326.C). Numerous small sheds with open
walls (326.B) were probably utility buildings for various kinds of storage.

[ILLUSTRATION]

WARENDORF, WESTPHALIA, GERMANY

326.D

326.E

326.F

HOUSE TYPES OF EARLY MEDIEVAL SETTLEMENTS, 650-800 A.D.

[redrawn after Winkelmann, 1958, 504, fig. 8]

The small, walled rectangular shed (326.D) could have served many needs from implement storage to animal shelter. A great number of small
buildings of A-frame construction (326.E) were found in the Warendorf farmyards. They were partly dug into the ground to gain standing
height, and some buildings of this type were identifiable as weaving houses by the artifacts they contained. But a building with below-ground
storage could have served equally well for winter storage of root crops.

The polygonal framework was used to store loose hay or sheaves of grain (326.F); its conical thatched roof could slide down its poles to
accommodate and adequately shelter the diminishing harvest as it was used up through the winter. The floor grid of lashed poles (326.X)
afforded aeration and drainage for the hay or grain; the plans show typical posting patterns for the structures.

[ILLUSTRATION]

326.X HAYSTACK SHELTER, left, and
DRYING PLATFORM, right

Haystacks and aeration platforms of this
type are common in Germany and the
Netherlands even today. For a fine
15th-cent. portrayal, see fig. 368.

[ILLUSTRATION]

326.G WARENDORF, WESTPHALIA, GERMANY

HOUSE TYPES OF EARLY MEDIEVAL SETTLEMENT, 650-800 A.D.

[redrawn from Winkelmann, 1958, 500, 504]

Each of the buildings shown on this and the preceding pages is referred to in the Alamannic, Bajuvarian, and Salic laws discussed above
(p. 26ff), where they are designated in the following manner:

The house of a free man = DOMUS or SALA LIBERI (figs. 325A-B); the house of a serf = DOMUS SERVI (fig. 326.C); a wall-enclosed
barn = SCORIA (fig. 326.A); an unenclosed barn = SCOF (fig. 326.B); a granary = PARC (fig. 326.D); a haystack, or stacked sheaves of
wheat = MITA (fig. 326.F). For a more complete account and the etymology of these terms see above, p. 29, notes 14-18, and the chart in
Winkelmann, 1954, 210, fig. 12.

unearthed at Cheddar, Somerset,[154] another Saxon palace
(sedes regalis aet Ceodre) with the remains of a timbered
long hall from the time of King Alfred (871-900)[155] and an
aisled hall, likewise in timber, from the reign of Henry I
(1100-35), a plan of which is reproduced in figure 324. The
results of these excavations once fully published will put
an end to another enigmatic chapter of early medieval
house research.

THE SINGLE-NAVED HOUSE OF
WARENDORF, NEAR MÜNSTER, WESTPHALIA,
AND IN OTHER GERMAN SITES

If I have given primary consideration to aisled structures
in the preceding account of prehistoric and early medieval
house construction, I have done so because the excavations
conducted during the last three decades seem to indicate,
with mounting conclusiveness, that this was the principal
dwelling type used during the Iron Age and in the Early
Middle Ages in the barbaric territories north of the Alps.
In emphasizing this fact, I do not wish to convey the
impression that it was the only one. Other excavations,
recently conducted, have brought clear evidence of the
existence of a simpler type of house that was not provided
with any aisles.

A good sampling of this latter type was brought to light
between 1951 and 1954 when Wilhelm Winkelmann excavated
a medieval settlement in the vicinity of Warendorf,
near Münster, Westphalia.[156] The pottery found in this
settlement suggested that it was occupied from about 650
to 800 A.D. The leading house type was a structure of
rectangular plan, accessible by two porch-surmounted entrances
facing each other in the middle of the long walls
(figs. 325 A-B and below, pp. 271ff). Similar houses were
encountered in Bucholtwelmen (district of Dinslaken) in
1939, in Haldern (near Wesel, Lower Rhine) in 1938, and
in Westick (district of Unna, Westphalia) in 1935—the
latter a rare example of Continental cruck construction.[157]
Warendorf was of particular interest because on this site
the principal dwellings were surrounded by an entire host
of subsidiary structures of smaller dimensions and lesser
significance, the like of which one would expect to encounter
in all those settlements where the various domestic functions,
rather than being assembled under one roof, are
scattered throughout a variety of separate structures.
Winkelmann has gathered all these types together in a

visual chart which reads like a model book of early medieval
house construction (figs. 325 and 326). He had found an
equivalent for virtually each and every variant mentioned
in the Alamannic, Bajuvarian, and Salic laws.[158]

LACK OF COMPARABLE FINDS IN FRANCE
AND IN THE SOUTH OF GERMANY

The great shortcoming of our present knowledge of
early medieval house construction in transalpine Europe
is that it is based on the results of excavations confined to
the Scandinavian countries and to the northern parts of
Holland and Germany, with the recent addition of Anglo-Saxon
England. France, to this day, has remained a terra
incognita. Bursting with treasures of unsurpassable beauty
created in more advanced and more sophisticated periods
as well as in more permanent materials, she is unlikely
to engage in the near future in any concerted search
for the shadows that the rotting timbers of her humbler
early medieval houses left in the subsoil underneath the
stately structures that replaced them. But even in southern
Germany the soil has as yet been rather unyielding. An
excavation of a Frankish settlement of the sixth to ninth
centuries A.D., made as early as 1937 in Gladbach (district
of Neuwied),[159] brought to light a great variety of smaller
subsidiary structures, all in post-and-wattle work—but no
houses of any primary significance. The same holds true
for an Alamannic settlement of the Early Middle Ages,
excavated in 1947 in the vicinity of Merdingen (district of
Freiburg),[160] and for a Bajuvarian early medieval village
near Burgheim (district Neuburg on the Donau.)[161]

The reason for this scarcity of finds on the mainland is
probably very simple. The dwelling mounds of the coastal
lowlands which yielded such rich information are not only
conspicuous scenic landmarks, but also of a physical
composition (marsh, clay, manure—sealed off by intermittent
layers of silt) that offers unusually favorable conditions
for the preservation of wood, an advantage that is
otherwise only encountered in peat bogs or in sites that lie
below the normal water level. On the mainland these
conditions, in general, are wanting.[162]

V. 3

THE ST. GALL HOUSE: ITS
TYPOLOGICAL IDENTIFICATION

V.3.1

PRINCIPAL FEATURES

MULTIPLICITY OF FUNCTION

The examples of prehistoric, protohistoric, and early medieval
timber houses reviewed on the preceding pages prove
the existence of a tradition of aisled houses in the Germanic
territories of transalpine Europe whose functional organization
bears a striking resemblance to that of the guest and
service buildings of the Plan of St. Gall. The most conspicuous
trait of this house is its multiplicity of functions.
It is a structure which, by simple shifts of assignment, may
be used exclusively for the accommodation of human beings,
as quarters for humans and animals combined, or simply
as storage space for the harvest. It is a house that can carry
out all these functions simultaneously, alternatingly, or
interchangeably—without sustaining the slightest basic
modification. Van Giffen's excavation of the Iron Age Warf
of Ezinge has shown that this multi-purpose function was
already clearly established by the third century B.C. in the
cluster settlement of layer V (figs. 295-297) of this important
site.

RELATION OF MAIN ROOM TO PERIPHERAL
ROOMS

A second conspicuous typological trait that the St. Gall
house has in common with the northern all-purpose house
is that both have as their principal architectural component
a large rectangular center space, containing the hearth,
which serves as the common living, cooking, and dining
room. The more specialized functions, such as sleeping and
stabling of livestock, are relegated to the narrow spaces
ranged peripherally around it. Thus in the House for
Distinguished Guests (fig. 397) the center space is used as
the "dining hall" of the guests (domus hospitū ad prandendum),
the chambers on the two narrow sides of the house
as "heatable rooms with beds" (caminatae cum lectis), while
the rooms that are attached to the two long sides of the
center hall serve as servants' quarters (cubilia seruitorum)
and as "stables for the horses" (stabula cabballoarum). In
the Hospice for Pilgrims and Paupers (fig. 392) the center
space is designated for use as a "hall for the pilgrims and
paupers" (domus peregrinorum & pauperuėm), while the
outer rooms serve as quarters for the servants (seruientium
mansiones), as "supply room" (camera), and as "cellar"
(cellarium). In the House of the Physicians (fig. 410) the
center space is designated as the room of the physicians
(domus medicorum), while the peripheral rooms are described

[ILLUSTRATION]

327. EZINGE (GRONINGEN), THE NETHERLANDS

HOUSE B OF WARF-LAYER V, 3rd CENT. B.C.

[redrawn after Van Giffen, 1936, Beilage 26B]

For a plan and perspective reconstruction of the entire settlement of which this house
is a part see figs. 295-296; for a reconstruction of the interior of this house, fig. 297,
and above, 49ff.

as the ward for those who are critically ill (cubiculum
ualde infirmorum), the quarters of the chief physician
(mansio medici ipsius), and the pharmaceutical supply room
(armarium pigmentorum). Again in the House for Servants of
Outlying Estates and for Servants Traveling with the
Emperor's Court (fig. 402), the House for the Fowlkeeper
and his crew (fig. 466), as well as all the buildings that
accommodate livestock and their attendants, except that for
the goats, viz., the sheep (fig. 493), the swine (fig. 491),
cows (fig. 483), foaling mares (fig. 487), and their keepers,
the hearth room in the center is designated as the room for
the servants (dom' familiae); the common room (domus
communis); the main room (ipsa domum); the room for the
swineherds (domus porcariorum), the room for the cowherds
(domus armentariorum); and the room of the horse grooms
(domus equaritiae), respectively—all in the sense of a
common living or gathering room. The outer spaces serve
as "sleeping quarters" for the attendant serfs, shepherds,
goathers, and swineherds (cubilia custodientiū, cubilia
opilionum, cubilia pastorum) and of course as "stables" for the
various species of animals (cauil, stabula).

In order to be taken to their stalls the animals had to
be led through the common center room of their keepers.
This holds true not only for buildings specifically devised
for the purpose of housing livestock but also for buildings
of such a highly residential nature as the House for Distinguished
Guests, where the horses, in order to reach
their stables, had to be guided through the common dining
room around the central fire-place, precisely as in the Iron
Age houses of Ezinge, Holland.

I draw special attention to House B of layer V of the
Ezinge Warf, which dates from third century B.C. (fig. 327),
because its shape and general proportions are very similar
to those of the St. Gall house. Its doors are in the long
sides facing each other across the house. The hearth is in
the middle of the center aisle. The animals stand in the
outer aisles, facing the walls—one of them so close to the
hearth that its tail could have fanned the fire. The traffic
pattern is the same: people as well as animals enter the
central hall by crossing one of the aisles and then move to
peripheral spaces reserved for feeding, retreat, or sleep.

OPEN FIRE & SMOKE-HOLE CALL FOR A HOUSE
OPEN TO RIDGE OF ROOF

A third important feature that the St. Gall house shares
with the timbered Germanic all-purpose house is that both
are ground-floor structures. The open fire (locus foci) that
burns in the middle of center floor and the smoke hole (testu)
in the roof above preclude the partition of the inner
space by the insertion of floors or ceilings (figs. 396 and
392). Of all the buildings that can be classified as guest and
service structures, only one has an upper story, viz., the
House for Horses and Oxen (see fig. 474). But there the
draftsman makes sure by the inscription, supra tabulatum,
that it is clearly understood that the space above the stables
for the horses and oxen is taken up by a hayloft. In the

other guest and service buildings no mention is made of an
upper level. This, in the language of the drafter of the Plan,
can only mean that there were no upper levels.[163]

A last conspicuous trait of this house type is that it was
in general not provided with windows but received its light
from an opening in the roof which also served as smoke
outlet. We shall return to this point in more detail below.

Considering these distinctive similarities, the conclusion
is inescapable that the St. Gall house is a variant of the
Germanic all-purpose house discussed in the preceding
pages. There are some differences, to be sure, but they are
not of a kind that would weaken this conclusion or force
us to qualify it in any essential point.

V.3.2

PLACEMENT OF ENTRANCE

In the excavated Germanic all-purpose houses there
appears to be considerable variability in the location of the
entrances. The houses of the Plan of St. Gall, by contrast,
show a definite bias in favor of lateral accessibility. Only in
two out of thirty-one guest and service buildings do the
entrance or entrances lie in the end walls, the House of the
Fowlkeeper and his crew and the large anonymous building
in the western tract of the monastery. In all the others the
principal entrance is in the middle of one of the long walls
and it is balanced in the opposite side of the house by an
exit giving access to a privy. Facing each other in opposite
pairs, the entrance and exit give the structure a transverse
axis running at right angles to the basic longitudinal orientation
of the house. This is by no means a singular property
of the guest and service buildings of the Plan of St. Gall,
and I must refute my critics at this point for having suggested
that I have derived an "essentially central type" house
from one that is organized in an "essentially axial or
longitudinal manner."[164]

V.3.3

CENTRALITY VS AXIALITY

A CONTROVERSIAL ISSUE

Broadside accessibility is as old as the type itself, and, in
fact, one of the very earliest of the aisled Iron Age houses
so far known, that of Jemgum (fig. 314), is entered through
two porches that face each other in opposite pairs in the
middle of the two long walls. Broadside accessibility is a
characteristic feature not only of many of the smaller
Ezinge houses (figs. 293-297), it is a standard form of the
houses, both small and long, of Fochteloo (fig. 304) and
Feddersen-Wierde (figs. 315-316). It is the standard form
of most of the Iron Age houses of Denmark,[165] a common
occurrence among the Migration Time houses of Öland[166]
and Norway[167] as well as among the Saga period houses of
Iceland[168] and Greenland.[169]

EFFECT OF SEATING ARRANGEMENT

As there is some lack of clarity about the distribution of
the house type, often too loosely referred to as the Northern
"longhouse," I must digress at this point to discuss its
relationship to the aisled Germanic timber house in general,
and to the St. Gall house in particular.

In certain North Germanic territories, especially on the
island of Gotland, the house entrance is located preferentially
in one of the end walls.[170] I have for some time suspected
that this axial location of the entrance is historically
conditioned by the customary seating arrangement in the
North, which reserves for the owner of the dwelling a
"high seat" (hásæti or œdra öndvegi) in the middle of the
long bench on one side of the house, and for the person
next in rank the "second best seat of honor" (úœdra
öndvegi) in the middle of the long bench on the opposite
side, with the fire flickering in the center floor between
them.[171]

In the North Germanic territories of Öland, Norway, and
Iceland, when the entrance is found in one of the long walls,
it is rarely located in the middle of the house but usually
down toward the ends of the hall where it would not be in
conflict with such a seating arrangement. The prevalence
of this seating order in the North is incontrovertibly established
by the Sagas through scores of descriptions of
banquets and wedding parties, some so detailed that we
can reconstruct the individual place of seating of almost
everyone attending. Since the same custom prescribes that
the women be seated on the cross bench at the upper end
of the hall, the most logical place remaining for the entrance
is in the end wall on the opposite side of the house (provided
this side of the house is not used for cattle, in which
case an axial door might be installed at either end of the
house, one for the cattle, the other as the entrance for the
farmer and his family). There is no doubt that houses laid
out in this manner have a longitudinal character.[172] This
feature of the house, however, is greatly overemphasized,
when the structure is deprived of all its furnishings and
inner cross partitions, as it is upon excavation. Had we
actually been able to witness one of these banquets, we
would have found that even with the strictly axial arrangement
of the hall, the longitudinal sway of the space was
intercepted in three crucial areas by strong transverse
alignments. The first of these was the axis formed by the
two high seats and the fireplace. It divided the hall at its
center (or close to it) into two halves, the outer half nearest
the door being the place for guests of lesser standing, the
inner half for the guests of higher standing; and internally
in each of these groups the more important men were
seated closer to the high seats, the less important further
outward toward both ends of the hall.

Two further transverse alignments were established at
each end of the hall by the installation in the innermost bay
of the hall of a cross bench (þverpallir) on which the women
sat, and by the use of the entrance bay as a vestibule or

forehall (forstofa), often separated from the main hall by a
boarded cross partition (þverþili). Thus, three sides of the
house were occupied by tables and benches running in
U-formation around the center space, while the bay on the
entrance side of the house acted as a buffer zone between
the center space and the outer doors. Even in its purest form
the North Germanic long house had a definite "central
touch"; and the peripheral or circumferential quality of
the surrounding spaces was further stressed by two constructional
features of paramount importance in the aesthetic
appearance of the house. First: The aisles and cross
bench were raised, in general, above the level of the center
floor.[177] Second: the roof over the two terminal bays of the
house was usually hipped.[178] I quote as a typical example of
this arrangement an account of a wedding banquet held at
Flugumyr in the winter of 1253,[179] which is so detailed and
accurate that the entire scene can be reconstructed on the
drafting board (figs. 328). The tale reflects customs of
seating many centuries old.[180]
Sturla Thordasson, who
participated in this event, describes it as follows:

The order of seating of the women is not described in
this account, but, to judge by many other comparable
accounts, they can only have sat on the cross bench. The
house was also provided with space to store the tables and
utensils. This we learn incidentally in the account of the
surprise attack on Flugumyr, undertaken two nights after
the wedding banquet. We are told how "a laborer by the
name of Paul dies in the table-utensils chamber in the
stofa." The only place such a utensils chamber could have
been was at the entrance side of the hall.

DIFFERENCES AND SIMILARITIES

There is, nevertheless, a distinct difference between the
seating arrangement of the house of a North Germanic
chieftain of the Saga period and that of the guest and
service buildings of the Plan of St. Gall. In the North the
benches and tables were set up in the aisles of the house;
the center floor was primarily a passageway and could
therefore be kept relatively narrow. The setting up at
Flugumyr of special forestools on the inner side of the
aisles, and of the even more special rows of church seats
on the center floor, was an unusual arrangement conditioned
by the gathering of an exceptionally large number of guests
attending the wedding. In the guest and service buildings
of the Plan of St. Gall, by contrast, the benches and tables
are set up in the center space itself. The floor plan of the
House for Distinguished Guests, the Hospice for Pilgrims
and Paupers, and the House for Horses and Oxen leaves no
doubt on this point. They have benches—or benches and
tables—all along the walls of the center space. The outer
spaces serve as bedrooms, dormitories, or stables. In the
house of the North Germanic chieftain, at the height of the
Saga period, the functions of dining and sleeping were
often relegated to separate buildings, a dining or festal hall
(veizluskáli) and a sleeping hall (hviluskáli), one lying in
prolongation of the axis of the other, the whole assuming
the aspect of a "long house." In the St. Gall house, on
the other hand, all these functions are combined in one
building. The use of the central hall as dining room
necessitates a substantial enlargement of this space, as well
as the introduction of separating wall partitions to safeguard
the integrity of the respective functions of eating and
sleeping. Both these innovations tend to strengthen the
"central" character of the house.

Yet it should not be forgotten that when Iceland was
settled by immigrants from Norway at the end of the ninth
century, the North Germanic house in use there was an all-purpose
structure combining living, cooking, and sleeping
under one roof.[182] This is the case in most of the Germanic
houses of the Iron Age and continued to be so on farmsteads
of modest size, even in the Saga period. The long
house previously referred to was a very special type, heralded
in by the emergence of powerful chieftains in a society that
had formerly been characterized by its egalitarian structure.

CONCLUSIONS

It is possible that the controversy about the "predominantly
central character" of the guest and service buildings
of the Plan of St. Gall versus the "predominantly axial or
longitudinal character" of the Germanic long house (in
which I found myself involved even before I had an
opportunity to commit my ideas to print) has its origin in
an overevaluation of the frequency of occurrence of the
latter. The Germanic long house is only one among a great
variety of other aisled Germanic houses whose layouts
range from the short and stubby houses of Jemgum (figs.
313-314) and Ezinge (figs. 293 to 297) through all
degrees of elongation to the spectacular extreme of Känne
Burs, Sweden, which had the unbelievable length of 203
feet (62 m., cf. above, fig. 290). But these excessive forms
are neither very common nor very typical; and when they
are part of a larger settlement they are usually interspersed
with a variety of shorter houses. The excavations of
Ezinge, Fochteloo, and Feddersen-Wierde, moreover, have
shown that on the Continent it was the care of animals
rather than shelter for humans which tended to extend the
house along its longitudinal axis. The largest house of
Ezinge was a cattle barn (fig. 298). And of the longest
houses of Fochteloo (fig. 304) and Feddersen-Wierde (fig.
316), only one fifth are reserved for people; the rest
sheltered the cattle. On the Plan of St. Gall, too, the longest
house is one that serves as shelter for animals (House for
the Horses and Oxen, fig. 474; cf. below, pp. 271-79).

The excavations of Ezinge, Fochteloo, and many other
places teach us, in addition, that where animals and people
are housed in separate structures, or where the animals
associated with the people are few, the houses remain
small and squarish. It is from the tradition of this shorter
variety of houses that the guest and service buildings of the
Plan of St. Gall will have to be derived. The houses of
St. Gall, following this tradition, are entered broadside;
the length of the house exceeds its width by an appreciable,
but rarely excessive, margin; the center space of the house
amounts in width to about twice that of the aisles; and the
hipped roofs over the narrow ends in conjunction with the
broadside entrance must have given the house, despite its
basic axial orientation, a strongly centralized character.

In giving preference to the shorter variant, the author of
the Plan of St. Gall still remained entirely within the range
of possibilities offered by his own indigenous tradition.
Had it been the custom to house the monks together with
the cattle, this might have led, even on the Plan of St. Gall,
to the introduction of long houses rather than the shorter
or more centralized type. But the life of the monastery
represented on this Plan is based on the principle of
functional separation. The monks were the lords of the
estate, the leisure class, whose spiritual obligation postulated
that they be freed from at least the meanest agricultural
chores, which were left to serfs and herdsmen. Even
among those caring for the animals a high degree of
specialization had brought about a systematic separation of

the various species. There is a special house for horses and
oxen, for foaling mares, and for dairy cows, pigs, sheep
and goats. On the Plan of St. Gall the houses for the livestock
are no longer simply an axial extension of the house
of the farmer and his family; they are entities of their own,
within which a small area of space is set aside to serve as
sleeping quarters for the herdsmen.

There are other distinctive differences that herald a new
development. In some of the guest and service structures
there are, in addition to the central fireplace, one or several
other heating devices installed in the peripheral rooms.
About this we shall have to say more below.

V. 4

CRITERIA OF RECONSTRUCTION

I

V.4.1

GENERAL SPATIAL COMPOSITION,

Having identified the historical building tradition to which
the guest and service buildings of the Plan of St. Gall
belong, we can now designate as a central hall the large
rectangular center space, which is common to all of its
variants and which is open to the roof and furnished with a
fireplace supplying the house with its warmth. The subsidiary
outer spaces, on the other hand, must be interpreted
as aisles or lean-to's added peripherally to one, two, three,
or all four sides of the hall. This suggests a variety of
elevations, the basic possibilities of which are illustrated in
figures 329-334.

In its simplest form the house is covered by a pitched
roof with gable walls on the narrow sides. Typical examples
of this basic form are the bath and kitchen houses of the
Novitiate and the Infirmary (fig. 329), consisting really of
two such spaces added one to the other. In the next stage,
an aisle is added to one side, necessitating a roof extension
over the aisle addition, as in the Annex to the Great Collective
Workshop (fig. 330). In the third stage, a second aisle
is added to the opposite side, requiring a roof extension
over this second aisle, as in the House of the Fowlkeeper
(fig. 331). In the fourth stage, the main space is surrounded
on three sides by peripheral spaces. This permits two
variants: in one of these one of the narrow sides of the
center space remains exposed and contains the entrance, as
in the House of the Physicians (fig. 332); in the other, this
function is performed by one of the long sides, as in the
Gardener's House (fig. 333). The roof over the lean-to, on
the narrow side of these houses, could either be a simple
extension of the aisle roofs with the upper portion of the
gable walls exposed, or it could be slanted up to the ridge
of the roof in the form of a hip, a constructionally superior
form (and in the case of larger houses almost a necessity)
because the rafters of the lean-to act as buttresses protecting
the main roof against longitudinal displacement. We have
demonstrated the first possibility in some of the smaller
houses, such as the House of the Physicians (fig. 332) and
the Gardener's House (fig. 333), but have adopted the
latter version for all of the larger houses of the Plan.

The range of the variants is complete with the addition
of another aisle or lean-to on the fourth side of the center
space (fig. 334). Thus the house attained the distinctive
silhouette so well known from drawings and engravings
of rural landscapes by Albrecht Dürer (fig. 335) and Peter
Bruegel the Elder (fig. 336).

[ILLUSTRATION]

330. PLAN OF ST. GALL. HOUSE VARIANT I

MAIN SPACE WITH AISLE ADDED TO ONE SIDE

see caption for fig. 329

V.4.2

SUPPORTING FRAME OF TIMBER
AND WALLS

The crucial constructional trait of the building tradition
to which the guest and service structures of the Plan of
St. Gall belong is that in this family of houses the roof
received its main support from two rows of freestanding
wooden posts, which divided the building lengthwise into
a nave and two accompanying aisles. The rafters of the
roof had their footing in a course of horizontal logs (plates)
which were held in place by a peripheral row of outer posts,
shorter and not as sturdy as the principal posts. The walls
had, in general, no load-bearing function, and were often
entirely independent from the outer posts. The predominant
material was wattlework, daubed with clay or animal
manure, but there is also clear evidence for vertical and
horizontal weatherboarding. We show as a typical example
of the former a reconstruction of House III of the ninth-century
fortified settlement of Husterknupp in the lower
reaches of the river Rhine (fig. 337),[183] and as an example of
the second, a reconstruction of a house of the Stellerburg
in Dithmarschen, Germany (fig. 338)[184] —both dating from
the ninth century. Walls built of earth or turves, as they were
sporadically encountered by van Giffen both in Iron Age
houses and in the early Middle Ages,[185] are possible, yet not
very likely, in the sophisticated context of a paradigmatic
Carolingian monastery. Log construction is rare, practically
nonexistent, in the time and the territories with which we

[ILLUSTRATION]

PLAN OF ST. GALL. HOUSE, VARIANT 2

331.

332. VARIANT 3A

When space required for such functions as sleeping or storage exceeds the capacity of one aisle, two aisles are added to the main space, usually on the longer sides.
Purest form: House of the Fowlkeeper and his Crew (fig. 231 and 446). Were this measure insufficient, peripheral spaces could be added on three sides. This permits for
two solutions depending on whether the entrance is placed into the middle of one of the short sides of the principal space (as in fig. 332) or in one of its long sides (as
in fig. 333).

are concerned.[186] If in our reconstruction of the guest and
service buildings of the Plan of St. Gall we have decided
on daubed wattlework in preference to other solutions, we
have done so not only because the excavations show it to
be the most common method of building walls in early
medieval and protohistoric times—(it might be recalled in
this context that the German word for wall, Wand, comes
from winden, "to wind" or "to braid")—but also because
it is still today in vast areas of central and western Europe
the preferred method of constructing infillings for the walls
of timber framed houses.

Since in the majority of the St. Gall houses the central
hearth is the only available source of heat for the entire
building, the peripheral spaces cannot have been completely
screened off from the central hall of the house. Like the
Bajuvarian standard house (fig. 289),[187] the St. Gall house
was still essentially a unitary structure. In some houses,
however, where there are special corner fireplaces installed
in peripheral rooms the separation could have been more
rigid.[188]

While the literary and archaeological parallels adduced
in the preceding chapter leave no doubt that the traditional
material used in the family of houses to which the guest and
service structures of the Plan of St. Gall belong was timber,
masonry construction cannot be entirely excluded. The
foundations from which the timbers rose, and in certain
cases even the walls or certain component parts of the walls,
may have been built in stone. This would have been
especially desirable for the sake of fire protection in houses
which, in addition to the central hearth, had corner fireplaces
in some of their peripheral rooms. The House for
Distinguished Guests and the House for Bloodletting with
four corner fireplaces each are first in line for such consideration
(see below, figs. 397 and 416). Other houses may
have been built in a mixed technique, such as the House of
the Physicians (fig. 410), where the safety of the rooms with
corner fireplaces may have called for masonry walls, while
the gable wall on the entrance side of the house could have
been timber-framed. We have reconstructed the House of
the Physicians in this manner in order to demonstrate this
possibility (figs. 413A-F). By no means, however, should
masonry walls be taken as a precondition for the presence
of corner fireplaces. Central and Northern Europe, as well
as England, are dotted even today with houses built entirely
of timber and yet equipped with wall and corner fireplaces
built in masonry. A striking historical example of this
combination is found in the February page of the Très
Riches Heures of the Duc de Berry (fig. 378). We demonstrate
this possibility in our reconstruction of the Gardener's
House (fig. 427). For the remainder, and this holds

[ILLUSTRATION]

333. HOUSE FOR BROOD MARES, FOALS AND THEIR KEEPERS
HOUSE FOR COWS AND COWHERDS

334. HOUSE () FOR SHEEPS & SHEPHERDS/COWS & COWHERDS/
SWINE & SWINEHERDS/SERVANTS OF EMPEROR OR NOBLES

The most complex and most accomplished of the guest and service buildings has its center space surrounded on all four sides by peripheral spaces (fig. 334). Whenever
this solution obtains, the center space serves as common living room, while the outer spaces are used for sleeping, stabling animals, or for storage. Prime examples:
Hospice for Pilgrims and Paupers (fig. 392), House for Distinguished Guests (fig. 396), Outer School (fig. 407) and the majority of the houses for livestock and their
keepers (fig. 489, 491, 493).

true especially for all the houses that shelter animals and
their keepers, there is no need to consider anything else but
timber. The Brevium exempla have taught us[189] that even
on the highest social level in the emperor's residencies on
his various estates, stone was the exceptional, timber the
commonly used, material.

V.4.3

UNCERTAINTIES ABOUT THE ROOF

Up to this point, we are on relatively safe ground. The
problem becomes more delicate as we turn from the supporting
members of the roof to the design of the roof itself.
Admittedly all the material evidence that has been brought
to light so far remains confined to those portions of the
building which stuck in the ground or reached vertically
from the floor level of the excavated house to an optimal
height of about 5 to 6 feet—as much as was buried in the
mound of earth and manure that was heaped upon the floor
of an abandoned house when a settlement had to be reconstructed
on higher ground because of the rising water
level. The roofs that lay above this survival level have
vanished entirely and so far no one has been lucky enough
to find a portion sufficiently large and sufficiently well
preserved to obtain some real assurance of the detail of its
constructional make-up. It is quite obvious that the two
rows of freestanding inner posts must have been connected
lengthwise and crosswise by means of plates and tie beams.
Without such connections the supporting frame could not
have withstood the load and thrust of the roof, and especially
not in those cases where the post stood not in the ground
but on stones or masonry bases[190] —but whether the crossbeams
lay beneath the longitudinal timbers or above them
must remain conjecture. Wholly inexplicable, on the basis
of the archaeological material available at this date, is the
design of the roof itself.

Fortunately, however, this gap in the surviving body of
material evidence can be closed by the architectural historian
of the Middle Ages, who can adduce as supplementary
evidence the record of a group of aisled medieval halls
and barns in timber whose roofs survive.

[ILLUSTRATION]

335. ALBRECHT DÜRER. THE VILLAGE OF KALKREUTH

WATERCOLOR. CA. 1500, KUNSTHALLE, BREMEN BY COURTESY OF THE KUNSTHALLE, BREMEN

ORIGINAL 31.4CM WIDE, 21.6 CM HIGH

Most of the rural architecture of medieval Germany and the medieval Lowlands was destroyed in the ravages of the Thirty Years' War
(1618-1648) but its visual likeness and setting was recorded before that holocaust with great descriptive accuracy in superb watercolors by Dürer
(1471-1528), and in engravings after Peter Breugel the Elder (1525?-1569).

Settlements such as Kalkreuth, and the unnamed Dutch village shown at the right were, as architectural concepts and by their practical function
of virtually the same cast as the hamlet of Ezinge, itself some 1800-1900 years their elder, a reconstruction of which is shown in figure 295.

In all these settlements some of the houses were used to store the harvest, others for the accommodation under one roof of man and beasts.

The earliest surviving structures of this type date from the end of the fifteenth century, but the tradition remained unbroken. The Dutch and
German Lowlands are replete with buildings dating from the 17th and 18th centuries in which the former and his family live and sleep, even
today, under the same roof with the cattle and the harvest—hardly differing in some respects from the way their ancestors had done in the
medieval and protohistoric buildings discussed on p. 23ff.

Jan Jans's Landelijke Bouwkunst in Oost-Nederland, Enschede, 1967, is a fine record of this building tradition and a masterpiece of
architectural drafting. Das Bauernhaus im Deutschen Reich und seinem Grenzgebiete, 1906 (Verband Deutscher Architekten
und Ingenieurvereine) is a primary source for study of rural architecture in Germany. Helm, Das Bauernhaus im Gebiet der freien
Reichstadt Nurnberg, Berlin, 1940, has good architectural analysis of the south German material.

[ILLUSTRATION]

336. ENGRAVING AFTER PETER BRUEGEL THE ELDER. LANDSCAPE NO. 13 OF THE SEQUENCE

MULTIFARIARUM CASULARUM RURIUMQUE LINEAMENTA. PUBLISHED BY HIERONYMUS COCK IN 1559

[COPYRIGHT BIBLIOTHÉQUE ROYAL DE BELGIQUE, BRUSSELS]

ORIGINALS IN SERIES VARY, 14.2-14.7CM HIGH, 19.3-22.0CM WIDE

[ILLUSTRATION]

337. HUSTERKNUPP, LOWER RHINE VALLEY,
GERMANY [after Herrnbrodt, 1958, fig. 74]

In the 9th century this was the form of the main dwelling in the ancestral castle of the
counts of Hochstaden. The posts were preserved to the level of the eaves. The walls
were formed by vertical boards slotted into sill and wall plates

[ILLUSTRATION]

338. STELLERBERG, DITHMARSCHEN, GERMANY

[after Rudolf, 1942, Pl. 7]

This reconstruction of House 3 of a 9th-century fortified settlement shows a gable wall
of horizontal boards slotted into vertical posts and a truss-and-purlin roof assembly
covered with thatching.

V. 5

SURVIVING MEDIEVAL HOUSES
OF THE TYPE OF ST. GALL

V.5.1

EARLY EXAMPLES

The earliest extant medieval timber halls with aisles are
the hall of the castle of Leicester (fig. 339)[191] and the hall of
the bishop's palace at Hereford[192] (fig. 340), both from
around 1150. They are of vital importance historically
because they demonstrate that even as late as the twelfth
century the aisled Germanic all-purpose house with its
open central hearth and two inner rows of freestanding
roof-supporting posts was still a favorite form for the
representative great halls of the feudal lords of England.
That they represented the norm rather than the exception
may be inferred from the remains of other halls of like
construction[193] as well as from an important literary source,
Alexander Neckham's (1157-1217) Summa de nominibus
utensilium[194] in which the medieval castle hall is categorically
described as follows:

V.5.2

VERNACULAR MEDIEVAL ROOF TYPES

A conspicuous innovation over their prehistoric and
early medieval prototypes, both English and Continental,
is that the walls are now constructed in masonry—at least
in the halls of the leading English feudatories. The ubiquitous
smaller manor halls of lesser but still substantial men,
continued to be built wholly in timber. Unfortunately the
two great halls of Leicester and Hereford are only of
limited use in this study. Although they present a clear
picture up to the level of the tie beams, the authenticity of
their roofs above this level has been questioned and is
uncertain.[196] However, from the beginning of the thirteenth
century onward there is a wealth of aisled buildings with
well-preserved roofs. As one reviews this material one
finds that the vernacular medieval roof can be classified
into two basic designs, to which the German language
refers succinctly with the terms Sparrendach (literally:
"rafter-roof") and Pfettendach (literally: "purlin-roof"),
two words for which the English language has no suitable
equivalents.[197] Intrinsically, these are the same two roof
types that Vitruvius[198] describes as the two basic variants in
use in Rome in his day; but in contrast to the latter, which

[ILLUSTRATION]

339. LEICESTER CASTLE, LEICESTERSHIRE, ENGLAND.

INTERIOR OF THE GREAT HALL, CA. 1150 [Reconstruction by T. H. Fosbrooke]

Fosbrooke views the interior of the hall as it would have appeared to one seated at the lord's table, looking down the hall to its lower end, contiguous
to the kitchen. The exact construction of the roof is uncertain, but otherwise this is a fairly accurate portrayal of the original appearance
of the building.

[ILLUSTRATION]

340. HEREFORD, HEREFORDSHIRE, ENGLAND, BISHOP'S PALACE
INTERIOR OF GREAT HALL, CA. 1150

RECONSTRUCTION BY John Clayton, MADE IN 1846

Hereford's interior lost its unitary quality in the 18th and 19th centuries when the bishops, searching for privacy and comfort, marred its
original appearance by inserting modern walls and ceilings. Clayton's reconstruction, controversial in some respects, nevertheless well portrays
the boldly flowing lines of this majestic interior.

The original uprights which support the roof of this hall, encased in a jumble of masonry obscuring them today, are squared oak posts, each with
round shafts attached to the four faces and terminating in scalloped capitals. The whole of each upright is hewn from a single timber. From the
capitals sprang moulded wooden arches on successive levels, in elegant and impressive spans: first across the aisles, then from pier to pier, and on
roof level, across the vast space of the nave.

This arched roof construction, as well as the design of the clustered piers and scalloped capitals, intrudes into the framework of the Nordic
timber hall features germane to the type of stone construction that occurred in the 12th century only at the highest social levels, but that became
more common later on (figs. 346, 348). For recent suggestions concerning the original design of the roof, see R. Radford, E. M. Jope, and
J. W. Tonkin, "The Great Hall of the Bishop's Palace at Hereford," Medieval Archaeology, XVII, 1973, 78-86.

[ILLUSTRATION]

341.A CHICHESTER, SUSSEX, ENGLAND, ST. MARY'S HOSPITAL END OF THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY
PLAN SHOWING THE BUILDING IN ITS FULL ORIGINAL LENGTH

Except for certain details of carpentry work (cf. fig. 356) and the superior scantling of its timbers, this building reflects a tradition that, at the
time of its construction, already spanned 27 centuries. Its plan should be compared with that of the chieftain's house at Feddersen-Wierde
(fig. 316.A, B), the cattle barn of Ezinge (figs. 298-299), and the Wohnstallhaus of Aalberg (figs. 310-311) and Elp (fig. 323). St. Mary's
shares with them the characteristic that its roof is supported by a timber frame dividing the house into a nave and two aisles, and these
internally into a multitude of separate bays, without destroying the unitary quality of the space beneath the roof.

[ILLUSTRATION]

341.B CHICHESTER, SUSSEX, ENGLAND. ST. MARY'S HOSPITAL. END OF THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

LONGITUDINAL SECTION RESTORED TO ITS ORIGINAL LENGTH

The infirmary's elongated shape owes to the same requirements that conditioned its attenuated proto- and prehistorical antecedents, i.e., the
arrangement in sequences along both sides of a common hall of a multitude of individual, but not actually separated spaces serving various
purposes—a layout ideal for communal living, Wattle walls in earlier buildings (figs. 298-299) are here replaced by masonry, obviously under
the influence of church construction—an influence even more forcefully displayed in the design of St. Mary's Gothic chapel.

A hospital dedicated to St. Mary was first founded under Henry II by Dean Williams (1158-1172) near the church of St. Mary-in-theMarket.
The present structure, separate from buildings of that original foundation, is on a site occupied until 1269 by a settlement of the Grey
Friars. In 1290 a public path running across the property was closed; this measure is generally assumed to mark the start of construction of
the present hall.

Records of gifts and deeds between 1225 and 1250, and a charter established by Dean Thomas of Lichfield (1232-1248) reveal that the hospital
was founded as a temporary home for the ill and infirm, and to provide overnight refuge for pilgrims or the wandering poor. Its original
inmates were twelve brothers and sisters forming an independent endowed community supervised by a prior or warden.

The charter did not provide for a resident priest. Support of a chaplain to be present at all canonical hours and to celebrate the hospital's
commemorative masses was founded by a separate land grant to the hospital during the tenure of Dean Thomas. The donation stipulates that
the appointment of this chaplain was to remain in the hands of the donors and their heirs; that he was to sit next to the prior and to be in
every way second only to him (in mensa et lectu et habitu). In return the donors were to be received and sustained as brothers and sisters of the
hospital for the remainder of their lives.

The charter nowhere mentions a physician to serve the hospital, which in medieval times, was for care rather than for cure, and primarily a
charitable, but not a medical facility as we understand it today (see above, 175ff). Although physicians were associated with certain medieval
English hospitals, evidence suggests that such staff positions were rare and, in general, that doctor's services were obtained for individual cases.

[ILLUSTRATION]

341.C CHICHESTER, SUSSEX, ENGLAND. ST. MARY'S HOSPITAL. END OF THIRTEENTH CENTURY

TRANSVERSE SECTION

The infirmary hall, seemingly more monumental than its prehistoric and early medieval predecessors, owes its appearance primarily to the
greater width and height of its bays. The roof-supporting posts rise in the corners of rectangles 27 feet wide and 20 feet deep (measured on center
of the posts) which are framed together at a height of 23 feet. The nave width, 27 feet, is just three times that of each aisle (9 feet measured
from the inner aisle wall to centers of the posts). For carpentry details of the infirmary hall see fig. 356.

In the earlier buildings, nave width only rarely reached twice that of the aisles (figs. 293-299), and in most cases was less (figs. 292, 310, 315,
and 323 in particular). But many of these earlier buildings, although narrower and not so high, were considerably longer. The larger of the
Bronze Age settlement houses of Elp were 135 feet long. The Migration Period house of Kanne (fig. 290) attained a length of 210 feet in its
final state.

[ILLUSTRATION]

342. SCHEME OF CONSTRUCTION DRAWN IN PERSPECTIVE
ST. MARY'S HOSPITAL, CHICHESTER, SUSSEX, West,
END OF THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

[ILLUSTRATION]

343. INTERIOR. A PERSPECTIVE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE ORIGINAL APPEARANCE

The interior view of this hall—freed of its post-medieval obstructions—should be compared with our reconstruction of the farmhouse of Ezinge,
shown in fig. 297, its senior by sixteen centuries. The carpentry of the Infirmary Hall is more accomplished, its proportions more daring, but the
principles of construction, even the spatial appearance, are the same. The aisles, formerly taken up by animals or serving as sleeping alcoves for
the farmer and his family here accommodated the beds of the ill. Like the farmhouse of Ezinge, St. Mary's was warmed by an open fireplace
in the middle of the center aisle.

In 1528 the Infirmary was transformed into an almshouse, under regulations stipulating that each resident, male or female, was to be provided
with a private room. This required the installation of individual heating units, which in their ultimate form completely marred the aesthetic
concept embodied in the hall. Yet miraculously in the course of these alterations none of the original timbers of the hall were mutilated or
altered; thus, in structural terms this reconstruction is authentic.

[ILLUSTRATION]

344. NURSTEAD COURT, KENT, ENGLAND. MANOR HALL, 14TH CENTURY

ABOVE: The view is from northeast; to the right lies the kitchen. As in many of its early medieval and prehistoric prototypes (see fig. 325.B),
the axis of this hall runs east to west. The door in the eastern end wall leads into a passage between pantry and larder under the hip of the roof
at the lower end of the hall. The first door in the northern long wall is in line with the kitchen, and through it the meals are served in the hall.
The door at the very end of that wall is reserved for the lord. It gives access to the dais and the private withdrawing rooms above it.

AT RIGHT: Interior view looking from the lord's table toward the lower end of the hall. Despite its vast open roof, its magnificently moulded
powerful arches, its daringly cambered cross beams, its slender king posts and sharply ascending rafters, this hall cannot conceal its derivation
from such humble structures as the farmhouse of Ezinge (figs. 297 and 327) which antedates it by 17 centuries, but with which it nevertheless
is connected in direct ancestral lineage.

DRAWING BY EDWARD BLORE, made before alteration of hall by Captain William Edmeades, 1837

LONDON, BRITISH MUSEUM, ADD. MS. 42018, FIG. 8. By courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum

REPRODUCED AT SIZE OF ORIGINAL DRAWING

[ILLUSTRATION]

345. NURSTEAD COURT, KENT, ENGLAND. MANOR HALL, 14TH CENTURY

DRAWING BY EDWARD BLORE, made before alteration of hall by Captain William Edmeades, 1837

LONDON, BRITISH MUSEUM, ADD. MS. 42018, FIG. 8. By courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum

REPRODUCED AT SIZE OF ORIGINAL DRAWING

[ILLUSTRATION]

346.A NURSTEAD COURT, KENT, ENGLAND. MANOR HALL, 14TH CENTURY

The masonry of the entire western half of the building is preserved. The reconstruction of the demolished eastern half of the hall in the plan
and section opposite (346.C) is based on drawings by Sir Herbert Baker (published in Oswald, 1933, 14). The windows in the south wall have
been modified.

[ILLUSTRATION]

346.B

[1:512]

[ILLUSTRATION]

346.C

[ILLUSTRATION]

346.D NURSTEAD COURT, KENT, ENGLAND. MANOR HALL, 14TH CENTURY

Preserved in superb condition are all of the flintstone and chalk masonry visible in this drawing, as well as the entrance to the dais at the
western end of the wall, the tall Gothic window in the bay between dais truss and center truss, all of the roof-supporting posts, arch braces, roof
plates, tie beams, king posts, and even most of the rafters. But not a single truss can be seen today in its entirety because of the insertion of two
ceilings, dividing a space once open from floor to ridge, into two stories and an attic. The floor under the hipped portion of the roof is raised one
step above the general level of the hall. It is here that the lord and his family took their meals and where distinguished persons sat at feast.
Slots in the columns of the dais truss and a center post suggest the existence along this line of a screen that could be opened and closed. But in
its vertical elevation even the dais bay was open to the rafters, as must be inferred from the presence of mouldings and other decorative motifs
on the wall plates and on the roof plates (now partly covered up by later insertions).

[ILLUSTRATION]

347.B LITTLE CHESTERFORD, ESSEX, ENGLAND. MANOR HALL, East wing about 1225, aisled hall about 1320-30,
west wing with solarium, 15th century modified in the 19th century.

[ILLUSTRATION]

PLAN AT GROUND LEVEL, EXISTING CONDITIONS (1960)

347.C

347.A

[ILLUSTRATION]

348. LITTLE CHESTERFORD, ESSEX, ENGLAND. MANOR HALL CA. 1320-30

PERSPECTIVE RECONSTRUCTION OF INTERIOR LOOKING EASTWARD

The manor hall in its ultimate form (fig. 347.B) consisted of a two-storied stone structure, built about 1225, which may have been the original
house (Smith, 1956, 83). The aisled timber hall shown above was added to this structure around 1320-30 (Smith, loc. cit.), the original house
(now east wing) being rearranged on that occasion to serve as kitchen on the groundfloor, the upper floor probably continuing to be used as
withdrawing room. A cross wing with solar (now forming the western end of the hall) was added probably in the early or mid 15th century.

Our reconstruction shows the interior of the 14th century hall as it would have appeared to one standing in the westernmost bay looking east
through the center bay with its open fireplace into the screen- bay, from which two elegant Gothic entrances lead into the interior of masonry
wing. The hall itself is now broken up into a maze of separate rooms on two levels that wholly destroys its spatial aesthetics; but enough of the
original timber frame is left to permit a tenable reconstruction: the center truss with its full complement of columns and bracing struts, and the
roof over the nave with virtually every individual piece of timber.

[ILLUSTRATION]

349. GREAT COXWELL, BERKSHIRE, ENGLAND

BARN OF THE ABBEY GRANGE, FIRST DECADE OF THE 14TH CENTURY

VIEW FROM NORTHWEST

William Morris, who lived within walking distance of this building while at Kelmscott, believed it to be "the greatest piece of architecture in
England." Located in the northern stretches of the vale of the Whitehorse, some two miles southwest of the town of Faringdon in Berkshire, it is
without question the finest of the extant medieval barns in England. The great lines of its simple mass, the intersecting bodies of its two large
transeptal porches, the steep ascent of its gables, and the noble silhouette of its vast roof are unsurpassed by any structure of like design.
Moreover, in the interior, supporting the roof, this barn displays one of the most magnificent frames of timber ever found in a building of this
construction type (see fig. 351).

were low pitched, the two medieval counterparts rise at
very steep angles.[199] We shall illustrate each of these roof
types with a few selected buildings.

THE SPARRENDACH

The Sparrendach is a roof in which a continuous sequence
of coupled rafters of relatively light scantling discharge the
load and thrust of the roof at close intervals and in equal
increments upon the walls or beams on which the rafters
were footed. The most widely known house type employing
this system is the Lower Saxon farmhouse. A closely related
variant of this roof is common in the south and southeast of
England. Zippelius has advanced some cogent arguments
in favor of the assumption that the roofs of the Iron Age
houses of the type of Ezinge, Leens, and Fochteloo belonged
to the family of the Sparrendach,[200] and this suggests the
possibility that both the German and English variant of
this roof may have a common root in the Continental
homelands of the Saxons and their neighbors, the Frisians.

The earliest surviving domestic roof of this construction
type is, to the best of my knowledge, that of the aisled
Infirmary Hall of St. Mary's in Chichester, Sussex, which
dates from the close of the thirteenth century (figs. 341343).[201]
Although this hospital was a private foundation, its
layout follows a pattern that had been established in the
Anglo-Norman monasteries of the two preceding centuries.[202]
It consists of an oblong Infirmary Hall, originally
of six bays but now reduced to four bays, with its entrance
in the middle of the western gable wall. The eastern gable
wall opens into a masonry chapel with richly molded
Early English arches. The Hall itself is 45 feet wide, 43
feet high (clear inner measurements), and originally had a
length of 120 feet. Its roof is sustained by two rows of
wooden posts, framed together, at a height of 21 feet,
lengthwise by means of arcade plates and crosswise by
means of tie beams. The arcade plates are tenoned into a
recess in the head of the principal posts, and the tie beams
are locked into the arcade plates by means of dovetail
joints (fig. 356). The angles between the posts and their
superincumbent long and cross beams are strengthened by a
magnificent set of three-way double bracing struts of
heavy scantling which reduce the free span of the latter to
only a fraction of their total length. The rafters rise in two
flights, at the same angle, first from the wall plates to the
arcade plates, then from the arcade plates to the ridge of
the hall; those of the main roof are restrained from moving
longitudinally by a center purlin pegged into collar beams
and sustained by king posts rising from the center of each
alternate tie beam (figs. 341-342).

St. Mary's Hospital was founded as a temporary home
for the sick and the infirm who were tended by a privately
endowed community of thirteen permanent attendants
under the guidance of a prior and warden. Its elongated
shape is determined by its use as a building for attending
to the needs of a considerable number of people, including
wandering pilgrims and paupers who sought refuge for a
night only.[203] The contemporary palace and manor halls
were shorter. A typical example of the latter with a classical
Sparrendach was the manor hall of Nurstead Court, Kent
(figs. 344-346). Judging by its architectural style, this hall
must have been built during the period when the manor of
Nurstede was in possession of the Gravensend family and
its construction is generally ascribed to Stephen de Gravensend,
who inherited the manor from his father in 1303,
became Bishop of London in 1318, and died in 1338.[204] The
hall remained essentially unaltered until around 1837 when
in response to a need for greater comfort in living one half
of it was demolished to make room for a double-storied
structure built in the prevailing taste of the period. The
other half, likewise, was subdivided into several levels and
a variety of rooms, but here the newly inserted walls and
ceilings were suspended in the original frame of timber,
which is intact although no single part of it can be seen in
its entire height. From these remaining parts of the original
fabric and several extraordinary sets of drawings made just
before the hall was altered, by the superb architectural
draftsmen Edward Blore, William Twopeny, and Ambrose
Poynter, the original design of the hall can be reconstructed.

The hall was 34 feet wide and 79 feet long externally.
Its walls were built in flint and rose to a height of 11½ feet
With its ridge the roof reached a height of 36 feet. It was
hipped on both ends and had small triangular gables at the
peak of each hip. The supporting frame of the roof consisted
of three powerful trusses, resting on wooden columns
with molded bases and capitals and arched braces, rising
from the top of the capitals lengthwise to the arcade
plates and crosswise to the tie beams. The latter met in the
center, forming forcefully pointed arches. The tie beams
(like the other principal members, richly molded) are of
unusually heavy scantling and have sharp and elegant
camber. The roof itself is a classical example of the southern
and southeastern English Sparrendach: a continuous sequence

[ILLUSTRATION]

350.A GREAT COXWELL, BERKSHIRE, ENGLAND

BARN OF THE ABBEY GRANGE, FIRST DECADE OF THE 14TH CENTURY. PLAN

Measured externally and excluding buttresses, the barn of Great Coxwell is 152′ 2″ long by 43′ 10″ wide. It reaches a height of 48 feet at the
roof ridge. The walls are built in roughly coursed rubble of Cotswold stone and are reinforced by ashlar-faced buttresses of one stage in the side
walls and of three stages in the gable walls. Its vast roof is carried by two rows of slender timber posts so successfully framed together that after
some 700 years of resisting pressure and thrust, not one single principal member has been dislodged from its original position. The main
components of this frame are six principal and seven intermediary trusses of oak so spaced as to divide the interior lengthwise into a nave and
two flanking aisles, and crosswise into a sequence of seven bays. The uprights of the principal trusses (fig. 350.B) rise from tall bases of stone
almost 7 feet high, providing a verticality of breathtaking beauty, unmatched by any other extant example of this type of construction. The
intermediate trusses are cruck-shaped and rise directly from the aisle walls (fig. 350.C).

[ILLUSTRATION]

GREAT COXWELL, BERKSHIRE, ENGLAND

350.C

350.B

BARN OF THE ABBEY GRANGE, FIRST DECADE OF THE 14TH CENTURY. TRANSVERSE SECTION

A feature of striking beauty at Great Coxwell is the design of the three-way double braces (fig. 351) which rise from the main posts to their
connecting long and cross beams. Reducing the unsupported length of the beams that they brace to less than one third their total length, the
braces prevent them from sagging under the weight of the super-incumbent rafters. At the same time, they protect the frame from rocking and
swerving by stiffening the angles. The manner in which these braces reach out into space and assist the principal members of the supporting roof
frame to divide the interior into a sequence of separate bays may be compared to the rise and spread of the bay-dividing shafts and arches of a
medieval masonry church. It has been argued with great plausibility that this method of framing space by an all-pervasive armature of structural
members is older in wood construction than in stone (see I, 223ff).

[ILLUSTRATION]

351. GREAT COXWELL, BERKSHIRE, ENGLAND

BARN OF ABBEY GRANGE, FIRST DECADE OF 14TH CENTURY. INTERIOR LOOKING SOUTHWARD

[by courtesy of the National Buildings Record, London]

An even greater tribute than that accorded to this building by William Morris (fig. 349) was made by Thomas Hardy when in a passage of
great historical sensitivity, he wrote about a similar building in Dorsetshire:

"They sheared in the great barn, called for the nonce the Shearing-barn, which on ground-plan resembled a church with transepts. It not only
emulated the form of the neighbouring church of the parish, but vied with it in antiquity. . . . One could say about this barn, what could hardly
be said of either the church or the castle, akin to it in age and style, that the purpose which had dictated its original erection was the same to
which it was still applied. Unlike and superior to either of those two typical remnants of mediaevalism, the old barn embodied practises which
had suffered no mutilation at the hands of time" (Far from the Madding Crowd, chapter XXII).

[ILLUSTRATION]

352. PARÇAY-MESLAY, NEAR TOURS (INDRE-ET-LOIRE), FRANCE

BARN OF ABBEY GRANGE, 1211-1227. EXTERIOR VIEW FROM THE NORTHEAST

The grange consisted of a large rectangular yard, enclosed by a tall masonry wall. Incorporated into this wall in the south was a gate house
with a monumental round-arched passageway, and on a second level above it, a fenestrated chamber with fireplace—the dwelling doubtless of the
supervising granger. Its vast five-aisled barn, with masonry gables rising from floor to ridge, is the only surviving structure of an intricate group
of buildings once forming the inhabited nucleus of this agricultural enterprise. For á plan showing the full complement of buildings of such a
grange, made at a time when it was substantially in its original form, see Horn and Born, 1968, Pl. XIX, fig. 10.

[ILLUSTRATION]

353. PARÇAY-MESLAY, NEAR TOURS (INDRE-ET-LOIRE), FRANCE

BARN OF ABBEY GRANGE, 1211-1227. INTERIOR LOOKING EAST

The low pitch of the roof of this barn—distinctly different from the steep ascent of the roof of the barn at Great Coxwell (figs. 349-51)
is conditioned in part by its extraordinary width (twice that of Great Coxwell), but the decision to develop space in breadth rather than
height may have been conditioned also by climatic and cultural factors: the barn lies at the southern boundary of the area of distribution
of steep roofs.

of paired rafters with collar beams pegged to a
center purlin by crown posts that rise from the middle of
each tie beam.

The westernmost bay of the hall was of two stories,
screened off against the two center bays on the ground
floor by timber screens; higher up, by a wall of plaster
reaching all the way up to the ridge of the roof. This end
served as the private quarters for the lord of the manor. The
opposite end of the hall was screened off in a similar manner
by a low timber screen with three doorways; the middle one
opened into a passage that led outside; the two outer ones,
into two rooms which could either have served as quarters
for the servants or as buttery and pantry. The kitchen was in
a separate building to the north of the hall and could be
reached from the latter through a door in the northern long
wall.

The hall of the manor of Nurstead is one of the last
examples of the traditional open hall where the lord and the
servants still lived and ate under the same roof in opposite
ends of the building—an arrangement that is very similar
to, although not identical in all details with that of the
House for Distinguished Guests of the Plan of St. Gall
(fig. 396). The two center bays of the hall were communal
space, which on festive occasions was the stage for banquets
with the open fire burning in the middle of the center
floor, as can be inferred from the smoke blackened beams
and rafters.

At the very same time England had already developed a
new plan, which provided for two double-storied cross
wings at the end of the hall, one of which served as the
private dwelling of the lord and his family; the other, as
quarters for the servants (including space for kitchen,
buttery, and pantry.) A typical example of this new arrangement
is the manor hall of Little Chesterford, Essex, a
plan and perspective reconstruction of which are shown in
figures 347-348. The hall has been ascribed by its earlier
students to about 1275[205] and by J. T. Smith to about
1320-30.[206] One of its aisles has been dismantled. Originally
the hall was 27 feet wide and 37 feet long. It was of three
bays with the one near the entrance serving as a narrow
screen-bay. The walls were timber framed, but all other
details were very similar to those of the hall of Nurstead
Court—less forceful and elegant, yet still of genuine refinement.
In the fourteenth century the English lowlands must
have been dotted with countless variants of this type of
hall.[207]

THE PFETTENDACH

The Sparrendach works with only one kind of rafter; the
Pfettendach differs from it in employing two kinds—one
of light, the other of heavy, scantling. The heavy, or
principal, rafters rise from the ends of the tie beams to the
ridge of the roof, forming powerful trusses that carry
purlins and, as a rule, a ridge piece; and it is upon these
longitudinal timbers (purlins and ridge piece) that the
lighter common rafters of the roof are mounted. In the
Pfettendach the major burden of the roof is transmitted
by the purlins to the principal trusses which discharge it
upon the walls at the beginning and at the end of each bay,
to points which, if the walls are built in masonry, are usually
reinforced by buttresses.

The best known variant of the Pfettendach is the roof of
the Early Christian basilica[208] and all its Mediterranean
medieval derivatives. But the Pfettendach is also, as we
have seen, the standard roof in the North Germanic
territories of Sweden, Denmark, Norway, and Iceland.[209]

The two earliest surviving examples of a vernacular
medieval Pfettendach are the roofs of the barn of the abbey
grange of Great Coxwell in Berkshire, a dependency of the
Cistercian Abbey of Beaulieu in Hampshire (figs. 349-354)
and the barn of the abbey grange of Parçay-Meslay, near
Tours, in France, a dependency of the monastery of Marmoutier
(figs. 352-355). The former dates from the first
decade of the fourteenth century;[210] the latter belongs to a
group of buildings that tradition ascribes to Abbot Hugue
de Rochecorbon (1211-27).[211]

The barn of Great Coxwell (figs. 349-351) is 152 feet
long and 44 feet wide (external measurements not counting
buttresses) and reaches a height of 48 feet at the ridge. Its
vast roof rests on purlins which are held in place by
seven principal trusses sustained by posts, and six intermediate
trusses in cruck construction rising directly from
the aisle walls. The uprights of the principal trusses rest on
tall bases of stone almost seven feet high, and are framed
together 30 feet above the floor of the barn, first crosswise
by means of tie beams, then lengthwise by means of
arcade plates—a reversal of the normal and more common
procedure of housing the plates beneath the tie beams in
a recess cut into the head of the supporting posts (fig. 357).
The tall, narrow proportions of these trusses are exciting.

[ILLUSTRATION]

354.A PARÇAY-MESLAY, NEAR TOURS (INDRE-ET-LOIRE), FRANCE

BARN OF ABBEY GRANGE, 1211-1227. PLAN

The twelve roof-supporting trusses of the barn are not in alignment with the buttresses of the two long walls. This could be interpreted to mean
that the present frame of timber is not the original one, if this conclusion were not invalidated by the even more startling observation that the
buttresses of the two long walls fail to align with one another. An oral tradition, the precise sources of which we have not been able to identify,
claims that the original roof of the barn was destroyed by a fire in 1437 during the war with the English. Radiocarbon measurements taken of
samples extracted from two different posts did not confirm this tradition (see Horn, 1970, 28; and Berger, 1970, 111-112).

It is possible that the craftsman who built the masonry shell of the structure did not know what the carpenter had in mind; and even the
carpenter, in many cases might not have known of what number of trusses his roof-supporting frame of timber would be composed until he was
apprised of the length and strength of the available timbers. In its ultimate form the roof was composed of twelve trusses dividing the space
internally into thirteen bays each of a depth of 13 feet. The location of the buttresses would have suggested a barn of seven bays, each of a depth
of 24 feet, which is possible but structurally more risky.

[ILLUSTRATION]

354.B PARÇAY-MESLAY, NEAR TOURS (INDRE-ET-LOIRE), FRANCE

BARN OF ABBEY GRANGE, 1211-1227. TRANSVERSE SECTION

This is, to the best of our knowledge, the only surviving five-aisled medieval barn of transalpine Europe. There were others. The plan of the
abbey of Clairvaux and its grange of Ultra Alba (a short distance away on the opposite bank of the river Aube) records, besides two five-aisled
structures of this type, two barns that even had seven aisles. The largest among these was 210 feet long and 120 feet wide; 40 feet longer and
wider than Parçay-Meslay (for a plan and bird's-eye view see Horn and Born, 1968, Pl. XIX, figs. 10 and 11).

Since most Cistercian monasteries possessed between ten and fifteen outlying granges, the number of buildings of this kind must have been legion.
Clairvaux and Morimond counted twelve; the Abbey of Foigny fourteen; the Abbey of Fontmorigny seven; and the Abbey of Chaalis, fifteen.
On many granges, as in Ultra Alba, there were not one but two or even more such structures. Since at the beginning of the 13th century there
existed in France some 500 Cistercian monasteries, the total number of barns of this order only, and in France only, must have ranged
between 5,000 and 10,000.

[ILLUSTRATION]

355. PARÇAY-MESLAY, NEAR TOURS (INDRE-ET-LOIRE), FRANCE

BARN OF ABBEY GRANGE, 1211-1227. INTERIOR LOOKING UP INTO THE ROOF RIDGE

The roof of the barn is made stable by means of a sub ridge running parallel to and below the main ridge beam. The two are stiffened by
St. Andrew's crosses (two bracing struts half-lapped at midpoint at right angles and tenoned into the paired ridge beams). This remarkable
engineering came to be adopted in and widely diffused by 19th-century steel construction some 600 years after this huge timber frame was made.

The building is made structurally stable by means of its extraordinary system of internal bracing, and is without need of an external source of
support such as might have otherwise been provided by massive masonry walls. In consequence of its self-contained equilibrium, supplied by the
genius of a master carpenter, the building provides the evidence that demonstrates the handsome masonry walls were constructed after completion
of the wooden frame.

A feature of striking beauty is the three-way double braces
which rise from the main posts to their connecting long
and cross beams. By reducing the unsupported length of
the beams that they brace to less than one third of their
total length, they prevent them from sagging under the
weight of the superincumbent rafters, while at the same
time protecting the frame from rocking and swerving. The
walls are built in roughly coursed rubble with buttresses of
high quality ashlar masonry. The two large doors in the
gable walls are modern. In the Middle Ages the barn was
entered broadside through two transeptal porches, one of
which had on its upper level the office of the supervising
monastic granger.

The barn of Parçay-Meslay (figs. 352-355) is quite
as impressive. It lacks the breathtaking steepness of
Great Coxwell, but its space is of a vastness that can only
be compared to that of an Early Christian basilica or of a
modern airplane hangar. It has a clear inner length of 170
feet, and a clear inner width of 80 feet. From floor to
ridge it measures 44 feet. Its vast tile-covered roof is
supported by twelve aisled trusses which divide the space
lengthwise into a nave and four aisles. The barn of ParçayMeslay
is the only example of this type to have survived
the French Revolution; but the existence of other barns
of similar design and even larger dimensions, dating from
the twelfth century, is attested by Dom Milley's engravings
of the Abbey of Clairvaux, published in 1708.[212] It is a
purlin roof like Great Coxwell, and similar in many other
respects, but the trusses of Parçay-Meslay are more closely
spaced and are all of the same design. The assemblage of
arcade plate and post follows the more common pattern of
housing the plates in the head of the posts and locking the
tie beams into both of these members simultaneously from
above by means of dovetail joints and mortice-and-tenon
joints. The bracing struts are short and sturdy, and the
posts throughout have joweled heads.

As in Great Coxwell the purlins ride on the back of
principal rafters that run parallel to the common rafters,
a short distance farther inward (figs. 353-354). As in Great
Coxwell these inner rafters are braced by diagonal struts
that rise from the top of the tie beam. In Great Coxwell
the principal rafters over the nave terminated in the ends of
a collar beam that stiffened the corresponding pair of outer
rafters some distance below the ridge of the roof (fig. 350).
In Parçay-Meslay they are buttressed against a king post
that reaches all the way up to the ridge of the roof (fig. 354).

There are other differences. Unlike Great Coxwell, Parçay-Meslay
has no gable trusses. Instead, all longitudinal
members (plates and purlins) terminate in sockets built
into the masonry walls. A more important difference, however,
is that while in Great Coxwell a major portion of the
roof load is transmitted to the masonry of the long walls,
in Parçay-Meslay it is almost entirely absorbed in the
timber frame. The walls, of course, contribute their share
in steadying the work, but there is a complete set of outer
posts addorsed to the walls on either side of the barn, making
the timber frame virtually autonomous. In Great Coxwell
the buttresses of the masonry walls are in careful alignment
with the timber frame. In Parçay-Meslay carpenter and
mason went separate ways. No single buttress is in line
with any of the timber trusses.

One of the most remarkable features of the carpentry of
Parçay-Meslay is the measure taken, both in the lower and
upper stage of the trusses, to restrain the frame from moving
longitudinally. In the lower stage this is accomplished by
straining beams running parallel to the arcade plates, some
12 feet beneath them. They are tenoned into the posts just
below the springing of the main braces and are braced in
turn by short angle struts (fig. 353). In the upper stage of
the trusses the same task is performed by the introduction
of a sub-ridge running parallel to the main ridge, some 9
feet beneath it, and stiffened in its relation to the main
ridge by means of St. Andrew crosses (fig. 355)—a notable
piece of engineering.

The roof of Parçay-Meslay is a typical Continental purlin
roof, of a kind that is well attested through many other
Continental barns of the thirteenth century.[213] This type
was still in use in the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth
centuries as the standard form for the roof of market halls.[214]

[ILLUSTRATION]

The grange lies 9 km. northeast of Tours and ca. 1 km. north of the village of ParçayMeslay.
Marmoutier, its mother house, lay on the outshirts of Tours and slightly
upstream, on the Loire's north bank; nationalized in 1818, the abbey was then razed.
The grange at Parçay-Meslay stands as a solitary reminder of the former grandeur of
this abbey, once among the most powerful houses of Christendom.

[ILLUSTRATION]

GREAT COXWELL, BERKSHIRE, ENGLAND

357.B

357.A

BARN, ABBEY GRANGE, FIRST DECADE 14TH CENTURY

DETAIL: ASSEMBLED, DISASSEMBLED, principal post, tie beam, roof plate

[ILLUSTRATION]

CHICHESTER, SUSSEX, ENGLAND

356.B

356.A

ST. MARY'S HOSPITAL, END OF THE 13TH CENTURY

DETAIL: ASSEMBLED, DISASSEMBLED, principal post, tie beam, roof plate

At St. Mary's, the roof or arcade plates are set into a shoulder of the principal
posts. A projecting tenon of the latter is mortised into the tie beam which in
this manner comes to rest above the roofplate. All converging members of the
frame are so carefully interlocked by protruding and receding elements so as to
prevent any slipping, shift, or dislocation.

In the joinery of the Barn of Great Coxwell the tie beams are likewise mortised
into a tenon of the principal posts, but the roof plates are notched over the tie
beam—an assembly which, because of its relative rarity in England is there
referred to as "reversed assembly". The latter is rather common on the
Continent. Both methods are fine examples of medieval carpentry.

V. 6

CRITERIA OF RECONSTRUCTION

II

V.6.1

ROOF CONSTRUCTION:
ASSEMBLAGE OF THE SUPPORTING
FRAME OF TIMBER

The aisled and timbered medieval barns and houses discussed
in the preceding pages give us a fairly good idea of
the kind of carpentry we might expect to have been employed
in the guest and service buildings of the Plan of St.
Gall. Although we could identify two distinct classes of
roofs, we found that the roof-supporting trusses were of
very similar design in both cases. In the majority of buildings
the arcade plates from which the rafters spring were
tenoned into a recess in the head of the posts. The tie
beams were laid upon this assemblage from above and
were locked into the posts by means of mortice-and-tenon
joints, into the arcade plates by dovetail joints (fig. 356).
One building only, the Barn of Great Coxwell, Berkshire,
departed from this rule by putting the plates on top of the
tie beams (fig. 357). We have chosen the more common
form of Chichester (fig. 356) and Parçay-Meslay (fig. 354B)
as the standard form for our reconstruction of the post-and-plate
assemblage of the houses of the Plan of St. Gall.

The bracing beams were either straight, bent, or curved;
sometimes long, sometimes short; sometimes single, sometimes
double; but in all cases of relatively heavy scantling.
We may safely assume that all of the simpler variants of
this group were in use in Carolingian times, excluding such
types, of course, that owed their design to influences from
Romanesque and Gothic masonry architecture, such as the
round arches of Hereford Palace (fig. 340) or the Gothic
arches of Nurstead Court, Kent (fig. 345) and Little
Chesterford, Essex (fig. 348).

From the side of the aisles, the principal trusses were
steadied by aisle ties, tenoned into the freestanding posts
on the level of the wall head. The outer ends of these ties
served as springing for inner rafters of heavy scantling,
running parallel to the roof slope, a short distance inward,
and butted into the heads of the principal posts some two
or three feet below the arcade plate. On the wall side these
aisle ties rested either on two parallel courses of wall plates,
one running along the outer, the other along the inner edge
of the wall head, as in Great Coxwell (fig. 350B); or they
were tenoned into the heads of posts set against the long
walls on the inside, a method by means of which the timber
frame was, structurally, held virtually independent of the
masonry walls, as in Parçay-Meslay (fig. 354B). In buildings
constructed entirely in wood the post-to-plate assemblage
of the outer walls would, of course, have been a repetition
on a smaller scale of that of the principal posts and the
arcade plates (as in the barn of Little Wymondly, discussed
below, fig. 434). In reconstructing the St. Gall outbuildings,
we have chosen freely, from among all these different possibilities,
whatever the condition of a particular building
suggested as the most logical solution.

V.6.2

ROOF CONSTRUCTION:
SOME ALTERNATIVE ASSUMPTIONS

So far we are on fairly safe ground. The range of possibilities
widens drastically, however, as we move from the
main stage of the trusses to the assemblage of the roof itself.
Here, in light of the available historical evidence, we are
forced to make a choice between two radically different systems:
the roofs of the guest and service buildings must
either have belonged to the family of the Sparrendach or to
the family of the Pfettendach. As we have no way of knowing
to which of these two they belonged—rather than decide
this issue in an arbitrary manner—we have chosen to use
both systems. Our reconstruction of the House for Distinguished
Guests (figs. 397-399)[215] is a typical example of the
purlin roof; that of the Granary (figs. 435A-F),[216] of the
rafter roof. It is not at all impossible that both types
were used together—and there is also, of course, the possibility
of early hybridization.

We have fashioned our reconstruction after English and
French models rather than Dutch and German, because
the English and French material is older than the earliest
Dutch and German parallels, which do not antedate the
beginning of the sixteenth, or at best the end of the fifteenth,
century.

There is one further alternative to be taken into consideration.
Among the excavated pre- and protohistoric
houses previously discussed are found a small number of
buildings that had their ridges supported by a median row
of posts (see Wijchen, figs. 301-302).[217] They are few, true
enough, but their existence forces us to take them into
account, the more so since in the territory of the Bajuvarians,
at least, this house was common enough to merit legal
codification (see above, pp. 27ff and figs. 289A-B).

I do not believe, however, that the guest and service
buildings of the Plan of St. Gall should be reconstructed
in this manner, since the houses of the Plan of St. Gall have
vital passageways at the very spot where the construction
of the Bajuvarian standard house calls for ridge-supporting
center posts. I draw special attention to the doorways in
the House for Distinguished Guests connecting the dining
hall with the bedrooms of the royalty housed in this structure.[218]

As one inspects the remaining houses one by one,
one finds that the entrances from the hearth-room to the
two end rooms invariably lie in the longitudinal axis of the
building. This arrangement is incompatible with the ridgepole
construction of the Bajuvarian standard house.

Our choice for the roof skin of the guest and service
buildings is shingle. Thatch and reed, while common in
the sixth, seventh, and eighth centuries, would have been
an anachronism in the ninth in a monastery of paradigmatic
significance. I remind the reader of the passage already
quoted in the Life of St. Benedict of Aniane where we are
told that he covered the houses of his monastery at Aniane
first with thatch (non tegulis rubentibus, sed stramine) and
then completely redid them in tile (non iam stramine domos,
sed tegulis cooperit).[219] In the southern, more Romanized
parts of the Carolingian empire, tile was doubtlessly the
customary material. Farther north it is more likely to have
been shingle, probably the larger variety which in vernacular
American English is referred to as "shakes." Numerous
medieval sources could be quoted in support of widespread
use of shingles.[220] I confine myself to one, the well-known
passage in Ekkehart's Casus sancti Galli, where we are told
how the fire set by a pupil to the roof of the Outer School
of the monastery of St. Gall ignited "the dry shingles"
(tegula arida) of the school and from there was blown by
the north wind to the roof of an adjacent church tower,
which had "a shingled roof superimposed upon a stone
roof" (tegulis ligneis super lapideas tecta).[221]

V.6.3

CARPENTRY JOINTS

I am intentionally not entering into a discussion of carpentry
joints, but refer the reader to the masterful review
of pre-medieval methods of jointing timbers, published by
Adelhart Zippelius in 1954,[222] which discloses that all later
known methods of assembling timbers, such as halving
(Verkämmung), joining by mortice and tenon (Verzapfung),
and lapjoining (Verblattung) were in full use in the Iron
Age, some being attested for the Bronze Age and even for
the Younger Stone Age (fig. 300), including the very sophisticated
dovetail joint. In our reconstruction we have not
used any carpentry joints that are not well attested for the
Middle Ages. We cannot prove that all of these were in use
at the time of Louis the Pious. Some of them possibly were
not. But to anyone who is inclined to underrate the skill of
Carolingian carpenters we recommend a study of the intricate
carpentry joints discovered in the two fortified ninth-century
sites of Stellerburg[223] and of Husterknupp.[224]

V.6.4

PROCEDURES FOLLOWED IN
RECONSTRUCTION

In what follows, then, we are entering upon the task of
reconstructing the guest and service buildings of the Plan
of St. Gall, structure by structure. All buildings are drawn
to scale. But certain liberties of interpretation are inevitable
when the constructional elements of a house whose
vertical elements are rendered in simple line projection have
to be converted into three-dimensional entities. All vertical
values will by necessity remain a matter of speculation. In
calculating our elevations we have followed the same method
that we used in our reconstruction of the Church,
assigning to each component space in the house the comfortable
minimum proportions required by its function. We
have assumed that the roof slopes follow, in general, an
angle of 45 degrees. This is a reasonable, yet by no means
compelling, assumption.

The working out of the constructional details of some
forty-odd buildings is not only an arduous, but also a very
costly task—so costly and complex, indeed, that we might
never have accomplished it had the Council of Europe
exhibition Charlemagne (held in Aachen in the summer of
1965) not afforded us the unique opportunity of testing our
views in the construction of a three-dimensional model of
the monastic buildings shown on the Plan of St. Gall.
Although in the majority of cases this model called for
exterior views only, it was obvious enough that even this
objective could not be attained unless the internal constructional
problems of each house were settled. This required
for each individual building a complete set of work-drawings,
sufficiently detailed and comprehensive so as to allow,
if need be, for reconstruction of the houses in their actual
size.[225] It is on these drawings that the reconstructions in
the present study are based.

We cannot dare to claim that our interpretations are the
last word on this challenging subject, but we believe them
to be based on sound historical assumption. We are certain
that they are sound in all of their constructional implications.
Before turning to the discussion of the individual
structures, however, an important detail remains to be
settled, i.e., the question of the heating, lighting, and ventilation
devices of the guest and service buildings.

[ILLUSTRATION]

PLAN OF ST. GALL. HEARTHS

358.A HOUSE FOR DISTINGUISHED GUESTS

This is the only instance on the Plan where the square in the center of the
common living and dining room is designated as LOCUS FOCI, an open "fire
place" that serves as the primary source of heat for the house.

358.B HOSPICE FOR PILGRIMS AND PAUPERS

The word TESTU refers to a lantern that protects an opening in the roof admitting
light and air to the house and also serving as smoke escape for the open fire
place located directly beneath it.

358.C THE OUTER SCHOOL

In the Outer School the center room is divided by a median wall partition into
two class rooms each furnished with its own fire place.

PLANS 1:192

V. 7

DEVICES FOR HEATING,
LIGHTING, VENTILATION,
AND COOKING

V.7.1

THE CENTRAL HEARTH AND THE
LOUVER

THE MEANING OF LOCUS FOCI AND TESTU

One of the striking typological characteristics of the guest
and service buildings on the Plan is the squares in the
center of these houses referred to varyingly as locus foci and
testu (fig. 358A-C). The first of these terms clearly refers
to the "fireplace" or open hearth in the middle of the floor
which heats the house. The second, testu, requires some
explanation. It has generally been taken to be an abbreviation
for the word testudo ("turtle" or "roof"),[226] but I do
not think that this is the correct interpretation. Testu, as an
abbreviation for testudo, with no sign given to indicate that
a part of the word is missing, is not consistent with the
author's other abbreviations,[227] and there is no reason to
assume that he departed from his normal procedure because
of the smallness of the space in which the word had
to be inscribed. The testu square in the Hospice for Pilgrims
and Paupers (fig. 358B) is large enough to accommodate
the whole word testudo and several other words if
necessary. What the scribe had in mind, in my opinion, was
the word testu, exactly as it is written—a rare yet perfectly
meaningful term.

Testu (indeclinable) means the "lid of a pot."[228] It is
closely related to testa, which means "shell," either the
shell that covers a testaceous animal, the human skull
(testa hominis), or human artifacts of comparable construction,

[ILLUSTRATION]

359. WIJCHEN, GELDERLAND, THE NETHERLANDS

This Iron Age house of modest design was unearthed on a chain of hills skirting
a moor that once may have formed an outer arm of the Maas. The house was
internally divided into two areas one of which contained its hearth. Four
independent posts surrounding the hearth are most reasonably explained as the
supports of a small roof protecting an opening in the main roof admitting light
and air and also allowing the smoke to escape.

NEAR THE RIVER MAAS (10KM WEST OF NIJMEGEN)

PLAN. IRON AGE HOUSE [after F. Bloemen, 1933, 5, fig. 5]

such as clay bowls or pots. Testudo is a derivative of
both these words. It shares with them the basic meaning
of "protective cover." In everyday language testudo meant a
"tortoise" or "turtle"; in military language it was the name
for the protective covering formed when soldiers held their
shields overhead and locked them together. By analogy, in
architectural terminology—both classical and medieval—
testudo came to be the word used for "roof," usually a roof
of timber, but also by extension, a "vaulted roof."[229]

Even supposing that the author of the Plan had in mind
testudo, rather than testu, it is unlikely that he referred to
the principal roof of the building; rather, he must have
meant a roof equal in size with the square in which
the term was written; and since this square is designated
both as testu and as locus foci, it is most probably to be understood
as "a protective shield above the hearth," the purpose
of which must have been to form a cover for a central smoke
outlet. Such openings in the roof above the hearth are, in
fact, a feature of the protohistoric and early medieval building
tradition just discussed, and they remained an intrinsic
part of vernacular buildings throughout the Middle Ages.

[ILLUSTRATION]

360. KRAGHEDE, VENDSYSSEL, DENMARK

This Danish Iron Age House is of very similar design to the Dutch specimen
shown in the preceding figure. It shows four independent inner posts related to
the hearth in an identical manner. In houses of relatively small dimensions it
made sense to support the hearth-protecting lantern by poles rising from the
ground. In larger houses, as the subsequent figures show, this was accomplished
by timbers forming part of the roof frame.

PLAN. IRON AGE HOUSE

[after Hatt, 1928, 254, fig. 25]

THE LIGHT AND SMOKE HOLES OF THE
NORDIC SAGA HOUSE

This roof device is well attested in the Nordic Sagas where,
according to its function, it is referred to varyingly as
"smoke hole" (reykháfr, reykberi), "light inlet" (ljóri), or
"air inlet" (vindgluggr, vindauga).[230] Little is known about
the size and shape of these devices, but apparently they
were large enough to be used as an escape hatch when all
other passages were blocked. The Sagas abound with tales
of exits made in this manner. A passage from the Vatnsdœla
Saga gives a typical example: "And so was this [house]
arranged that from that pile of goods, one could step up
into a big smoke hole [í einn storan reykbera] which was
over the hall [er á var skálanum] and when the marauder
investigated the pile, þorsteinn was outside" [var þorsteinn
úti, the sense being: þorsteinn had gained his freedom by
escaping through the smoke hole].[231]

The openings of these light and smoke holes could be
closed by means of wooden shutters (spjaeld) or boards
(fjöl) which were placed in position with the help of a pole

[ILLUSTRATION]

361. NEW COLLEGE, OXFORD, ENGLAND

THE GREAT HALL, 1378-1386

[after Loggan, 1675]

The lantern-surmounted ridges of these buildings built approximately one hundred years apart attest the effectiveness of the device on larger
structures of monumental character.

or rope; or they were screened with transparent membranes
made from the stomach lining of a hog mounted on movable
frames (skjágluggr, skjávindauga). We read of the first type
in Haralds saga harđrađa: "The king then let a board
(fjöl) be moved in front of the light hole (ljórann) so that
only a small opening was left . . . Einar entered and said,
`Dark is it in the King's Council Hall (málstofa).' At the
same moment men rushed on him. . . ."[232] The second type is
mentioned in an equally dramatic passage of the GullÞoris
saga, where Þorir, finding himself trapped in the hall
by Þorbjörn's housecarls, with all exits blocked, "grabbed
a pole and raised it under the `skin hole' (skjárinn) and
there went out and pulled up the pole, and then ran up to
the mountains."[233]

PROTOHISTORIC EVIDENCE FOR
LIGHT AND SMOKE HOLES

Evidence for the existence of poles rising from the ground
to form a canopy around and over the hearth has been
found in aisled Iron Age houses at Hodorf, Germany (fig.
307), and Wijchen, Holland (fig. 359), as well as in the

Migration Period houses of Nauen, Germany; also in
single-span Iron Age houses at Kraghede, Vendsyssel,
Denmark (fig. 360); Källberga, Alunda (Uppland), Sweden;
and the Migration Period village Vallhagar on the island
of Gotland, Sweden.[234]

[ILLUSTRATION]

363. NAPA VALLEY, CALIFORNIA

CALIFORNIA DAIRY BARN WITH LOUVERS

The most common and widely diffused survival form of the testu of the Plan are the
lantern-surmounted openings in the roofs of barns found at every community of the
great farm belt of Canada and the United States.

The relatively rare occurrence of these hearth poles
suggests, however, that in general the protective shields
were mounted directly on the roof rather than on special
supports. The latter system would have been entirely inappropriate
in larger halls, since it would have required an
underpinning of timbers entirely out of scale with the
superstructure that it served to support.

MEDIEVAL EXAMPLES

A fairly accurate picture of these smoke and air hole
coverings may be obtained from some of the old engravings
of early English college halls, for instance, those of Oxford's
New College (fig. 361) and Magdalen College (fig. 362), as
shown in David Loggan's illustratious Oxonia Illustrata of
1675.[235] New College Hall, the oldest of the surviving college
halls of Oxford, was built between 1378-1386 by William
of Wykeham. Magdalen College was founded in 1448 by
William of Waynflete, but its buildings were not completed
until 1480. Both these halls were built during a period when
new discoveries in the technique of roof construction made
it possible to dispense with the two rows of roof-supporting
posts which formerly divided the hall into a nave and two

accompanying aisles. Thus it became possible not only to
cover the space in a single span but also to lift the roof upon
walls of considerable height. Yet even in this new and more
fashionable hall, which permitted large windows, the traditional
opening in the roof above the hearth was retained
as the principal exit for smoke. The roof of the hall of
Magdalen College shows what extraordinary dimensions
these openings could obtain.

The medieval term for these smoke holes is fumerium
("smoke hole") or lovarium (identical with Old French
louvert, "opening"). The so-called Liberate Rolls of King
Henry III, issued in 1216 and 1272 (verbal directive for
repair and construction of houses owned by the crown)
make frequent reference to these devices.[236] Loggan's engravings
of the halls of New College and Magdalen College
show how these smoke holes were covered by a simple
saddle roof, which looks like a portion of the main roof cut
out and raised over the hole. In Loggan's Oxonia Illustrata
saddle-like louvers appear only on the roofs of the earlier
college halls. On the roofs of the later halls the saddle-like
louver was replaced by a flèche or lantern, a Gothic development
and one which the author of the Plan of St. Gall
is not likely to have envisaged.[237]

[ILLUSTRATION]

365. JEAN LE PRINCE. LES LAVANDIÈRES, 1770, PARIS

ÉCOLE DES BEAUX-ARTS, COLLECTION ARMAND-VALTON

(AFTER LE PAYSAGE FRANCAIS. 1926, PL. LV)

The saddle-like version is the simpler and, unquestionably,
the older form, and this type of fumerium is in my
opinion what the author of the Plan had in mind when he
used the term testu.

MODERN SURVIVAL FORMS

Superstructures of this type, almost extinct in the Old
World, are a common feature of the timbered barns in the
great farm belt of the United States (fig. 363). This device
was brought over by early settlers, along with the very type
of building for which it had been invented in the Early
Iron Age. Hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of aisled
American hay and dairy barns of timber are ventilated even
today by openings in the roof ridge, which are shielded by
elevated sections of the main roof and which still retain the
shape of what in the Middle Ages was probably the most
common means of controlling light and smoke.

The design of such a device from a barn in the vicinity
of Benicia, California (fig. 364), is probably as good a guide
for the reconstruction of the louvers of the guest and service
buildings on the Plan of St. Gall as any equivalent found in
Europe, where this particular device disappeared rapidly in

[ILLUSTRATION]

367. GRIMANI BREVIARY

VENICE, LIBRARY OF ST. MARK'S

LABORS OF THE MONTH OF FEBRUARY, DETAIL, fol. 2v

[photo: Alinari 39316]

residential architecture once the open fire was replaced by
hooded chimneys, a development that must have been
nearly complete by the beginning of the fifteenth century.

Despite a thorough search among Flemish, Dutch, and
German landscape drawings, etchings, and paintings—
media which have richly and vividly preserved the architectural
panorama of the medieval countryside—I have
been able to trace only a single case of survival in post-medieval
architecture, and a belated one at that. In an ink
drawing of 1770 by Jean le Prince, entitled Les Lavandières
(fig. 365) there is shown in the center of the bridge that
crosses a stream an old rectangular house with an opening
in the ridge which is shielded by a raised portion of the
main roof above the spot where in the period of construction
of this house there must have burned an open fire.
Together with the saddle-shaped superstructures over the
ridge of the halls of New College and Magdalen College at
Oxford, this drawing of Jean le Prince may retain the most
truthful visual record of the device which in the guest and
service buildings of the Plan is referred to as testu.

[ILLUSTRATION]

368. DUTCH BIBLE (UTRECHT, 1465)

RUTH LYING WITH BOAZ

VIENNA NATIONAL LIBRARY, ms. 2177, fol. 153v.

[after Byvanck and Hoogewerff, I, 1922, 116.B]

The details of the roof flaps und the curved levers by means of which they were
opened and shut are clear enough to leave no doubt about their identity with the
18th-century examples shown in figs. 369 and 370. Observe in the background the
haystack with a roof that can be lowered and raised, a Carolingian example of
which is shown in fig. 326.F.

HINGED HATCHES

However, in the Lowlands during the sixteenth century,
there existed a related device which, judging from the frequency
of its appearance in the illuminations of the Grimani
Breviary and other Franco-Flemish manuscripts of the
same period, must also have been a common feature in late
medieval house construction. A considerable number of
houses represented in the landscapes of these manuscripts
have smoke holes covered by wooden hatches hinged to the
ridge, which could be raised or lowered by means of pulleys.
This device appears in three different places in the Grimani
Breviary: the July representation (fig. 366), the March
representation, and the well-known February representation
(fig. 367), in which a wisp of smoke can be distinguished
rising in gentle spirals into the chilly winter air from an
open fire burning directly below the smoke hole on the
simple clay floor.[238] Again, it is depicted in the September
representations of the breviary of the Museum Mayer van
den Bergh at Antwerp[239] and in an illustration, which depicts

[ILLUSTRATION]

ROOF FLAPS ON AN 18TH-CENTURY FARM, THE NETHERLANDS

369. CROSS SECTION

The roof flaps are shown in closed position, with cord arrangement visible.

[after Uilkema, 1916, 21, fig. VII, and 27, fig. IX]

A simple arrangement of cords and eyes or small blocks caused the right-hand cord to open the left-hand flap, and vice-versa. These cords
were cleated off below to maintain the flap open which, when released, closed of their own weight.

[ILLUSTRATION]

370. EXTERIOR PERSPECTIVE

One roof flap is open (the second is omitted from the drawing for clarity).

the lying together of Ruth and Boaz, from a Dutch Bible
illuminated around 1465 (fig. 368).[240] The technical details
of how such roof flaps were operated are well explained in
the sketches of a vent of a Frisian farmhouse of the eighteenth
century, published by K. Uilkema (figs. 369 and
370).[241]

A wooden hatch or lid of this kind would be in complete
accord with the term testu ("lid"), but the dimensions of
many of the testu squares of the Plan of St. Gall, some of
which are as large as 10 feet square (Hospice of the Paupers,
House for Distinguished Guests), speak against this being
the type used. Hinged lids of such dimensions would be
unmanageable. The saddler roof is the simple and the earlier
form, and for this reason in our reconstruction of the guest
and service buildings on the Plan, we have chosen the latter
version.

V.7.2

CORNER FIREPLACES WITH CHIMNEYS

A PREROGATIVE OF HIGHER-RANKING MEMBERS
OF THE MONASTIC COMMUNITY

In addition to the central open fireplace which forms the
primary—and in the majority of houses, the only—source
of heat, some of the guest and service buildings are provided
with another device for heating individual rooms. Its
symbol is an ovoid loop (fig. 371 A and B) always found in
the corner of a room. In the Abbot's House, it is designated

[ILLUSTRATION]

PLAN OF ST. GALL

371.A ABBOT'S HOUSE

371.B HOUSE FOR DISTINGUISHED GUESTS

CORNER FIREPLACES

Corner fireplaces with chimney stacks are installed in double-storied structures and
in houses where the seclusion of separate living or bedrooms deprives occupants of
the heat of the central fireplace (as in the House for Distinguished Guests).

as caminata. Caminata (short, presumably, for camera
caminata) is the medieval word for a room that has its own
fireplace (caminus).[242] In this sense the term is used to indicate
the bedrooms for distinguished guests (caminata cum
lectis; fig. 371B) and the bedroom in the Porter's lodging
(caminata portarii). By contrast, in the Abbot's living room
as well as his bedroom, both of which are heated by corner
fireplaces, the word caminata is inscribed into the interior
of the loop-shaped symbol that indicates the presence of
these heating devices, and therefore must have been used,
in these two instances, as synonyms for caminus, i.e. the fireplace
itself.

Individual fireplaces indicated in this way on the Plan
are found either in buildings having no central hearth, or
in rooms separated from the common hall by wall partitions
for the sake of greater privacy. Such fireplaces were the
prerogative of the higher ranking members of the monastic
polity and of the sick. They are primarily associated with
masonry structures. Besides appearing in the Abbot's
House, they are also found in the living quarters of the
monastic officials next in rank: the Porter, the Master of

the Outer School, the Master of the Novitiate, the Master
of the Infirmary, and the Master of the Hospice for Pilgrims
and Paupers.[243] For reasons of health they occur in
all the sick wards (Novitiate, Infirmary, House for Bloodletting,
House of the Physicians). They are found with less
frequency in the guest and service buildings. Here again
their presence is determined by considerations of rank or
functional necessity. We find them in the bedrooms of the
noblemen in the House for Distinguished Guests, in the
bedrooms of the Physician and the Gardener. Conversely,
they never occur in the buildings that accommodate the
humbler members of the monastic community. They are
completely absent from the houses for the workmen and
craftsmen, the Hospice for Pilgrims and Paupers, and the
houses that shelter serfs or livestock and their keepers.

ETYMOLOGY AND SHAPE SUGGEST DERIVATION
FROM THE OVEN

Caminus comes from the Greek κάμινος, which meant an
"oven, furnace, or kiln for smelting, baking, or burning

[ILLUSTRATION]

373. LE PUY-EN-VELAY (HAUTE-LOIRE), FRANCE

WALL FIREPLACE, 12TH CENTURY

One of the earliest and most elegant of the surviving medieval fireplaces, it is set
against a flat wall, its conical hood constructed with consummate skill supported by
cusped brackets rising from two short columns.

earthenware and bricks."[244] In classical Latin the term
apparently had come to mean "a furnace which supplies
the heat for a room or an apartment."[245] On the Plan of St.
Gall it is used in this sense in connection with the large
firing chambers (caminus ad calefaciendü) of the hypocausts
which heated the Monks' Dormitory and Warming Room
as well as the living and sleeping quarters of the novices and
the sick. In medieval Latin caminus is the standard term for
a wall or corner fireplace with a chimney, as may be inferred
from Old High German glossaries, where it is translated
both by "oven" (ofan) and "chimney" (scorenstein).[246] The
etymology of the term caminus—its original meaning of
"kiln" or "oven" and its eventual change to mean chimney
(French: cheminée; German: Kamin)—suggests that the
medieval wall or corner fireplace is, developmentally, an
offspring of the baker's oven or potter's kiln. This assumption
makes sense for functional as well as etymological
reasons. When the fire was moved against the wall, it had
to be enclosed, and the age-old solution for enclosing a fire
was the ovoid or round oven of the baker or potter. When
the baking oven had, in this manner, been transformed into

[ILLUSTRATION]

374. FRANKFURT-AM-MAIN, GERMANY

RÖMERTURM, CORNER FIREPLACE, 13TH CENTURY

The hood has the shape of a beehive. Other examples of this design are found
in the Berchfried of Castle Schönburg, near Naumburg (by some ascribed to the
11th century) and in the Berchfried of Petersberg near Freisach (see Piper,
1895, figs. 476 and 480).

a heating unit that formed an integral part of the living
room, the proper functioning of the fire and the health of
the people whom it served required a smoke flue. At precisely
what point in history this feature was introduced is
as yet uncertain.

[ILLUSTRATION]

375. PLAN OF ST. GALL. CORNER FIREPLACE

HOUSE FOR DISTINGUISHED GUESTS

Our reconstruction of the corner fireplaces in the bedrooms of the guests is
related to the design of the chimney shown in fig. 373. The hood masonry rests
on a lintel fashioned by contilevered curved stones seated deep in the masonry,
separated on corbels likewise deeply embedded. A voussior as illustrated, or a
joint, may occur at center.

TIME OF INVENTION OR ADOPTION
IS PROBLEMATIC

Moritz Heyne[247] and Joseph Schepers[248] ascribe its invention
to the Romans, but this supposition has recently
been shattered by André Parrot's extraordinary discovery
of two fireplaces from the bathrooms of the Palace of Mari
in Mesopotamia, which date from the beginning of the
second millennium B.C. (fig. 372).[249]

The smoke flues of these fireplaces consist of conical
hoods encasing a vertical stack of tubular flue tiles, with an
opening at the bottom for the fire which burned on a platform
that formed a quarter of a circle. Hence the Romans
cannot claim to be the first inventors of this device. They
may have rediscovered it, but until a chimney-type Roman
corner fireplace has actually been excavated—and so far no
one has had the good fortune to find one—even this assumption
must remain hypothetical. Conversely, it must be
stressed that wall or corner fireplaces with chimneys were
not a feature characteristic of Germanic house construction,
and were not known at all in the northernmost areas
held by Germanic peoples. We know this is so not only
because of hundreds of house sites that have actually been

[ILLUSTRATION]

377. SANNAP, HALLAND, SWEDEN

[after Erixon, 1947, 426, fig. 545]

CORNER FIREPLACE WITH OVEN
SURMOUNTED BY CONICAL
HOOD

excavated, but also because, when chimneys were finally
introduced at the Norwegian court during the reign of Olaf
Kyrre (1067-93), this was an event so unusual that it was
considered worthy of being recorded in Snorri's Lives of the
Kings of Norway: "It was an old custom in Norway that
the King's high seat was in the middle of the long bench.
The ale was borne round the fire. King Olaf was the first
to install corner fireplaces."[250] (Ofnstofur, the Old Norse
term, like the Latin caminus retains etymological consciousness
of the fact that the masonry fireplace is an offspring of
the oven !) Iceland resisted this innovation even longer. The
first masonry-built Icelandic wall fireplace was constructed
in 1316, in the timbered hall of Bishop Laurentius at
Hólar.[251]

EARLIEST VISUAL & LITERARY EVIDENCE
IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE

The Plan of St. Gall, to the best of my knowledge, offers
the earliest visual evidence of the use in Europe of corner
fireplaces with chimneys. Literary evidence, however, of
such heating devices in individual rooms goes back as far
as the sixth century. In 584, in connection with a donation
to the church of St.-Marcellus ad Cabillonum (Châlons-sur-Saône),

[ILLUSTRATION]

378. MUSEÉ CONDÉ, CHANTILLY,
FRANCE

LES TRÈS RICHES HEURES DE JEAN DE
FRANCE DUC DE BERRY.

FEBRUARY: DETAIL.

The miniature depicts rural life during the month of
February, portraying a snow covered landscape with a
farmhouse, a pigeon house and a stack of beehives. Inside
the farmhouse the mistress and two servants warm themselves
before a crackling fire. The hood and mantle of the fire
place are built in masonry. The chimney shaft is braided
in wicker-work, presumably daubed inside to prevent it
from catching fire.

The manuscript, one of the finest of its kind, was illuminated
between 1411 and 1416 by Pol de Limburg, the most
distinguished of a small group of Flemish artists who,
trained in the tradition of French illumination of the
fourteenth century, under the inspiration of contemporary
Italian painting laid the foundations for the realistic style of
the brothers van Eyck.

the Frankish king Gunthram I directed the
construction of a royal guesthouse (hospitole), the description
of which (solarium cum caminata and lobia, galleried
porch) is strikingly reminiscent of both the Abbot's House
on the Plan of St. Gall and the royal residence at Anappes
of the Brevium exempla.[252]

EARLIEST EXTANT MEDIEVAL
CORNER FIREPLACES

The earliest extant Continental chimneys date from the
twelfth century. They form niches in the masonry walls and
are surmounted by conical hoods often braced at the sides
by pillars and brackets. They are usually constructed on a
full circular plan, the heating chamber forming the rearward,
and the hood the forward, segment of the circle. Two
typical examples of this species, dating from the twelfth
and thirteenth centuries, respectively, are found in Le Puyen-Velay
(Haute-Loire), France (fig. 373)[253] and the so-called

[ILLUSTRATION]

379.A SAALBURG, HESSE, GERMANY. FORTIFIED ROMAN FRONTIER CAMP

"PILLARED" HYPOCAUST [after Fusch, 1910, pl. xv]

Although slow in making warmth felt in the rooms served
by the system, the hypocaust had the great advantage,
once the building was warmed by convection and
conduction, of providing through radiation from walls and
floor an even temperature for long periods of time, in
relatively large spaces, using only a small amount of fuel.
Ideally suited for the large warm and hot rooms of
Roman baths, the hypocaust was used in the northern
provinces of Rome almost universally in private homes.

Römerturm in Frankfurt a.M., Germany (fig. 374).[254]
This hooded circular fireplace, in my opinion, is the type
that the draftsman of the Plan had in mind when he used
ovoid symbols for the private heating units of the leading
monastic officials and the monastery's distinguished guests
(fig. 375). In this connection attention must be drawn to
certain oven-shaped corner fireplaces still in use today in
rural buildings of Sweden, two typical examples of which
are given in figure 376 and 377.[255] Both of these are, in fact,
oven and fireplace combined.

I do not doubt that the corner fireplaces of the Plan of
St. Gall were intended to be built in masonry, although
there is evidence for the existence in the Middle Ages of
fireplaces with wooden hoods. A group of wooden chimneys,
mounted on frames of oak and filled with wattle and
daub, was published in Nathaniel Lloyd's History of the
English House.[256] We may assume that fireplaces constructed
entirely of wood or of both wood and stone were equally
common on the Continent, because of their appearance in
late medieval manuscripts and paintings. A typical example
of this mixed technique is the fireplace of the farmer's
house in the charming winter landscape of the February
representation of Jean de France's Très Riches Heures (fig.
378),[257] and an example of a fireplace built entirely of wood
is the one at the rear wall of a wooden cottage in the Livre du
Cuer d'Amours Espris of René, Duke of Anjou.[258] These
medieval wall and corner fireplaces with wooden chimneys
were, in my opinion, not an original conception, but rather
an adaptation to Northern building materials, performed on
a relatively humble social level, of a heating device that
formed no part of the Northern building tradition.

WESTWARD DIFFUSION FROM THE NEAR EAST
BY-PASSING ROME?

Roman custom of heating a house or its individual apartments
by means of hypocausts stands in marked contrast
to the open fire that burned on the floor of the Germanic
house. The Roman heating unit was not only enclosed; it
was concealed. The medieval open chimney combined the
advantages of both; the fire was enclosed, as in the Roman
type, and yet it was visible, as in the Germanic open fireplace.
We do not know exactly when or where this combination

[ILLUSTRATION]

379.B ST.-REMY, BOUCHES-DU-RHÔNE (NEAR ARLES), FRANCE

RUINS OF A "PILLARED" HYPOCAUST IN A HOUSE OF THE ROMAN SETTLEMENT OF GLANUM

These two illustrations show typical use of the Roman
hypocaust system in houses of transalpine Europe. No
Roman villa of any significance in the vast stretches of
land that extended from Provence to the borders of
Scotland lacked such a facility.

first took place. One might be tempted to guess that
it occurred in an area where Roman and Germanic culture
merged. But Parrot's discovery of corner fireplaces with
chimneys in the Mesopotamian Palace of Mari, dating as
early as the beginning of the second millennium B.C., suggests
that we have to contend with a third influence, from
the East. It is possible that the medieval wall or corner
fireplace is a Near Eastern idea, cast into Roman masonry
in Merovingian times, which permitted the installation of
open fires in individual rooms, without endangering the
safety of the building. Perhaps it was the close ties established
between the Near East and the West through the
monastic conquest of Merovingian Europe, in the fifth
century, as well as the ubiquitous presence in the ports and
inland cities of Gaul of Syrian, Egyptian and Jewish tradesmen
that opened up the channels for the westward diffusion
of this heating device which seems to have bypassed
Rome.[259]

[ILLUSTRATION]

380. SILCHESTER, HAMPSHIRE, ENGLAND

Roman hypocaust of the channeled type. The floor of the room is removed to reveal the hypocaust substructure. This system, although not
quite so common, was as widely diffused as the pillared type.

[after Joyce, 1881, pl. vii]

V.7.3

HYPOCAUSTS

TWO TRADITIONAL ROMAN TYPES:
CHANNELED AND PILLARED

Since the history of the Roman hypocaust has been fully
documented elsewhere, we may confine ourselves here to
the most summary review.[260] This heating system, developed
to perfection by the Romans, is found not only in their
baths but also in practically every Roman villa north of the
Alps. The Roman hypocaust was either of the channeled
or the pillared type.[261] In the latter, a good example of which,
from the Roman camp Saalburg, is shown in fig. 379, the
floor of the room to be heated was raised by short columns,
usually two feet high, a shallow chamber thus being formed
below the floor level. The heat, generated in a furnace that
was built against one of the outer walls and serviced from
the outside, was dispersed into this chamber and rose from
there in vertical flues imbedded in the walls. In the other
type, hot air was taken from the furnace through a trench
beneath the floor to the center of the room and then diverted
radially to the four corners into a channel running all the
way around the room, at the bottom of the walls, from which
point it rose into the wall flues, as in the hypocaust from a
building in block II of the Romano-British city of Silchester
(fig. 380).[262]

THE CHANNELED HYPOCAUST OF THE
MONKS' DORMITORY

On the Plan of St. Gall only those parts of the hypocaust
are shown which lie outside the warming rooms, namely
the furnaces and the chimneys (fig. 381). We are told
nothing about the layout of the ducts and flues that distributed
the heat in the rooms themselves. To do this in the
calefactory of the monks would have been impossible, as it
would have obscured the layout of the beds in the Monk's
Dormitory, which the drafter of the Plan considered to be
of greater importance. But in the warming rooms of the
Novitiate and the Infirmary, with no story above, he could
have gone into detail. Since he chose not to do this, it then
becomes clear that in his day the construction of a hypocaust

[ILLUSTRATION]

381.A PLAN OF ST. GALL. FIRING CHAMBER & SMOKE STACK OF HYPOCAUST

MONKS' WARMING ROOM

see INDEX TO BUILDING NUMBERS OF THE PLAN VOL. I page xxv, VOL. III page 14

The hypocaust services a two-storied
structure, 40 feet wide and 85 feet long,
which contains on the ground floor the
Monks' Warming Room and on the upper
level the Dormitory. Of the heating system
itself only the firing chamber and the smoke
stack are shown. Their existence at two
opposite ends of the building postulates the
presence of a system of connecting ducts in
the subfloor which provides for draft to
distribute the heat and allows the smoke to
escape through a smoke stack placed at a
safe distance from the main structure.

was a matter of common knowledge, one that required
no further instruction.

The furnaces are designated by the words fornax
(cloister walk in front of the Monks' Calefactory), caminus
ad calefaciendū (firing chamber of Monks' Calefactory),
and camin' (Novitiate); the smoke flues, by euaporatio fumi
(Monks' Calefactory) and exitus fumi (Novitiate). There
is no reason to assume that the furnaces were meant to lie
directly beneath the floor of the rooms they heated.
Nowhere else on the Plan has the architect designated
anything at the side of a building which was meant

[ILLUSTRATION]

382.A PLAN OF ST. GALL: BAKING OVENS

MONKS' BAKE AND BREWHOUSE

The daily need for bread of the monastery's planned permanent inhabitants was 250 to 270 one-pound loaves. The oven in the Monks' Bakery
with a diameter of 10 feet, could produce 300 to 350 loaves in one cycle of firing and baking (see p. 259 n. 26 for more detail).

to be beneath it. External firing chambers, moreover, were
traditional. Nor can there be any doubt about the location
of the smoke flues. They are meant to be where they are
shown: at a considerable distance from the outer walls of
the buildings they served, in order to keep the smoke away
from the windows of the dormitories and to reduce the
danger of their roofs being ignited by glowing cinders.

The hypocaust is superior as a heating system to the
hearth or the corner fireplace when large rooms and many
people are involved, since it is capable of distributing the
heat evenly throughout the width and length of the building.
On the Plan of St. Gall this heating system was provided
for the rooms that served as general work and reading
areas for the monks, the novices, and the sick.[263]

Since in the Carolingian cloister, the dormitory was
usually above a room warmed in this manner, the heat
could be transmitted to it through openings in the ceiling
or through wall flues.

[ILLUSTRATION]

382.B BAKE AND BREWHOUSE FOR DISTINGUISHED GUESTS

see INDEX OF BUILDING NUMBERS OF THE PLAN VOL. I, page xxiv; VOL. III, p. 14

The oven of the House for Distinguished Guests, with a diameter of
7½ feet, could have produced easily in one cycle of firing and baking
200 to 250 one-pound loaves. The oven could therefore have
accommodated the needs of the emperor and his complete entourage
who might from time to time be expected to visit the monastery.

As I do not know of any evidence for the existence in
the Middle Ages of pillared hypocausts, I am inclined to
assume that the hypocausts of the Plan of St. Gall belonged
to the channeled type. The Carolingian hypocaust of the
monastery of Reichenau, at any rate, belonged to this type,
and this holds true also of the tenth-century hypocaust
unearthed by Seebach at Pfalz Werla (fig. 209A-C).[264]

V.7.4

WINDOWS

There is only one place on the Plan of St. Gall where
windows are actually shown in the drawing: in the walls of
the Scriptorium (fig. 99) where they are functionally of
vital importance. The symbol used there, two short parallel
strokes intersecting the wall at right angles, is identical
with the one which the draftsman used to designate the

[ILLUSTRATION]

382.C BAKE AND BREWHOUSE FOR PILGRIMS AND PAUPERS

The number of visitors expected to lodge each night in the Hospice
for Pilgrims and Paupers may not have exceeded twelve (see below,
p. 144). But if customs prevailing at the monastery of Corbie
reflected general conditions, these transient guests were issued bread
rations considerably larger than were allotted to the monastery's
regular inhabitants: 3½ pounds per person upon arrival, and half
that amount on departure. For a complement of twelve guests this
distribution would amount to 63 pounds of bread each day. During
the great religious festivals these amounts rose steeply as the number
of travellers increased; even under ordinary conditions it would have
been necessary to add to the needs of the overnight guests those of
the transients who might stop for a noon meal and then move on.
This explanation would account for the large size of the Hospice
oven, its 7½-foot diameter being identical to the oven of the House
for Distinguished Guests.

presence of doors, except that in the case of the Scriptorium
the line that defines the course of the walls is not interrupted
by these strokes as it is in the majority of the entrances,
doors, and exits. In other buildings, such as the Church,
the Abbot's House, or the large complex that contains the
Novitiate and the Infirmary and their chapels, windows
were so clearly an integral part of the building type that the
draftsman felt it unnecessary to go into any detail in this
matter.

In the case of the guest and service buildings, however,
conditions were different. Traditionally, this type of house
was not provided with windows. Lighting, ventilation, and

[ILLUSTRATION]

LANGENBECK, HARBURG, GERMANY

384.A

384.B

LANGOBARDIC BAKING OVEN

[after Adrian, 1951, 69, fig. 2]

This later oven, retaining the daubed wattle shell of its ancestor (fig. 383),
reveals a sophisticated awareness of heating insulation, with its boulder-lined
fire and baking chamber sunk below the surface of the ground.

[ILLUSTRATION]

385. ROME

MONUMENT OF THE BAKER EURYSACES. DETAIL. FIRST
CENTURY B.C.

[after Singer et. al, II, 1956, 118, fig. 88]

The frieze appears on the funerary monument of a wealthy plebeian master
baker who prospered during the final years of the Republic. The oven appears
in a form it has retained into modern times.

[ILLUSTRATION]

MESOPOTAMIA, PALACE OF MARI. BAKING OVEN

386.A

386.B

BEGINNING OF 2ND MILLENNIUM B.C.

smoke control, as we have seen, were regulated by an opening
in the roof. This does not categorically preclude the use
of wall windows. As the need for higher degrees of privacy
led to the installation of corner fireplaces as secondary
sources for heat in rooms that were segregated from the
common hall by internal walls and ceilings, so the separation
of these rooms from the central source of light made necessary
the installation of supplementary devices for the
admission of light and air. This could take the form either
of wall windows or of dormer windows.

In the guest and service buildings of the Plan of St. Gall,
accordingly, we may have to take into account the entire
range of possibilities, from complete absence of windows
on the lower levels of dwellings (the houses of the serfs and
the houses of the animals and their keepers) to the presence
of some windows in the rooms of the higher-ranking monastic
officials (such as the Gardener, the Physician, the Porter,

and the Master of the Outer School), and more elaborate
fenestration on the highest level of dwelling (such as the
House for Distinguished Guests; or in the Outer School,
where supplementary light inlets were a functional necessity).
The small squares in the cubicles for the students of
the Outer School, as we shall subsequently show, must
probably be interpreted as symbols for dormer windows.

V.7.5

BAKING OVENS

On the Plan of St. Gall there are three baking ovens (fig.
382A-C): one in the Monks' Bake and Brew House
(caminus); one in the Bake and Brew House for Distinguished
Guests (fornax); and one in the Bake and Brew
House for Pilgrims and Paupers (fornax). They have diameters,
respectively, of 10 feet, 7½ feet, and 7½ feet.

[ILLUSTRATION]

387. KARKÓW, POLAND. BEHAIM CODEX (1505). BAKEHOUSE WITH OVEN, KETTLE, AND KNEADING TABLES

JAGIELLONIAN UNIVERSITY LIBRARY, CODEX PICTURATUS, fol. 246. [after Winkler, 1941, Pl. 4]

The Behaim Codex is a compilation of privileges, oath formulae, and guild ordinances written in German. It is named from an annotation on
the title page by the clerk and notary of Kraków, Balthasar Behaim (d. 1508), which reads: Anno domini 1505 consummatum. Written
and illuminated in strong and radiant colors by a local artist, doubtlessly of German descent, the manuscript has stylistic roots in a school of
illumination that flourished in Augsburg and Nürnburg, and was strongly influenced by the work of Albrecht Dürer. The representation of the
bakehouse appears on folio 246. Its title is written in bold red letters. (Winklers' color plate suggests that the roof may have been sheeted in
copper.)

[ILLUSTRATION]

388. TÜBINGEN, WURTTEMBURG, GERMANY. UNIVERSITY LIBRARY, CODEX M. D. 2, fol. 29V

This detail shows the planet-children of Saturn in furious, cheerful dispatch of the tasks of baking: milling, kneading dough and setting loaves
to rise, loading the familiar domed oven. Pastries may have been the fate of the caged birds. (Panofsky and Saxl treat the complex iconography
of this illumination in Dürer's "Melencolia I", Leipzig, 1923, 61 [Studien der Bibliothek Warburg]. The codex dates to the late 15th century.

The baking of bread is one of the most ancient of human
arts. Calcined remains of unleavened bread made from
crushed grain were found in Swiss lake dwellings that date
from the early Stone Age.[265] Reference by implication to the
custom of leavening (i.e., admixing to the dough a substance
that produces gases, thus causing the bread to rise)
is made in Genesis, where it is said of Lot that "he made
them a feast, and did bake unleavened bread."[266] One very
early baking method, perhaps the first devised, was that of
placing the dough on a heated flat or convex stone and
covering it with hot ashes.[267] The size and number of loaves
that could be baked in this manner was limited by the shape
of the stone. To bake in quantity required the invention of
the oven, a round or ovoid chamber that held the heat and
allowed it to be distributed over a wider surface. One of the
earliest Central European ovens was excavated in the Stone
Age settlement of Taubried, on Lake Federsee, Germany
(fig. 383).[268] The walls of the baking chamber were made of
daubed wattle. The opening in front was covered with a
removable shutter, probably of wood and cloth.

Between the third millennium B.C. and the middle of the
nineteenth century A.D., neither the shape of the oven nor
the method of baking changed significantly. A circular oven
of baked brick, dating from the beginning of the second
millennium B.C., was found by André Parrot[269] during his
excavation of the Palace of Mari, Mesopotamia, (fig. 386)
in a bathroom of the quarters of the superintendent of
the palace (cf. fig. 372). A Roman oven shaped exactly like
this one is shown on a frieze of the monument of the baker
Eurysaces at Rome, dating from the first century B.C. (fig.
385).[270] On the left, the baker is placing the loaves in the
oven. On the right, four men are kneading dough on a table.

[ILLUSTRATION]

389. A, B, C, D PLAN OF ST. GALL. KITCHEN STOVES AND BREWING RANGES

In each building the stove is indicated as a square, with or without openings for pots; in all probability the "fornax super arcus" of the Monks'
Kitchen was the type in the other kitchens. The brewing ranges show corner openings for vats. The association of baking and brewing facilities
under one roof is traditional and consistent on the Plan; functional interdependence of the two crafts can be shown (see below, pp. 249ff).

Primitive clay ovens of the Taubried type (fig. 383) are
still in use today[271] and were unquestionably common in
medieval times. Figure 384 shows the reconstruction of a
Langobardic oven of this type from the first century A.D.[272]
A handsome illustration in the Behaim Codex in Krakow
(fig. 387)[273] shows the baker placing the loaves in the oven,
his helper shaping them, and a woman throwing some salt
or herbs into the dough rising in a kettle on the floor in
front of the oven. The oven is built into the corner of this
copper-roofed shed. The smoke rises from a round hole in
the top of the oven and passes through a dormer window
in the roof out into the open. Figure 388 shows a baking
scene that occurs among the representations of the planet
children of Saturn in a manuscript in the University Library
at Tübingen.[274] Here again the smoke escapes through circular
openings in the top of the baking chamber. Ovens of
this same design are found in other medieval illuminations.[275]

[ILLUSTRATION]

389. E, F, G PLAN OF ST. GALL. KITCHEN STOVES AND BREWING RANGES

But an oven with a chimney is shown in the December
representation of the Grimani Breviary.[276]

In conformity with the pictorial tradition reviewed above,
we have reconstructed the St. Gall ovens as more or less
circular chambers, the larger one with a smoke flue, the two
smaller ones without (cf. figs. 402 and 394).

V.7.6

KITCHEN STOVES AND KETTLES

Square cooking ranges, resting on arches, with firing chambers
beneath and openings for pots on the surface are
designated for the kitchens on the Plan. Only one of them,
the stove in the Monks' Kitchen, has an explanatory title
(fornax super arcus) (fig. 389A). It is 7½ feet square. The
other kitchen stoves—House for Distinguished Guests
(fig. 389B), Hospice for Pilgrims and Paupers (fig. 389C),
Novitiate and Infirmary (figs. 389D,E)—are about 5 feet
square. We may assume, I think, that their design was the
same as that of the stove in the Monks' Kitchen discussed
earlier.[277] This type of stove was also used in the brew-house
(fig. 389F,G).

It is possible that a cooking area for the serfs and laymen
is to be found in the living room of the House for Horses
and Oxen and Their Keepers, and that the H-shaped
symbol was intended to mean an open fireplace with kettles
suspended on cranes.

The circles around the larger stoves (fig. 389A,F,G) were
undoubtedly meant to indicate tubs or kettles, and these
may have belonged to any of the varieties shown in figures
210, 390, and 400.

V. 8

FACILITIES FOR THE RECEPTION
OF VISITORS

V.8.1

THE MULTIFARIOUS ACCOMMODATIONS

The reception and care of guests, wealthy and poor, was
one of the primary duties of a monastic community. About
the proper performance of this service St. Benedict spoke
in emphatic terms: "Let all guests that come be received
like Christ, for he will say I was a stranger and ye took me
in."[278] He asks that "fitting honors be shown to all," but
especially to churchmen and pilgrims[279] and demands that
special care be given to the reception of the poor "because
in them is Christ more truly welcomed; for the fear which
the rich inspire is enough in itself to secure them honor."[280]
He rules that the guests be served from a separate kitchen,
"so that the brethren may not be disturbed when guests
arrive at irregular hours,"[281] and he places the responsibility
for the reception of the visitors in the hands of the Porter.[282]

[ILLUSTRATION]

390. LUTTRELL PSALTER

LONDON, BRITISH MUSEUM. ADD. MS. 42130, fol. 207

[after Millar, 1932, pl. 166]

The open kettles in this margin illumination appear to be supported on stands,
with open fires below them. The arcuated ranges of the Plan were considerably
more sophisticated; the Luttrell Psalter illuminations date to 1340.

The protection of paupers and pilgrims was also a concern
of the secular ruler—a responsibility that the emperor
had taken upon himself through his coronation in Rome,
as the holder of a universal power that obliged him to
protect and promote the Christian faith. It is defined as
such in a capitulary issued by Charlemagne in 802: "That
no one shall presume to rob or do any injury fraudulently
to the churches of God or widows or orphans or pilgrims;
for the lord emperor himself, after God and His saints, has
constituted himself their protector and defender."[283]

On the Plan of St. Gall there are no fewer than seven
separate installations devoted to monastic hospitality and
its administration. Listed in the order of prominence with
which they were associated in the thinking of St. Benedict
they are:

• 1 The Lodging for Visiting Monks

• 2 The Hospice for Pilgrims and Paupers, with an annex
  containing the Kitchen, the Bake and Brew House for the
  Pilgrims and Paupers

• 3 The Lodging of the Master of the Hospice for Pilgrims
  and Paupers

• 4 The Porter's Lodging

• 5 The House for Distinguished Guests, with annex
  containing the Kitchen, Bake and Brew House for the Distinguished
  Guests

• 6 The House for Servants of Outlying Estates and for
  Servants Traveling with the Emperor's Court

• 7 The House for the Vassals and Knights who travel in
  the Emperor's Following

[ILLUSTRATION]

391. PLAN OF ST. GALL

LODGING FOR VISITING MONKS

Like the Monks' Dormitory lying on the opposite side of the Church (I, 260, fig. 208), the quarters for visiting monks communicate directly with
the transept and are accessible only from within the Church. The six beds in the lodging accord in number with the seats available in the
Refectory (I, 263, fig. 211) at a table in front of the reader's lectern reserved for visitors. The visiting monks have available for recreation an
outdoor space, probably gardened, 7½ feet wide and 80 feet long, which serves as a buffer between their quarters and the adjacent enclosure of the
Outer School (fig. 409, p. 174).

In order to attend religious services, students and teachers in the Outer School would have crossed this outdoor area for visiting monks, thence
passing through the eastern end of their living room. Like the nearby quarters of the Master of the Outer School and the Porter, the Lodging of
Visiting Monks must have been at ground-floor level, doubtless a lean-to the roof of which could not have risen above the sills of the north aisle
windows of the Church (I, 165-66, figs 111-112). The visitors' living room and dormitory were equipped with corner fireplaces.

Also intrinsically geared to the reception of visitors is the
atrium in front of the western end of the Church, and in a
very specific sense: the three porches attached to it in the
west, the south, and the north are where the guests are
formally received, screened, and distributed to their
respective quarters.

V.8.2

LODGING FOR VISITING MONKS

The synod of 817 prescribed that each monastery should be
provided with special quarters for the reception of the
visiting monks: "Ut dormitorium iuxta oratorium constituatur
ubi superuenientes monachi dormiant."[284] Hildemar, in
his commentary on the Rule of St. Benedict (written between
845 and 850 at the monastery of Civate in Italy),
furnishes us with some further detail on this subject.[285] The
brothers, he tells us, should never be quartered with any
laymen (not even with the vassalli by whom they may be
accompanied) as the latter often stay awake until midnight,
passing their time in idle talking and jesting, while the
monks should spend it in silence and prayer.[286] For this
reason their Dormitory should be next to the church, so
that they can enter the sanctuary at any time of the day and
night.[287]

In compliance with these stipulations a Lodging for
Visiting Monks is established on the Plan of St. Gall, in the
corner between the northern transept arm and the northern
aisle of the Church (fig. 391). It consists of a long and narrow
apartment, 10 feet wide and 50 feet long, which is internally
divided into a living room (susceptio fr̄m̄ supuenientium) and
a dormitory (dormitoriū eorum), both of equal dimensions. The
living room is furnished with two wall benches and from
it direct access is gained to the Church through a door
which leads into the northern transept arm. The dormitory
has a privy attached to it (necessarium); and the number of
beds that it contains suggests that the maximum number of
daily visitors who could be expected from other convents
was six.

[ILLUSTRATION]

PLAN OF ST. GALL

392.

391.X

HOSPICE FOR PILGRIMS AND PAUPERS

Installation of auxiliary services in annexes to
the main houses characterizes all facilities of
the Plan of St. Gall associated with potential
fire hazards: the tasks of baking, brewing,
cooking, blacksmithing, and goldsmithing (figs
292, 396, 419-421, and 462, below).

The narrow shape of the Lodging for Visiting Monks—
like that of the Lodging of the Master of the Outer School,
which lies next to it, and that of the Porter's Lodging which
follows—suggests that all of these apartments are installed
in a narrow lean-to, built against the northern aisle of the
Church (figs. 108, 112 and 191).

The visiting monks take their meal in the Refectory for
the regular monks, where a table for guests is set aside for
that special purpose.[288] If one among the visiting brothers
decides to stay longer, or is a familiaris, Hildemar tell us,
he will join into the life of the regular monks, sleep and eat
with them, read in the claustrum, and attend the chapter
meetings in the morning and evening.[289] The Lodging for
Visiting Monks may also on occasion have been used by
one or the other of the regular monks when, after a long
absence, he returned from a journey or from some other
task that took him away from the mother house.[290]

[ILLUSTRATION]

PLAN OF ST. GALL. HOSPICE FOR PILGRIMS AND PAUPERS

393.B LONGITUDINAL SECTION

The presumption in these reconstructions is
that the roof was supported by a frame of
freestanding inner posts connected lengthwise
by roof plates and crosswise by tie beams
(cf. fig. 393.D). The rafters rise in two tiers,
the lower from wall plates to roof plate, the
upper, at a slightly steeper angle, from the
roof plates to the ridge.

393.A PLAN

For historical justification of the
reconstructions shown in this series of
illustrations we refer to pages 72-82 above,
where it has been shown that the guest and
service buildings of the Plan of St. Gall
belong to a vernacular building tradition
traceable in the Germanic territories of the
Lowlands to the 14th century B.C. The
traditional material for this building type
was timber.

All the guest and service buildings of the Plan
were freestanding; in reconstructing
their plans and elevations, we have used the
simple lines of the Plan as indicating their
interior dimensions. The elevations shown
here are purely conjectural but based on the
assumption of comfortable minimum heights
required by the functions of each component
of the building. Carpentry details derive
from later medieval buildings (see above,
pages 88ff).

AUTHORS' INTERPRETATION

[ILLUSTRATION]

PLAN OF ST. GALL. HOSPICE FOR PILGRIMS AND PAUPERS

393.C EAST ELEVATION

The roof lines might have been straight. We
have chosen to show them broken, because
they thus reflect more clearly in the exterior
appearance of the building the composition
and boundary lines of its inner spaces. To
hip the roof over the narrow ends of the
building is a sound constructional assumption,
since it steadies the roof in the longitudinal
orientation and is a feature archaeologically
well attested as early as the Iron Age.

393.D TRANSVERSE SECTION

393.E NORTH ELEVATION

AUTHORS' INTERPRETATION

[ILLUSTRATION]

PLAN OF ST. GALL. LODGING OF THE MASTER OF THE HOSPICE FOR PILGRIMS & PAUPERS

394.A

394.B

The nature of his duties required that the caretaker of the poor have his own lodging, a
simple rectangular room with corner fireplace installed as a lean-to abutting the south aisle
of the church and about 15 feet from the Hospice for Pilgrims and Paupers. The porch
through which pilgrims and paupers entered was an access to be shared by them with the
monastery's workmen and tradesmen, and by other lay visitors such as relatives of the
brothers, who might enter through that porch and then converse with their kin in the Monks'
Parlor next to and east of the Hospice. No outsider went beyond this Parlor without
escort.

The Master of the Hospice was assisted by servants lodged in the eastern aisle of the
Hospice for Pilgrims and Paupers. The suggested circulation patterns show with what
relative ease the congress of the monastery with the world might be controlled. Confined on
the east by the Cellar wall and on the south by a (presumptive) fence, travelers could
enter the areas around the Hospice, dine in the house provided for their needs, rest,
exchange news and gossip of the day, and move on, all without disturbing the more orderly
life going forward in the calm heart of the monastery.

*

1. Church- Ig. Porch of Reception- WP western paradise- I1. Tower of St. Gabriel- Ih.
Porch to Hospice- Ii. Lodging, Master of Hospice for Pilgrims & Paupers- 31. Hospice
for Pilgrims & Paupers- 32. Kitchen, Bake & Brewhouse for Pilgrims & Paupers.

V.8.3

HOSPICE FOR PILGRIMS AND PAUPERS

THE MAIN HOUSE

The Hospice for Pilgrims and Paupers (fig. 392) lies to
the south of the Church and west of the cloister in a yard
that is bounded to the east by the Monks' Cellar and Larder,
to the south and west by fences that separate the pilgrims
and paupers from the houses for the livestock and their
keepers, and to the north by the semicircular atrium of the
Church. Access to this yard is gained by a porch built
against the southern wall of the atrium, which also serves
as entrance for the monastery's servants. The house is
identified by the hexameter, "Here let the throng of pilgrims
find friendly reception" (hic peregrinorum la&etur
turba recepta).

The Hospice is composed of a main house for the reception
of the pilgrims and paupers, and an annex containing
kitchen, bakery, and brewing facilities. The main house
measures 50 by 60 feet. It has in its center a large rectangular
room that is designated as "living room" or "hall for
the pilgrims and paupers" (domus peregrinorum et pauperėm).
This space must also have served as dining room, as may
be gathered from the benches that run all around its circumference.
The draftsman did not enter the tables, but
the meaning of this seating arrangement is clear from the
corresponding space in the House for Distinguished Guests.
The house receives its warmth from a large central fireplace,
and the smoke escapes through a louver (testu) in the roof
above it.[291] Two rooms on the front side of the house are
used as quarters for the servants (seruientium mansiones),
two corresponding rooms at the rear as "supply room"
(camera) and "cellar" (cellarium). The spaces under the
lean-to's on the narrow sides of the house serve as dormitories
for the pilgrims and paupers (dormitorium and
aliud). The Statutes of Adalhard, written at about the same
time (822) that the Plan of St. Gall was drawn, make it
clear that the normal number of pilgrims expected to spend
the night in the monastery of Corbie was twelve[292] —this
corresponds quite closely to the number of pilgrims who
could be housed in the rooms which in the Plan of St. Gall
are designated as dormitories for pilgrims. They are capable
of accommodating eight beds each, ranging in a single row
all around the walls of the room. But, in an emergency, of
course, the bedding capacity of the Hospice for the paupers
could be increased by a wide margin, if the benches in the
hall were used as additional facilities for sleeping.

The Hospice for Pilgrims and Paupers is wanting of that
other convenience so profusely attached to the houses that
shelter the upper social strata of the monastic community:
the privy. I have already had occasion to remark that I do
not think that this is an oversight.[293]

[ILLUSTRATION]

PLAN OF ST. GALL. LODGING OF THE PORTER

395.A

395.B

The Porter's Lodging, with its corner fireplace, private privy, quarters for as many as five
assistants, and garden, reflects the importance of this official in monastic life; his quarters
were nearly twice the size of those of the Master of the Hospice for Pilgrims and Paupers, his
subordinate. St. Benedict stipulated that the Porter be selected with special care, for he was
charged with the reception of all guests and the distribution of food and services to fill all
their needs. His role was diplomat and administrator.

In particular his duties were to identify and greet distinguished guests of the monastery and
their retinues, and then see to their escort through the north reception porch into the grounds
and quarters provided for them in the House for Distinguished Guests and its Annex.
Guests of high social standing might have business with the internal life of the monastery,
but their reception area, though larger and better appointed than that for pilgrims and
paupers, was likewise closed off from any direct access to the inner monastery grounds;
similarly, unnecessary contact of such guests with the less exalted class of traveler lodged
upon the south was by these arrangements largely precluded.

*

1. Church- Ie. Lodging of the Porter- If. Porch of the Porter- Ig. Porch of Reception-Ik.
Tower of St Michael- 10. Kitchen, Bake & Brewhouse for Distinguished Guests- K.
Kitchen- L. Larder- B. Bakery- BH Brewery- 11. House for Distinguished Guests- DH
Dining Hall.

We have reconstructed the Hospice for Pilgrims and
Paupers as a large rectangular hall with central hearth and
louver in the roof above it, the hall being surrounded on
all four sides by aisles or lean-to's (fig. 393A-E). In view
of the constructional characteristics of the genus of houses
to which the guest and service buildings of the Plan of St.
Gall historically belong, it is reasonable to assume that the
roof of this, as well as of all other related houses of the Plan,
is carried by a frame of timber, consisting of two rows of
posts connected crosswise by tie beams and lengthwise by
post plates. The natural and historical place for alignment
for these two rows of posts are the lines that define the
boundaries between the aisles and the central hall of the
house. Since the Plan does not designate the location of the
structural members in this type of house, but confines
itself merely to delineating the boundaries of its component
spaces, we know nothing about the respective distances of
the roof-supporting posts. Ours are purely conjectural.
There is a variety of other possibilities.

As there is only one source of heat for both the hall and
the peripheral spaces, the latter can only have been partially
boarded off against the center hall. The separating wall
paneling may not have risen much higher than the backrest
of the benches that surround the hall. We have reconstructed
the roof as a simple rafter roof (of the type exemplified
by St. Mary's Hospital in Chichester, figs. 341-343), but
the roof might have belonged as well to the family of purlin
roofs.

We are well informed about the function and management
of the Hospice for Paupers through the Administrative
Directives of Adalhard of Corbie.[294] The management
of the Hospice for Paupers, we learn from this account, was
in the hands of the Hosteler (hostellarius) who was subject
to the directives of the Porter (portarius). On the Plan of
St. Gall the Hosteler is accommodated in a special apartment
which abuts the southern aisle of the church immediately
to the side of the Hospice for Paupers. The rooms
that are designated camera and cellarium in the Hospice for
Paupers are the Hosteler's food and supply rooms.

Adalhard orders that each pilgrim was to receive, each
day, a loaf of bread, weighing 3½ pounds and made of a
mixture of wheat and rye, and that on his departure he was
to be issued half a loaf of the same kind for his journey.

[ILLUSTRATION]

396. PLAN OF ST. GALL

HOUSE FOR DISTINGUISHED GUESTS, WITH ANNEX CONTAINING KITCHEN, BAKE & BREWING FACILITIES

The layout of this structure is in its basic dispositions the same as the Hospice for Pilgrims and Paupers. It also consists of a main house with
an annex to accommodate services involving fire hazards. Likewise the main house here consists of a central hall for dining and a subsidiary
suite of outer rooms used for sleeping, the accommodation of servants, and when appropriate, even horses. But the layout of the House for
Distinguished Guests is more explicit than its humbler counterpart. Here with great precision is portrayed placement of tables and benches in
the center hall, as well as the furnishings in bedrooms of the Distinguished Guests. These rooms are provided with corner fireplaces, making
their comfort independent of the open fireplace in the middle of the center hall, and thus affording their occupants the luxury of privacy. The
presence of these corner fireplaces induced us to assume that the outer walls of this house were intended to be of masonry.

The use of masonry and timber in a royal Carolingian hall is well attested through an important literary source, the Brevium Exempla
(p. 36ff, above), where the DOMUS REGALIS of an unnamed estate near Annapes is described as being constructed in timber "in the usual
fashion." This remark reveals that wood was the more common and traditional material for this house type. Hipped roofs are attested for the
windswept continental coastlands of the North Sea from the 7th century B.C. onward (figs. 295-297 and 314, above) and became a permanent
trait of rural architecture north of the Alps (figs. 335-336, above).

Windows are not part of the customary design of this house type. They became an indispensable adjunct when its outer rooms were partitioned,
separating them from the only other traditional light source: the lantern-covered opening in the roof ridge. Such was the case with the bedrooms
of the distinguished guests under the lean-to's of the two end bays of the house, and perhaps even with the servants quarters to the left and
right of the door, in the middle of the southern long wall. This door is the only means of access to the house, and through it both men and
animals were intended to pass. It leads to a vestibule which gives lateral access to the servants' quarters, and axially, to the large living and
dining hall that forms the center of the house, and from which all other rooms, including the servants' privy, are reached.

[ILLUSTRATION]

PLAN OF ST. GALL

397.B LONGITUDINAL SECTION

397.A PLAN

HOUSE FOR DISTINGUISHED GUESTS. AUTHORS' INTERPRETATION

[ILLUSTRATION]

PLAN OF ST. GALL

397.C SOUTH ELEVATION

397.D NORTH ELEVATION

HOUSE FOR DISTINGUISHED GUESTS. AUTHORS' INTERPRETATION

[ILLUSTRATION]

397.E TRANSVERSE SECTION

397.F EAST ELEVATION

[ILLUSTRATION]

398. PLAN OF ST. GALL. HOUSE FOR DISTINGUISHED GUESTS

AUTHORS' RECONSTRUCTION

This perspective shows the large center nave of the house, the communal living and dining area, and bedrooms of servants to the left, with
stables to the right. Tables and benches ranged around the walls of the center space presumably could be rearranged to meet particular needs of a
group of guests, or moved back altogether when not in use.

In each building of the Plan housing both animals and men, the layout is similar: servants' quarters flank (or guard) the entrance while
animals pass through the common room to the rear. This disposition may reflect a defensive posture of ancient antecedents. In the House for
Distinguished Guests it had the further convenience of proximity to the privy where, as an amenity afforded guests of high rank, refuse and
manure from the stables might be readily disposed of.

Carpentry details shown here derive from later medieval examples (cf. page 115ff, above); but the concept of a timber-framed roof dividing
the house into nave, aisles, and bays, is clearly in the historical tradition of the Germanic all-purpose house to which the preceding chapters
have been devoted.

This exterior view shows, in the left foreground of the main house, the privy for servants and guards. In the right background lies the annex
containing kitchen, baking, and brewing facilities. Bedrooms for distinguished guests, with individual corner fireplaces and private toilets, are
under the hips of the roof on the two narrow sides of the house. Stables are in the northern aisle parallel to the servants' privy. Bedrooms of
the latter are on the entrance side (not visible here).

[ILLUSTRATION]

399. ST. GALL
HOUSE FOR DISTINGUISHED GUESTS; ALSO ITS KITCHEN, BAKE, AND BREW HOUSE

Paupers arriving and leaving on the same day were to be
issued a quarter loaf of bread per head.

The daily ration in the Hospice also included two tankards
of beer, but whether or not any wine could be served
was left to the judgment of the prior. Special consideration
was to be given to the sick pilgrims, and to those who came
from distant lands, for whom the Hosteller could draw
additional rations "so that he should not incur any shortages
in his normal allotments." Provisions not spent on the
days when the number of visitors fell below the expected
norm were to be saved and used as a surplus to be drawn
against on days when the norm was exceeded.

Adalhard specifies the source and volume of beans, lard,
and cheese, as well as the amount of eel and meat, and all
of the other indispensible items, not omitting the "old
clothes and shoes of the monks, which the Hosteler receives
from the Chamberlain for distribution to the paupers
as is customary." He lists the amount of money that should
be distributed among the poor, pointing out that no rigidly
binding rules could be established in this delicate matter
where varying needs require varying action, and he terminates
this chapter of his statute with the wistful admonition:
"We therefore beseech all those upon whom this office will
be bestowed in our monastery that, in their generosity and
distribution, they bow to the will of God rather than to their
own parsimoniousness, since everyone is to be rewarded
according to the pattern he has set for himself."[295]

THE KITCHEN, BAKE AND BREW HOUSE FOR
PILGRIMS AND PAUPERS

The Kitchen, Bake and Brew House for Pilgrims and
Paupers lies ten feet west of the Hospice, and covers a
surface area of 22½ feet by 60 feet. Its layout repeats on a

[ILLUSTRATION]

400. PLAN OF ST. GALL

KITCHEN, BAKE AND BREWHOUSE FOR DISTINGUISHED GUESTS. AUTHORS' RECONSTRUCTION OF
ROOF FRAMING, WITH SOME TIMBERS REMOVED

A widened aisle forms an extended lean-to accommodating kitchen and larder on either side of the entrance. The wall plate for the main space
of the house provides footing for rafters over this enlarged lean-to. In the nave space are the oven, kneading troughs, and tables for shaping
loaves. At right are the brewing range and four tubs or cauldrons for steeping brew. The narrow aisle beyond and to the rear (its interior not
visible here) is of conventional width in relation to the main space, and houses at one end containers for cooling beer and at the other, troughs
for leavening dough.

smaller scale that of the Bake and Brew House of the
Monks, which shall be discussed later on. But it combines
with the facilities for brewing (bracitoriū) and baking
(pistrinū) a stove for cooking. This is the meaning that must
be attributed to the square in the bakery immediately in
front of the baking oven (fornax), which is internally divided
into four more squares by two lines crossing each other at
right angles. The same symbol is used for the stove in the
Kitchen for the Distinguished Guests.[296] There, in the
center, of a room, explicitly defined as "kitchen" (culina),
its meaning is unequivocal. The facilities for cooling the
beer (ad refrigerandū ceruisā) and for leavening the bread
(locus conspergendi) are installed in the aisle that runs along
the western side of the house. The equipment is identical
with that of the Bake and Brew House of the Monks, and
the design and construction of the house must also have
been very similar.

V.8.4

LODGING OF THE MASTER OF THE
HOSPICE FOR PILGRIMS AND PAUPERS

The management of the Hospice for Pilgrims and Paupers
was the responsibility of a monastic official to whom the
Plan of St. Gall refers as "the caretaker of the poor" (procurator
pauperum).[297] His lodging (pausatio procuratoris
pauperum) lies immediately to the north of the Hospice for
Pilgrims and Paupers, between the south porch of the
atrium and the Monks' Parlor (fig. 394). It is an oblong
chamber, 10 feet wide and 25 feet long, which is built
against the southern aisle of the Church, doubtless in the
form of a lean-to. It is provided with a corner fireplace and
doors that connect it with both the court and the southern
aisle of the Church. The Master of the Hospice for Pilgrims
and Paupers is a subordinate of the Porter.

V.8.5

LODGING FOR THE PORTER

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. As soon as anyone knocks, or a poor man hails him,
let him answer Deo gratias or Benedic. Then let him attend to them
promptly, with all the gentleness of the fear of God and with fervent
charity. If the porter needs help, let him have one of the younger
brethren.[298]

The Porter was in charge not only of the reception of the
monastery's guests, but also of providing them with food
and bedding. In order to acquit himself of this obligation,
he was assigned one-tenth of the revenues and produce
from the monastery's outlying estates, as well as one-tenth
of the offerings and gifts received at the gate.[299] He was in
charge of the collection and transportation of his supplies.
At Corbie, for these multiple tasks he was provided with a
staff of ten assistants (prouendarii).[300] Originally, according
to Hildemar, the duties of the porter were performed by
the monks who were in charge of the abbot's kitchen.[301] In
Hildemar's own days this was no longer possible because
of the throng of the guests, which required that two brothers
devote themselves exclusively to the task of receiving the
poor and announcing distinguished guests to the abbot or
prior. While one of the porters attended the divine services
or took his meal, the other tended the gate where visitors
might arrive at any time.[302] Monastic protocol required that
upon entry kings, bishops, and abbots were received by
prostration, the queen by a bend of the knee, others by a
nod of the head.[303] After the guests had been received and
greeted, they were led to prayer; then they were given the
kiss of peace, and finally, the abbot presented them with
water for their hands, and both the abbot and the community
washed the feet of the guests.[304]

On the Plan of St. Gall, as St. Benedict had stipulated,
the Porter's dwelling lies near the gate of the abbey, next
to the House for Distinguished Guests, and contiguous to
the Porch through which the distinguished visitors enter
(fig. 395). It consists of a long, narrow apartment that is
built against the northern aisle of the Church, forming a
counterpart to the Lodging of the Master of the House for
Pilgrims and Paupers, but it is twice as large as the latter's
dwelling. Internally, it is subdivided into a living room with
corner fireplace (caminata portarii) and a dormitory (cubilium
eius) with six beds and a projecting privy. One door of
the living room opens directly into the northern aisle of the
Church, the other onto a long, narrow yard that borders on
the yard of the House for Distinguished Guests.

[ILLUSTRATION]

401.A, B, C, D PLAN OF ST. GALL

KITCHEN, BAKE AND BREW HOUSE FOR DISTINGUISHED GUESTS. AUTHORS' INTERPRETATION

The layout of this structure is a striking example of the extraordinary functional flexibility of the building type to which it historically belongs.
The drafters of the Plan found themselves faced with having to enlarge facilities for baking and brewing, installed in the nave of this building,
with a large kitchen and larder. They accomplished this by increasing the width of one of the two aisles of the structure (usually about half that
of the nave) to a ground area equalling the nave, and by accommodating larder and kitchen in this enlarged aisle to either side of an entrance
corridor directly into it. The aisle at the back of the house, used for leavening dough and cooling beer, retained its traditional width.

V.8.6

HOUSE FOR DISTINGUISHED GUESTS

THE KING'S CLAIM ON MONASTIC HOSPITALITY

To the north of the Church in a large enclosure, which
forms the counterpart to the court of the Hospice for
Pilgrims and Paupers, is a house whose elaborate layout
reveals it to be a guesthouse for visitors of unusual stature.
It is here that the traveling emperor or king was received,
his court or his agents (missi), and also, perhaps, the visiting
bishops and abbots.

The king's right to draw on the hospitality of the monasteries
for food and quarters while traveling dates back to
the early days of the introduction of monastic life in transalpine
Europe. But the use that the rulers made of it in the
time of the Carolingians was considerably more burdensome
than it had been under the Merovingians.[305] Ever-changing
political necessities, the protection of the boundaries, the
maintenance of peace in the interior, prevented the emperor
from establishing a permanent residence. "Performing his
high craft by constantly shifting around,"[306] he moved from
one of his royal estates to the other—making full use of the
obligations of the abbots and bishops to provide him with
lodging—according to the circumstances that his itinerary
imposed upon him, or simply in response to the necessity
of finding additional subsistance for himself and his court.
The primary motivations for such visits were not always of
an economic or military nature. Gauert's analysis of
Charlemagne's itinerary has shown that the emperor's general
travel schedule often had embedded in it a special
"Gebetsitinerar," at times involving lengthy detours for
visits to religious places where the emperor went primarily
for the purpose of prayer, to participate in important religious
festivals, or to venerate the local saints.[307] The heaviness
of the economic obligations that a monastery took upon
itself on such occasions depended on the frequency of the
visits, the length of the emperor's stay, and the size of his
retinue. Charlemagne and Louis the Pious availed themselves
of monastic hospitality with discretion; under the
later Carolingian kings the burden became heavier.[308] But
even as early as the second decade of the ninth century the
sum of monastic obligations in hospitality had reached proportions
so heavy as to drive the witty abbot Theodulf,
Bishop of Orléans, to remark desperately that had St.
Benedict known how many would come, "he would have
locked the doors before them."[309]

THEIR MAGNITUDE: A REFLECTION OF THE CLOSE
ALLIANCE OF CHURCH AND STATE

The Plan of St. Gall provides for four separate houses
for the reception of royal visitors: 1, a house for the emperor
and his immediate entourage; 2, an ancillary building
containing the kitchen, bake, and brewing facilities pertaining
to this house; 3, a House for Visiting Servants; and,
if my interpretation is correct, 4, a house for the emperor's
vassals and others of knightly rank traveling in the emperor's
train. Plans, sections, reconstructions, and authors'
interpretations for these facilities are shown in figures
396-406.

The total surface area taken up by these houses and their
surrounding courts amounted to 1,360 square feet, or a
little over one-fifth of the surface area of the entire monastery
complex.

The presence of obligatory royal quarters of such magnitude
within the precincts of the monastery is a reflection of
the close alliance that had been struck in the kingdom of the
Franks between the concepts of regnum and sacerdotium, a
development that started with the sanctioning of the Carolingian
house by Pope Zacharias in 751 and reached its
apex with the coronation of Charlemagne in the year 800.
As the appointed successor of the emperors of Rome,
Charlemagne had taken upon himself not only the duty of
protecting the Church in a physical sense, but also the
obligation of safe-guarding its institutions, regulating the
life and education of the clergy, and even ruling in questions
of liturgy and dogma.[310] It is fully understandable that
within the context of a political philosophy so replete with
religious overtones the emperor's presence in the monastery
was as yet not considered a worldly infraction on
monastic peace and seclusion.

THE MAIN HOUSE

Layout and function

The general purpose of the House for Distinguished
Guests is defined by a hexameter which reads:

The conjunction quoque suggests that the building holds a
position of secondary importance with regard to another
facility for guests, which can only be the Hospice for Pilgrims
and Paupers. The modest slant of this verse is obviously
a reflection of the warning given by St. Benedict
that the hospitality accorded to the poor lies on a higher
plane of religious devotion than that extended to the rich.[312]
But the profuse attention lavished on the internal layout of
the House for Distinguished Guests tends to defy this
thought.

The House is 67½ feet long and 55 feet wide. It has as its
principal room a large rectangular hall, which its explanatory
title defines as the "dining hall of the guests" (domus
hospitū ad prandendum). Access to this is gained through a

[ILLUSTRATION]

402. PLAN OF ST. GALL. HOUSE FOR SERVANTS OF OUTLYING ESTATES AND FOR SERVANTS

TRAVELING WITH THE EMPEROR'S COURT (NOT CERTAIN: cf. BUILDING 34)

The house is one of four identical buildings located to the right of the entrance
road where most of the monastery's livestock is kept. Its large central hall, like
those of many other buildings of this group, is referred to as DOMUS, a term used
by the drafters of the Plan not to designate the entire house (as its classical usage
would prescribe), but as a name for the common living room where men gather
around the open fireplace for conversation and meals. The spaces in the aisles
and under the lean-to's are used for sleeping and for the stabling of livestock.

[ILLUSTRATION]

PLAN OF ST. GALL

403.C

403.D EAST ELEVATION AND TRANSVERSE SECTION

403.B LONGITUDINAL SECTION

The criteria for reconstructing this house are identical
with those which guided that of the Hospice for
Pilgrims and Paupers (figs. 393.A-E) and the House
for Distinguished Guests (figs. 397.A-F). Being
smaller and of more modest purpose, there is no reason
to assume that any part of the house was built in
masonry, beyond (as sound construction would suggest)
its foundation and a shallow plinth of stones protecting
the roof-supporting timbers against the dampness of the
ground. The traditional building material for this
type of house was timber for all its structural members,
wattle-and-daub for the walls, and shingles or shakes
for the roof.

403.A PLAN

HOUSE FOR SERVANTS OF OUTLYING ESTATES AND FOR SERVANTS TRAVELING WITH THE EMPEROR'S COURT
AUTHORS' INTERPRETATION

[ILLUSTRATION]

404. PLAN OF ST. GALL. HOUSE FOR KNIGHTS AND VASSALS IN THE EMPEROR'S FOLLOWING

Its identification must remain tentative, for the lines and titles of this building were erased in the 12th century by a monk who wrote a Life
of St. Martin on the verso of the Plan, spilling the last 22 lines of text onto the plan of this house. The few fragments of titles that escaped
his knife were obliterated in the 19th century by an attempt to restore them with a chemical substance that left only coarse blotches on the
parchment wherever it was applied.

[ILLUSTRATION]

405. PLAN OF ST. GALL. HOUSE FOR KNIGHTS AND VASSALS IN THE EMPEROR'S FOLLOWING

X-rays revealed the outlines of a colossal variant of the standard house of the Plan, with an entrance in one narrow side. Comparison with
other similar buildings leaves no doubt that the large center room was intended as a common hall for living and dining, with peripheral spaces
serving partly for bedrooms, partly for stables.

[ILLUSTRATION]

406.A PLAN OF ST. GALL

HOUSE FOR KNIGHTS AND VASSALS WHO TRAVEL IN THE EMPEROR'S FOLLOWING. AUTHORS' INTERPRETATION

"vestibule" (ingressus) which lies in the middle of the
southern aisle of the house. The dining hall has in its center
a large quadrangular "fireplace" (locus foci) and in the
corners, ranged all around the circumference, benches and
"tables" (mensae), plus two "cupboards" (toregmata[313] ) for
the storage of cups and tableware. Under the lean-to's at
each of the narrow ends of the house there are the "bedrooms"
for the distinguished guests (caminatae cum lectis),
four in all, each furnished with its own corner fireplace and
its own projecting privy (necessariü). The rooms to the left
and right of the entrance in the southern aisle of the house
serve as "quarters for the servants" (cubilia seruitorum),
while two corresponding rooms in the northern aisle are
used as "stables for the horses" (stabula caballorum). Their
cribs (praesepia) are arranged against the outer walls. A
small vestibule between the two stables gives access to a
covered passage that leads to a large privy (exitus neces-
sarius). The latter covers a surface area of 10 by 45 feet and
is furnished with no fewer than eighteen toilet seats—an
indication of the extraordinary sanitary precautions that,
at the time of Charlemagne and Louis the Pious, must have
been taken for the persons who traveled in the emperor's
immediate entourage.[314]

I have already drawn attention to the fact that the stables
for the horses have no direct access from the exterior. The
entire house has only one entrance, and in order to reach
their stables the horses had to be led through the central
dining hall. This suggests that all the rooms of the house
were on ground level and that the floor of the center room
was made of stamped clay rather than of a boarding of wood.
The large open fireplace in the center of the dining room
makes it unequivocably clear that this house was not a
double-storied structure.[315]

[ILLUSTRATION]

406.B

By making the center hall of this building 45 feet wide by 60 feet long, the drafters of the Plan pushed the structural capabilities of the aisled
Germanic all-purpose house to its limits. Spans of 45 feet, rare even in church construction, were unheard-of in domestic architecture. We
know of only one other medieval building of even comparable dimensions: the barn of the abbey grange of Parçay-Meslay, France (figs. 352-355)
at a width of 80 feet. But the vast roof of that barn is supported, not by the traditional two, but by four rows of freestanding inner posts.
We do not believe that the roof of the House for Knights and Vassals could have been supported successfully by less posting and have therefore
introduced in our reconstruction two additional rows of posts, that reduce the center span of the inner hall from 45 to a more conventional
27 feet.

Incorporating the doubled rows of posting is not in conflict with methods of architectural rendering employed by the drafters of the Plan.
They were not concerned with constructional details, but primarily with establishing the boundaries of each building on the site in terms of its
function and its components. The size of a royal retinue—including its servants, grooms, bodyguard, as well as the principals themselves—
justifies the tentative identification of this house.

In this, as in other buildings of the Plan, details of construction engineering were left to be resolved by the ingenuity of a master builder who
would determine in what ways a building conceived for the purpose of housing up to 40 men and 30 horses, and their attendants, could be
realized as functional architecture. The interaction of planners with builders is elsewhere attested on the Plan, wherever features obviously
intended and needed are absent: staircases, doors and windows, and others (see I. 13, 65ff).

The main point of interest, we believe, in our investigation of this particular building is that the prevailing building type of the Plan of St. Gall,
the three-aisled hall—without loss of the essence of its character—adapts with ease and dignity and possibly with some elegance, to a building of
relatively inordinate size through the device of adding an aisle between the central main space of the nave, and each of the lean-to side aisles.
In effect, a five-aisled hall is thus formed (see fig. 354.A, B, Parçay-Meslay, and Les Halles, Côte St. André, Isère, France).

Materials and mode of construction

In contrast to the Abbot's House,[316] whose typological
roots lie in the South, the House for Distinguished Guests,
as has been demonstrated, is a descendant of a strictly
Northern building type. It may have been built entirely
in wood, or it may have had its circumference walls constructed
in masonry. In our reconstructions (figs. 397-399)
we have chosen this latter solution in order to demonstrate
the possibility of mixed materials on this higher social level
of building. In the interior the roof must have been supported
by two parallel rows of wooden posts, framed into
weight- and thrust-resisting trusses with the aid of tie
beams and post plates. If the roof belonged to the purlin
family of roofs, its basic design cannot have differed greatly
from what we have suggested in figures 397 and 398. For
the thirteenth century this type of roof is well attested, at
least on the Continent, as has been demonstrated by the
examples discussed above on pages 88ff. It may have been
as common in Carolingian times.

That royal timber houses with masonry walls existed in
Carolingian times is known through the Brevium exempla,
for it is doubtlessly to this mixture of materials that the
author of this work refers, when describing the domus
regalis of one of his anonymous crown estates as a house that
was "externally built in stone, and inside all in timber"
(exterius ex lapide et interius ex ligno bene constructam).[317]

[ILLUSTRATION]

PLAN OF ST. GALL

406.C

NORTH ELEVATION

HOUSE FOR KNIGHTS AND VASSALS WHO TRAVEL IN THE EMPEROR'S FOLLOWING

Separation of common & private rooms

The internal layout of the House for Distinguished
Guests (fig. 398) is historically of particular interest, as it
shows that at the beginning of the ninth century the timbered
royal hall was sufficiently partitioned internally to
allow the lord to withdraw from the ranks of his followers
to the privacy of separate bedrooms. Dining was still a
communal function. But the establishment of individual
fireplaces with chimneys in the lord's private chambers
made the latter independent from the open fire in the floor
of the hall. Architecturally speaking, this means that the
private bedrooms under the lean-to's at each end of the
hall could have been screened off from the rest of the
building, not only by vertical wall partitions (as they most
certainly were), but also by their own individual ceilings.
If ceilings were installed, the walls required windows,
since ceilings would have deprived the bedrooms of the
principal source of light for the house—the louver over the
fireplace in the ridge of the roof of the hall. The quarters
of the servants, on the other hand, cannot have been provided
with ceilings, since they depended for warmth on the
heat furnished by the communal fire in the center hall.

Housing capacity

The House for Distinguished Guests can accommodate
eight visitors of rank in four separate rooms, each of which
is furnished with two beds, two benches, and a corner
fireplace.[318] These are the rooms for the emperor, the empress,
or any other members of the imperial family who
accompanied the emperor on his travels, and some of the
highest ranking ministers and councilors who were part of
the emperor's permanent staff. The rooms for the servants
in the southern aisle of the house have a bedding capacity
for eighteen men. This is the number of beds of standard
size that could be set up for the servants if they were ranged
peripherally along the walls of their rooms (nine in each).
Eighteen also happens to be the number of toilet seats
available in the servant's privy. The two stables in the
northern aisle of the house can accommodate four horses

[ILLUSTRATION]

406.D

TRANSVERSE SECTION

HOUSE FOR KNIGHTS AND VASSALS WHO TRAVEL IN THE EMPEROR'S FOLLOWING

each (figuring for each horse a standing area 5 feet wide and
7½ feet long). These must have been the mounts of the distinguished
guests, since their number corresponds exactly
to the number of beds available in the latter's private
chambers.

Even the seating capacity of the dining room is closely
correlated with the total number of men who can be accommodated
in the House for Distinguished Guests. The
eastern or upper end of the hall is furnished with two short
straight tables, each capable of seating four of the eight
distinguished guests (if we attribute to each of them a sitting
area 2½ feet wide). The western or lower end has longer,
L-shaped tables with sufficient sitting space to take care of
the eighteen servants.

Number and composition of officers of state
in the emperor's train

There are no conclusive studies on the number or composition
of the officers of state who accompanied the emperor
on his travels.[319] From Hincmar's account of Adalhard
of Corbie's De Ordine Imperii,[320] it appears that the central
administrative body of the Carolingian court consisted of a
staff of six leading functionaries, who by the very definition
of their office were part and parcel of the emperor's personal
entourage, viz., the Seneschal (senescalcus, literally,
"the old servant") who was in charge of provisions and
especially those of the royal table; the Butler (buticularius),

[ILLUSTRATION]

406.E PLAN OF ST. GALL

EAST ELEVATION

HOUSE FOR KNIGHTS AND VASSALS WHO TRAVEL IN THE EMPEROR'S FOLLOWING

responsible for drink; the Chamberlain (camerarius) in
charge of lodging and the royal treasury; the Constable
(comes stabuli) in charge of horses and all other means of
transportation; the Count Palatine (comes palatinus), the
primary officer in charge of the empire's judiciary administration;
and last but not least, the Arch Chaplain (summus
capellanus), the emperor's primary advisor in ecclesiastical
and educational matters, whose office later became absorbed
in that of the Chancellor (summus sacri palatii cancellarius).[321]
Readiness for action involving the state and the imperial
household in its entirety would have required the presence
of all these men. But it is well known that the holders of
these offices were often away from the court in the summer
on special missions.[322] The House for Distinguished Guests,
nevertheless, would have been equipped to accommodate
all these men besides the emperor himself, plus his wife or
one of his children. How many members of his family he
was wont to have with him when traveling is another
question for which we have no ready answer. "Charlemagne,"
we are told by Einhard, "cared so deeply for the
training of his children that he never took his meal without
them when he was at home, and never made a journey
without them."[323] Although this could scarcely have applied
to all the seven sons and daughters[324] that Einhard ascribes
to Charlemagne, it would still suggest that the traveling
emperor was frequently accompanied by one or another of
his sons and daughters.[325] When Louis the Pious stayed in
St. Gall in 857, his sons Karlmann and Karl III were with
him.[326] This is about all that seems to be known on this
subject.

The Plan of St. Gall may actually help us here to close a
gap of knowledge. It discloses that at the time of Louis the
Pious a monastery was expected to be capable of taking care
of a royal party consisting of eight dignitaries of state or
members of the imperial family, their mounts, and eighteen
of their personal servants. In later centuries the figure may
have been considerably larger. The Consuetudinary of
Farfa—in reality the customs of Cluny (written between

1030 and 1048)—prescribed for that monastery a guest
house for forty male and thirty female members of the
emperor's train, plus a stable capable of sheltering some
150 horses.[327] Yet conditions at Cluny were probably
unusual. A fulcrum of revival and reform among the
monasteries of France and unbelievably rich, the abbey
was already well on its way toward wedging itself as an
arbitrating spiritual force into the interplay between the
secular and the ecclesiastical powers of the period.

Other supporting forces

Even in the ninth century, nevertheless, a guest house
with a bedding capacity of eight distinguished guests, their
horses, and eighteen of their servants, is not likely to have
been capable of accommodating the whole of the emperor's
permanent train. To be protected, the king needed a bodyguard.
Such a guard of mounted knights would not necessarily
have had to be very large, yet it is unlikely to have
consisted of fewer than twenty or thirty men. They, too, and
their horses would have to be provided with quarters. One
would have to expect, additionally, a small train of wagons
with emergency rations, kitchens, tents, and other equipment
indispensable to the movement of the court. This
involved another troup of servants who would also have to
be sheltered. The Plan of St. Gall shows two buildings that
may have performed that function, located at the gate of the
monastery in the immediate vicinity of the House for Distinguished
Guests. But before we turn to them, some attention
must be paid to the kitchen, bake, and brewing facilities
of the House for Distinguished Guests.

KITCHEN, BAKE AND BREW HOUSE FOR
THE DISTINGUISHED GUESTS

The main portion of this structure, which covers an area
roughly 50 by 55 feet (figs. 396, 400-401), is identical
with that of the Bake and Brew House for Pilgrims and
Paupers (fig. 392). But its outside appearance must have
been quite different, as it had attached to it on the side facing
the House for Distinguished Guests, two large rectangular
rooms (17½ feet by 22½ feet); one of which served as the
guests' kitchen (culina hospitū), the other as "larder"
(promptuariū). The kitchen stove, a square of 5 by 5 feet, is
subdivided into four cooking areas by two median lines that
bisect it at right angles. The principal space of the house,
measuring 20 by 55 feet, contains in its southern half the
"bakery" (pistrinum) with its "oven" (fornax), two kneading
troughs (not designated as such by inscriptions), and
all around the periphery of the room, the indispensable
tables for the shaping and laying out of the loaves. The
northern half contains the brew house (domus conficiendae
celiae) with fires and coppers for malting the grain (fig.
401A). The aisle in the rear of the house is subdivided into
two equal parts, each serving as an accessory to the work
carried on in the corresponding portion of the principal
space of the house. The room near the bakery is designated
as "the place where dough is made [by mingling flour with
water]" (interndae pastae locus) and for that purpose it is
furnished with a long trough and a circular vat. The other
near the brewery, is described as the place where the brew is
"cooled" (hic refrigeratur ceruisa). It is equipped with two
smaller troughs that stand on either side of a circular vat.

V.8.7

HOUSE FOR SERVANTS OF OUTLYING
ESTATES & SERVANTS TRAVELING
WITH THE EMPEROR'S COURT

This house measures 47½ feet by 60 feet (figs. 402-403)
and lies to the right of the entrance road in a tract entirely
reserved for the raising of livestock; and it is the only one
among the buildings in this sector which is inhabited by
people alone. Its general purpose is described in a hexameter
which reads:

Its layout is a classical example of what in an earlier phase
of this study we referred to as the "standard house" of the
Plan of St. Gall; a house consisting of a central hall with
open fireplace and aisles and lean-to's all around the hall.
The entrance, like those of all the other houses in this tract,

lies in the middle of the eastern long wall. Two rooms on
either side of the entrance serve as quarters for the guardians
(cubiʈ custodientiū). The great hall in the center carries the
inscription, "the hall of the serfs who come with the
service" (domƆ famuliae quae cum seruitio aduenerit). Keller,
Willis, Bikel, Leclercq, and Reinhardt[328] interpreted this to
refer to the serfs who live on outlying estates (familia foris)
and come to the monastery in the pursuit of their obligatory
services, delivery of produce, tithe, or harvest; Bischoff
thinks that the house was for the accommodation of servants
who traveled in the following of a visiting ruler.[329] Both
views may be correct, since the seruitium mentioned in the
explanatory title may refer to either or both: the service
due the king or the service due the monastery.[330] The
monastery needed lodgings for the serfs who came with
deliveries from places too distant to allow them to return
to their base on the same day. It also needed lodgings for
the servants who traveled in the king's train. As both of
these potential occupants arrived only intermittently
(uicissim, "as the case may be"), the house may have performed
the double task of giving shelter to both.

V.8.8

HOUSE FOR KNIGHTS AND VASSALS
WHO TRAVEL IN THE EMPEROR'S
FOLLOWING

ERASURE OF OUTLINES AND DESTRUCTION OF
EXPLANATORY TITLE

The large anonymous building in the northwestern corner
of the monastery remains enigmatic. Its lines and all its
explanatory titles were erased in the twelfth century by the
monk who wrote the Life of St. Martin on the back of the
Plan and spilled his text over onto the front side of the
Plan (fig. 404).[331] During the nineteenth century an attempt
was made to make the inscription legible with the aid of a
chemical substance, which destroyed it forever.[332] The chemicals
left strong blue blotches whose distribution reveals
that the house was originally provided with a long title
(unquestionably in metric form), running parallel to the
entrance side of the house, which is east; a shorter title
explaining the function of the large hall in the center; and
other short titles designating the purpose of the rooms in
the aisles and lean-to's. X-ray photographs taken in 1949
by the Schweizerische Landesmuseum at Zurich brought
to light the outlines of the building itself (fig. 405), but
failed to reveal its titles. Ildefons von Arx, in two hand-drawn
annotated copies of the Plan, made around 1827,
remarks, "Von dem Hause sind bloss geringe Spuren übrig
und die angeschriebenen Erklärungen und Bestimmungen
vertilgt. . . . Es scheint aber ebenfalls eine Stallung (vielleicht
für Gastpferde) gewesen zu sein."[333] Keller apparently could
still read the word cubilia.[334]

PRESUMPTIVE PURPOSE

I have expressed the view in previous studies that this
building might have been a large barn or wagon shed,[335] but
I am now inclined to think that it served as quarters for the
emperor's bodyguard. The assumption of a wagon shed is
precluded by the fact—not recognizable to the naked eye
but clearly exposed by the X-rays (fig. 405)—that the only
entrance that gives access to the building is not wide enough
to admit any wagons. Unfortunately, we are not well informed
about the size and composition of the emperor's
bodyguard when he was engaged in travel. In the previously
quoted passage from the Life of Charlemagne, where Einhard
tells that the emperor liked to take his sons and daughters
along on his journeys, Einhard remarks that on such occasions
"his sons would ride at his side and his daughters
follow him, while a number of his bodyguards, detailed for
their protection, brought up the rear."[336] A hint of the total
number involved in such movements might be contained in
a passage of the Chronicle of Hariulf, where it is said that
the abbot and priors of St.-Riquier, when traveling, enjoyed
the protection of the monastery's entire retinue of
110 mounted knights. As the chronicler proudly adds in
this context, when the knights were gathered at St.-Riquier
during the religious festivals, "their presence lent to the
monastery almost the appearance of a royal court,"[337] we
must infer that the emperor himself was wont to turn up
with an even larger escort when visiting the abbey.

Heusinger estimates the traveling emperor's court to
have run into the hundreds.[338] Professor Ganshof would
consider this to be an excessive figure if it were applied to
the Carolingian period.[339] Obviously, the number of men
who made up such a protective guard must have varied
greatly, depending on the political stability at the time of
travel and the distance involved in the journey,[340] but one
might safely expect that an elite guard of some twenty to
thirty men accompanied the emperor wherever he went.
The great anonymous building at the northwestern corner
of the monastery site could easily have accommodated a
detachment of this magnitude, and if necessity demanded,
a detachment several times larger. The natural monastic
traffic flow would call for such a barracks to be located in
that corner rather than anywhere else in the rectangular
site into which the monastery is inscribed.

One wonders whether von Arx's conjecture that the
house might have been used for "guest horses," was pure
fantasy or whether his eye could still decipher somewhere
among the obliterated titles the word caballi.

DIMENSIONS AND HOUSING CAPACITY

The building is 100 feet long and 80 feet wide. Its great
common hall covers a surface area of 65 feet by 45 feet. It
contains in its center a hearth or cooking area 17½ feet
long and 15 feet wide. The lean-to's of the hall, if used as
stables, could accommodate fourteen horses under the
eastern hip of the roof and sixteen horses under the western
hip (counting per horse a standing area 5 feet wide and 7½

feet long). Each of the four large rooms in the aisles have a
bedding capacity for ten to twelve men (if the beds were
ranged in standard fashion around the four walls of the
room). Total occupancy: thirty horses and forty to forty-four
men. If utilized in barrack fashion—and especially, if
the large common hall in the center was also used for stabling
and bedding—the housing capacity of the building
could be tripled.

CONSTRUCTIONAL IMPLICATIONS

The reconstruction of this colossal structure poses problems
as difficult as the bewildering riddle of its purpose. Its
great central hall (measuring 45 feet by 60 feet) is 5 feet
wider than the nave of the Church of the Plan of St. Gall.
It is technically possible to span such a distance with tie
beams of very heavy scantling—the abbey church of Fulda
had a nave width of well over 50 feet (16.70 m.)—but the
fact remains that an aisled hall with an open center space
of 45 feet is not known to have existed in the earlier Middle
Ages at any place, with the solitary exception of the Great
Hall of the Palace of Westminster (1097-99) which owed
its inordinate dimensions to a very unusual set of historical
circumstances.[341] Even in the largest monastic barns of the
thirteenth century the center aisle rarely exceeds a span of
30 feet, and, in general, stays below the range of 20 feet.[342]
Where barns attained a width that was in any manner comparable
to the building with which we are here concerned,
their roofs were supported not by two but by four ranges of
freestanding inner posts, as in the great monastic barn of
Parçay-Meslay in France (figs. 352-354).[343] In order to
bring our building a little closer to both constructional
realities as well as to what appears convincing in the light
of existing historical parallels, we have introduced in our
reconstruction two inner rows of roof-supporting posts
along lines which have no equivalent on the Plan itself.
This is not quite as arbitrary as it may appear on first sight.

The inventor of the scheme of the Plan, as I have already
pointed out,[344] was not preoccupied with the definition of
the constructional details of his houses—these were fixed
by tradition, and therefore not in need of further specification.
Instead he chose to give his full attention to defining
the size and functional boundaries of its component spaces.
We shall meet this same problem again when discussing the
Granary, the House for Bloodletting, and the hall in the
House for Horses and Oxen.[345]

The colossal dimensions of the large anonymous building
may elicit the thought that the designing architect was not
aware of the unusual dimensional and constructional implications
of what he drew. If this were so, it would be in
complete departure from the procedures that he followed
everywhere else in the Plan. Wherever the relation of size
to function can be checked, it is apparent that at every step
of his work the draftsman operated in full awareness of the
dimensional realities involved. Accordingly, if he drew a
house 80 feet wide and 100 feet long, we must assume he
did so because he felt that there was a need for a house of
such dimensions.

V. 9

OUTER SCHOOL & THE LODGING
OF THE SCHOOLMASTER

V.9.1

THE MONASTERY'S EDUCATIONAL
TASKS

ROYAL DIRECTIVES

Be it known, therefore, to your devotion pleasing to God, that we,
together with our faithful, have considered it to be useful that the
bishoprics and monasteries entrusted by the favor of Christ to our
control, in addition to the order of monastic life and the intercourse
of holy religion, in the culture of letters also ought to be zealous
in teaching those who by the gift of God are able to learn, according
to the capacity of each individual, so that just as the observance of
the rule imparts order and grace to honesty of morals, so also zeal
in teaching and learning may do the same for sentences, so that
those who desire to please God by living rightly should not neglect
Him also by speaking correctly.[346]

Thus wrote Charlemagne to Abbot Baugulf of Fulda in
a letter drafted by Alcuin, probably in 784 or 785. In a
second issue of the same letter, made out to Archbishop
Angilram of Metz, the emperor adds the admonition:

The letter from which these sentences are quoted,
Charlemagne's famous epistola de litteris collendis,[347] is one
of the first of a series of royal directives assigning to the
episcopal and monastic schools of the Frankish kingdom
an active role in education. It is one of the cornerstones of
that programmatic revival of both theological and classical
studies in which Charles took an intense personal interest
and which ushered in the Carolingian Renascence. One of
Charles's specific concerns was the intellectual formation of
the youth who were to form the core of the coming generation
of priests and clerics. In a great circular directive of
789, the admonitio generalis,[348] he ruled that the children of
free laymen be admitted to the monastic schools, and that
reading classes be established for the young (scolae legentium
puerorum) in which the psalms, music, chant, the calendar
of the religious festivals, grammar, and the creeds of the
faith be taught.[349] In the pursuit of these as well as the
more general aims of his educational reform, the emperor
systematically enlarged the body of his personal entourage
by adding to the old nucleus of administrative officers of
the Palace distinguished scholars from England, Ireland,
Italy, and Spain, thus setting up at the court itself a school
of learning that could be used as a model for the other
schools in his realm.[350]

The close relationship that existed between so many
medieval rulers and their leading bishops and abbots was
due in no small measure to friendships struck up between
these rulers and their former fellow students and teachers
during their education in monastic schools.[351] Some monasteries
were understandably proud of these connections, as
may be gathered from a boastful passage in Hariulf's
Chronicle of St.-Riquier:

STRESSES LEADING TO DIVISION INTO
INNER AND OUTER SCHOOLS

The stresses that these new educational obligations imposed
upon monastic seclusion were great and must have
been in debate at the second synod of Aachen which passed
the perplexing resolution, "There shall be no other school
in the monastery than that which is used for the instruction
of the future monks."[353] I have already had occasion to point
out that it could not have been the intent of this ruling to
relieve the monasteries entirely from their share in the intellectual
training of the secular youth, which would have
been a complete reversal of the educational policies promoted
by Charlemagne. Rather it was the expression of a
conflict which in practice was settled by the division of the
monastic educational system into an "inner" and an "outer"
school, the former for the training of the future monks, the
latter for the instruction of those who planned to enter upon
the career of the secular clergy and of such laymen, poor
or noble, whose education was entrusted to monastic
teachers. The former was located in the cloister; the latter
outside it, at a place where it would not intrude on monastic
privacy. This is precisely the manner in which this problem
was settled on the Plan of St. Gall. The inner school is in
the cloister of the Novices,[354] the Outer School lies between
the House for Distinguished Guests and the Abbot's House,
i.e., in a tract which in all other respects held a transitional
position between the monastic and secular world. Unlike
the schola interior, which remained essentially confined to
elementary learning, the schola exterior developed quickly
into a school for advanced study.[355]

[ILLUSTRATION]

407. PLAN OF ST. GALL. THE OUTER SCHOOL

The simple map reveals with almost startling clarity the centrality of the site of St. Gall in the Frankish Empire. The dicta of Charlemagne
regarding education of clerics and children of free laymen were embodied on the Plan in the Outer School, where it was intended the Empire's
most outstanding teachers should profess and the nation's intellectual leaders be trained. Provided with bedroom cubicles, two classrooms, and
an annexed privy, the Outer School lacks a kitchen; perhaps students dined in the House for Distinguished Guests when it was unoccupied,
or perhaps took a meal in the Monks' Refectory, seated at the lower end of the hall.

[ILLUSTRATION]

408.A PLAN OF ST. GALL. OUTER SCHOOL. PLAN. AUTHORS' INTERPRETATION

Cubicles in the aisles and lean-to's of this building reflect more clearly than the room divisions in other guest and service structures the bay
division of the aisled Germanic all-purpose house, from which these buildings of the Plan historically derive.

Explanatory titles identify the cubicles of the Outer School as students' bedrooms, and the large central common hall as the area for teaching
and study. This hall is divided into two classrooms by a freestanding median wall partition. Each is furnished with its own fireplace, and above
these in the roof ridge are lanterns (TESTU) serving as smoke escape and to admit light and air. The small squares in the students' cubicles are
unexplained. It is tempting to interpret them as study tables; but similar squares in the two divisions of the central hall suggest that there
should be openings in the roof to admit light. We have thus reconstructed them in this sense, as dormer windows.

DISTINGUISHED TEACHERS

In the ninth and tenth centuries in the monastery of St.
Gall, these schools produced some of the greatest teachers
of the period, the lives and works of whom Ekkehart IV
describes in his Casus sancti Galli with as much detail and
color as those of the greatest abbots.[356] From Ekkehart's
account we also learn that the Outer School of the monastery
of St. Gall lay to the north of the Church, at almost
the same location it occupies on the Plan of St. Gall; for
in his description of the fire of 937 Ekkehart relates how the
dry shingles of the burning roof of the school were blown
by the north wind onto the church tower and ignited its
roof.[357]

[ILLUSTRATION]

PLAN OF ST. GALL. OUTER SCHOOL. LONGITUDINAL SECTION, NORTH ELEVATION

408.B

408.C

[ILLUSTRATION]

408.D PLAN OF ST. GALL. OUTER SCHOOL. SOUTH ELEVATION

The Outer School could have been built entirely in timber (as was traditional for this type of building) or—because of the high social standing
of many of its occupants, its proximity to the Abbot's House, as well as its need for ample lighting—in the mixed technique which we propose
for the House for Distinguished Guests (figs. 397-399). Masonry would have had the additional advantage of permitting fenestration in the
outer walls of the building.

Adding to this 24-student potential capacity the 12 oblates and novices trained in the Inner School, the 36-student capacity provided for by
facilities on the Plan of St. Gall proves far fewer than the total of 100 students that was Angilbert's pride at St. Riquier ("centum pueros in
hoc sancto loco in scolam congregare studuimus"; Angilberti Abbatis de ecclesia Centulensi Libellus, G. Waitz, ed., Mon.
Germ. hist., Scriptores, XV:1, Hannover 1887, 173-79).

V.9.2

THE OUTER SCHOOL

LAYOUT & MEANING OF EXPLANATORY TITLES

The Outer School of the Plan (fig. 407) is surrounded by a
fence which is designated with the hexameter:

Measuring 70 feet in length and 55 feet in width, its surface
area exceeds that of the House for the Distinguished Guests
by a slight margin. The building consists of a large rectangular
hall, inscribed with the title domus communis
scolae id÷ uacationis. The interpretation of this title is
controversial. Keller, Willis, Campion, Leclercq, and Reinhardt
transcribed the abbreviation id÷ wrongly as idem
and interpreted the term uacatio as "recreation," thus translating
the line as "the common-room of the school and
place for recreation."[358] Meier transcribed id÷ correctly as
id est[359] and proposed uacatio is simply a Latinization of the
Greek word σχολή, which came into use in the Latin world
in republican times as the designation for higher studies in
literature, grammar and rhetoric.[360] He interprets the title
accordingly as "the common hall for the school, i.e. the
place of study." The term uacatio is not used in the Rule
of St. Benedict, but to judge by the frequency with which
it appears in Hildemar's commentary to the Rule (written
around 845) it must have been fashionable in the Carolingian
period. Hildemar employs it no fewer than fifteen

[ILLUSTRATION]

PLAN OF ST. GALL. OUTER SCHOOL. TRANSVERSE SECTION, EAST ELEVATION

408.E

408.F

As with most other buildings of its type, the Outer School has one entrance; access to all its peripheral rooms including the privy can be gained
only through the central hall. The privy has 15 seats. Comparing the ratio of seats available per number of occupants in other buildings of this
class would suggest that each student cubicle was occupied by two persons.

[ILLUSTRATION]

PLAN OF ST. GALL. LODGING OF THE MASTER OF THE OUTER SCHOOL

409.

409.X

The layout of the Schoolmaster's Lodging is almost the same as the Porter's, like the latter consisting of living room, bedroom, and provided
with corner fireplace and private toilet. The bedroom shows the Schoolmaster's bed and two others along the inner wall, suggesting that the
Outer School may have been staffed by three teachers. From the living room a door afforded access to the Church (the parchment is damaged
here) where students and teachers spent some part of each day. The traffic patterns (fig. 409.X) suggest routes between the Lodging, the Church,
and the Outer School; fences separated the students from the guests lodged to the west and assured the Abbot's privacy to the east.

times in a single chapter[361] and in one of these places pauses
to furnish his readers with a regular dictionary definition:
"vacare means to relinquish one thing and to replace it
with some other preoccupation; it is in this sense that he
[St. Benedict] insists, in this chapter that, manual work
being set aside, the time thus released be used for study"
(`Vacare' est enim aliam rem relinquere et aliis insistere rebus,
sicuti in hoc loco relicta exercitatione manuum jubet insistere
lectioni).[362] In accordance with this definition I would translate
the title domus communis scolae, id ÷ uacationis as "the
common hall for learning, i.e., for the time relinquished
from other obligations for the purpose of study."[363]

The hall measures 30 feet by 40 feet and is divided in
half crosswise by a median wall. This partition does not run
clear across the room but has wide passages at either end,
suggesting that it was a low freestanding screen rather than
a massive wall and that the large hall, although each of the
two partitions is provided with its own fireplace and louver
(testu), was conceived of as a single space rather than as two
separate rooms. The fact that the inscription that defines
the purpose of this space runs across the wall partition corroborates
this interpretation.

Ranged peripherally around this center space are twelve
"small dwelling rooms for the students" (mansiunculae
scolasticorum hic),[364] and in the area between them in the
middle of the southern long wall a slightly smaller space
which served as "entrance" (introitus). On the opposite
side a room of like dimensions served as "exit to the outhouse"
(necessarius exitus).

The rooms of the students each measure 12½ feet by 15
feet. They have in the center a small square, which Keller
and Willis interpreted as a table.[365] I am rather inclined to
think that these squares are the designation for dormer
windows in the lower slope of the roof, of the type shown
in the February representation of the Grimani Breviary
(fig. 367). The two louvers over the center space of the
house, although providing adequate lighting for the two
classrooms directly beneath them, would not have furnished
sufficient light for the pursuit of individual studies in the
student cubicles located in the aisles and lean-to's. Additional
light could, of course, also have been provided by
windows in the outer walls of the house, and with special
ease, if the latter were built in masonry. In our reconstruction
(figs. 408A-E) we have demonstrated both these
possibilities, introducing a volume of light that is probably
in excess of what one would reasonably expect to have been
available in the ninth century. Under no circumstances
should the squares in the students' rooms be interpreted
as fireplaces. Open fires in each of these twelve cubicles
would have constituted a fire hazard of the first degree and
would have been without parallel in any known or excavated
example of this construction type. Moreover, although
many of the students who occupied these rooms may well
have been of noble birth, their status as students was
scarcely of sufficient weight to entitle them to a privilege
otherwise accorded only to the highest ranking dignitaries
of the monastic community.[366]

All of the students' rooms are accessible from the main
hall. The doors are so arranged as to serve as entrance not
for one, but for two cubicles. The existence of these doors
and their carefully planned location leaves no doubt that
the students' rooms were separated from the main hall by
partitions. These partitions, however, could not have run
up to the roof of the house, as the cubicles depended for
their warmth on the open fires that burned in the main hall,
and this, in turn, presupposes a free exchange of air between
the main hall and the students' rooms.

NUMBER OF STUDENTS

The Plan gives no clues as to the number of students to
be housed in these rooms. Each mansiuncula might have
been reserved for a single student. But it could easily have
accommodated two; with less comfort, three. The total
number of students, accordingly, would either have been
twelve, twenty-four, or thirty-six. Since the privy of the
Outer School has fifteen toilet seats, the normal number of
students is likely to have exceeded the minimum number
of twelve.

We have already discussed at sufficient length the fact
that the Plan does not tell us where the students ate their
meals and where their food was cooked.

V.9.3

THE SCHOOLMASTER'S LODGING

The Master of the Outer School was not accommodated
in the school building itself, but in a special lodging built
against the northern aisle of the Church, immediately adjacent
to the school. It consists of two rooms, a "living
room" (mansio scolae) furnished with a corner fireplace, a
bench, and a table,[367] and a "withdrawing" room (ejusdē
secretū), furnished with three beds (fig. 409).

V. 10

MEDICAL FACILITIES

V.10.1

MEDICAL CARE AND THE WILL OF GOD

THE PHYSICIAN NOT A PRIMARY
MONASTIC OFFICIAL

The Rule of St. Benedict contains no clue as to whether a
monastery was to be provided with a permanent staff of
physicians,[369] and all later available sources disclose without
any shadow of doubt that the physician stood outside the
hierarchy of the monastery's regular administrative officers
(provost, dean, porter, cellarer, chamberlain, infirmarer,
etc.). The title carried no official status; but was granted to
monks, who by their special studies and devotion had
demonstrated unusual proficiency and knowledge in the
art of healing.

CASSIODORUS ON THE ART OF HEALING

Cassiodorus the Senator (ca. 480-ca. 575) in a chapter
"On Doctors" of his widely read Introduction to Divine
and Human Readings, written for the instruction of his
monks some time after 551,[370] refers to the brothers who
"look after the health of the human body" as men "who

[ILLUSTRATION]

410. PLAN OF ST. GALL. HOUSE OF THE PHYSICIANS

SHOWN FULL SIZE; 1:192

The Physicians' House shares a site with the
Medicinal Herb Garden in the northeast corner
of the monastery tract. The house belongs to a
sub-group of the guest and service buildings of
the Plan, of which the communal hall is
surrounded on only three sides by peripheral
rooms. Other variants of this smaller format are
the House of the Gardener (fig. 426), the House
for Cows and Cowherds (fig. 489), and the
House for Foaling Mares and their Keepers
(fig. 487).

The proximity of the physicians to their garden
reflects the contemporary state of pharmacy,
which lay largely in the realm of botanicals, as
the authorities of Dioscurides, Isidore, and
many others attest. The physicians' duties
included compounding and dispensing medicines;
their house is provided with a secure room
especially designated for storage of medication.

will receive their reward from Him by whom eternal rewards
may be paid for temporal acts."[371] He lists as standard
medical works to be studied for instruction in this specialized
craft: the book on herbs by Dioscurides; the Latin
translations of the works of Hippocrates and Galen (especially
the latter's Therapeutics, addressed to the philosopher
Glauco); an anonymous work compiled from various
authors; the book On Medicine by Caelius Aurelius;
Hippocrates' On Herbs and Cures as well as various other
medical treatises. He informs his readers that he had collected
copies of all of these works for future use, and that
these copies "are stored away in the recesses of our library"
(i.e., the library of the monastery of Vivarium, which he
had founded and for the monks of which the Institutiones
were written).[372]

Like the later medieval attitude toward medicine,
Cassiodorus' view about the efficacy of medical care is
tinted by the belief that the ultimate decision about sickness
and health are the concern of the Lord; and this ambivalence
between reliance on physical care and limitations
imposed upon it by divine predestination he expresses
clearly when admonishing the brothers: "Learn, therefore,
the properties of herbs and perform the compounding of
drugs punctiliously; but do not place your hope in herbs
and do not trust health to human council. For although the
art of medicine be found to be established by the Lord . . .
who without doubt grants life to men, makes them sound"

(et ideo discite quidem naturas herbarum commixtionesque
specierum solicita mente tractate; sed non ponatis in herbis
spem, non in humanis consiliis sospitatem. nam quamvis
medicina legatur a Domino constituta, ipse tamen sanos
efficit, qui vitam sine dubitatione concedit).[373]

STUDY & TRANSMISSION OF CLASSICAL MEDICINE

The Cassiodorian attitude had a profound effect on later
medieval thinking. It was responsible not only for the fact
that the science of medicine, despite its spiritual limitations
remained a highly respected avocation, but also for the
establishment of its study and transmission as a subject
worthy of being practiced in monastic schools of learning.

[ILLUSTRATION]

411. BARTHOLOMAEUS DE MONTAGNARO. CONSILIA MEDICA. 1434

A PHYSICIAN IN HIS CHAMBERS

MUNICH, BAYERISCHE STAATSBIBLIOTHEK, MS 25, FOL. lv

Montagnaro, a prominent Paduan physician, is portrayed as he inspects a flask of urine. The open books before him may be Theophilos
Unarines or the portions of Judaeus or Avicenna dealing with urine (McKinley, 1965, 13).

[ILLUSTRATION]

412. KIRKSTALL ABBEY, WEST RIDING, YORKSHIRE, ENGLAND. INFIRMARY PLAN

[redrawn after Hope and Bilson, 1907]

In its original form the infirmary hall of Kirkstall may have been very like the castle hall of Leicester, a reconstruction of which is shown in
figure 339. Pre-Norman monastic infirmaries of England were probably built entirely in timber. Under the influence of Norman church
construction, not only were the walls built in stone, but even the free-standing inner posts came to be replaced by masonry arcades. At Kirkstall
this change was made in the 14th century, in adjustment to a trend that in other places such as Canterbury (I, 70, fig. 52.A) had begun as early
as mid-11th century.

In many monasteries, consequently, the study and propagation
of these skills was held in high esteem. The oldest
catalogue of the library of the Abbey of St. Gall lists no
fewer than six medical treatises.[374] The Abbots Grimoald
(841-872) and Hartmut (872-883) increased these holdings
by each bequeathing to the monastic library one medical
book.[375] Among the actually surviving medical treatises of
St. Gall, written in the ninth century, there are extracts
from the works of Hippocrates and Galen (Cod. 44), a book
on cures through herbs and animal extracts (Cod. 217), a
large collection of medical prescriptions (Cod. 751), a
heavily used list of pharmaceutical prescriptions (Cod. 759),
as well as a collection of smaller medical treatises written
by the hand of an Irish monk.[376] Abbot Grimoald (841-872)
can be singled out as one who apparently took a special
interest in the art of healing, since it is to him that Walahfrid
Strabo dedicated his famous poem, Hortulus, in which the
virtues of medicinal herbs are extolled.[377] Other monks of
St. Gall reputed to have been physicians of great distinction
were Iso and Notker II, surnamed Medicus. Iso is
praised by Ekkehart IV for his skill at making salves and is
reported to have healed blind men, lepers and paralytics
with his ointments.[378] The same author proclaims Notker II
the most famous of all.[379] Frequently performing unbelievable
wonders of healing, he was known far and wide in the
country as one of the greatest monastic urologists.[380] The
names of other monks skilled in this science are listed in the
Necrologium of St. Gall.[381]

V.10.2

HOUSE OF THE PHYSICIANS

Besides the Monks' Infirmary and the sick ward in the
Novitiate,[382] the Plan provides for three other medical installations:
the House of the Physicians, the Medicinal
Herb Garden, and the House for Bloodletting, all of which
are situated in the northeast corner of the monastery next
to the Monks' Infirmary. The House of the Physicians (fig.
410) forms the center of the group. It is separated from the
House for Bloodletting by a wall or fence and has no direct
connection with the Infirmary. The house is small and
almost square in shape (37½ feet by 42½ feet). Its principal
room is designated as "the hall of the physicians" (domus

[ILLUSTRATION]

PLAN OF ST. GALL. HOUSE OF THE PHYSICIANS. AUTHORS' INTERPRETATION

413.A

413.B

GROUND PLAN AND TRANSVERSE SECTION

Our reconstruction of the House of the Physicians is only one choice of several possible alternatives. Despite the inclusion of corner fireplaces
in the physicians' private aisle and the aisle for the critically ill—a feature which elsewhere has called for masonry walls—the exterior walls of
this house could have been entirely of timber (a possibility we have demonstrated in reconstructing the Gardener's House, figs. 427.A-F, where
similar conditions obtain). On the other hand, these walls could also have been built all in masonry, as is shown in the House for Distinguished
Guests (figs. 397.A-F). Above is a third alternative: the entrance wall is timber, all the others are masonry.

medicorum) and is furnished with the customary open fireplace
with louver overhead. The western aisle of the house
is used as a "bedroom for the critically ill" (cubiculum ualde
Infirmorum); the eastern aisle serves as the "dwelling of the
chief physician" (mansio medici ipsius), while the lean-to in
the rear of the house is a "repository for drugs and medicaments"
(armarium pigmentorum). Both the bedroom for the
sick and the physician's quarters are provided with corner
fireplaces and their own privies.

Measuring only 37½ feet by 42½ feet the House of the
Physicians is one of the smaller guest and service buildings.
Its sick room, nevertheless, was large enough to accommodate
eight beds. We should imagine the interior of this
building to have looked very much like the thirteenth
century Hospital of St. Mary's in Chichester, (fig. 343),[383]
except, of course, that the Physicians' House on the Plan
is considerably smaller and its aisles were probably separated
from the common hall in the center by wall partitions
between the posts. Another building, somewhat smaller
than St. Mary's Hospital although still twice the length of
the House of the Physicians, was the Infirmary of the
Abbey of Kirkstall, dating from around 1220 (fig. 412),
whose roof was originally held up by two rows of wooden

[ILLUSTRATION]

PLAN OF ST. GALL. HOUSE OF THE PHYSICIANS. AUTHORS' INTERPRETATION

413.C
In the center: a window admitting light to the room where the pharmaceutical
drugs are stored. To either side: the privies of the physicians and the critically
ill.

413.D
Our assumption that the gable walls were half-timbered is purely conjectural.
They could of course as well have been built in masonry.

413.E
Locating the fireplaces in the outer corners of the aisles keeps the chimney
stacks at a safe distance from the inflammable roof.

413.F
Two trusses, in addition to the gable walls, would have been entirely sufficient
to carry the roof of this relatively small building.

NORTH, SOUTH AND WEST ELEVATIONS AND LONGITUDINAL SECTION

SCALE 1/16 INCH = 1 FOOT [1:192]

posts which were later replaced by masonry arcades.[384] The
House of the Physicians on the Plan is the Carolingian
prototype for this type of building.

It is one of only a few buildings on the Plan in which the
main room with the open fireplace is directly accessible
from the outside.[385] We have reconstructed this side of the
house as a straight timber-framed gable wall (fig. 413A-F),
with infillings of daubed wattlework, reaching to the
ridge of the roof. Because of the presence of corner
fireplaces in the physician's bedroom and in the room for
the critically ill, we have rendered the walls against which
these fireplaces were built in masonry. The architectural
privacy of both the physicians and their critical patients—
attainable only by wall partitions and ceilings separating
their quarters from the common source of light and air in
the center room—created, of course, a need for supplementary
fenestration in the walls of these rooms.

The isolated location of the House of the Physicians and
its rigid separation from all other buildings have given rise
to the opinion that it served primarily as an isolation ward
for patients with communicable diseases.[386] It appears to me
more plausible to assume that it was the place where the
monastery's serfs and workmen were taken when their condition
became critical, since laymen could not be admitted
to the Monks' Infirmary. The monks had their own ward
for persons stricken with acute illness, and this could also
have been used as a separation ward for monks afflicted
with communicable diseases.

The physicians were obviously not only in charge of the
patients who were bedded in the Physician's House, but
also attended to the sick in the adjacent Infirmary of the
Monks and took care of the treatments administered in the
House for Bloodletting. That they were not always from
the ranks of the regular monks may be gathered from Abbot
Adalhard's Directives for the Abbey of Corbie, where two
physicians (medici duo) are listed as laymen.[387] Hildemar, in
his commentary on the Rule, lists as instruments indispensable
to the physician: the bloodletting tools (fleuthomus),
the book of herbs (herbarius liber), the medicaments and
tools required for their preparation (pigmentum ferramenta
quibus incidit), and "all such other similar things with the
aid of which the physician performs his craft of healing"
(et reliqua his similia, quibus medicamen medicus operatur).[388]

V.10.3

MEDICINAL HERB GARDEN

The medicinal herb garden (herbularius) lies in the northeastern
corner of the monastery site, immediately east of
the House of the Physicians. It is a small intimate garden,
37½ × 27½ feet (fig. 414). Like the Monks' Vegetable Garden,
it is surrounded by a wall or a fence, but the arrangement
of the planting beds differs. In the Vegetable Garden
the planting beds are separated from the walls by a peripheral
walk, so that each bed can be cultivated from all four
sides. In the medicinal herb garden a row of planting beds
clings to each wall. This seemingly insignificant rearrangement
of beds in relation to the wall is, according to Wolfgang
Sörrensen, the first step away from the "utility garden"
(Nutzgarten) to the "pleasure garden" (Ziergarten).[389] It
would, nevertheless, be wrong to classify the herb garden
on the Plan of St. Gall as a "Ziergarten." The primary
function of its plants is a practical one: they furnish the
physician with the pharmaceutical products needed for his
cures. As in the Monks' Vegetable Garden, each planting
bed is reserved for the cultivation of a single species. There
are sixteen in all:

                               

1.	lilium	lily (lilium candidum L.)
2.	rosas	garden rose (rosa gallica L.)
3.	fasiolo	climbing bean (dolichos melanophtalmus L.)
4.	sata regia	pepperwort (satareia hortensis L.)
5.	costo	costmary (tanacetum blasamita L.)
6.	fena greca	greek hay (trigonella foenum graecum L.)
7.	rosmarino	rosemary (rosmarinus officinalis L.)
8.	menta	mint (mentha piperita L.)
9.	saluia	sage (salvia officinalis L.)
10.	ruta	rue (ruta graveolens L.)
11.	gladiola	iris (iris germanica L.)
12.	pulegium	pennyroyal (mentha pulegium L.)
13.	sisimbria	water cress (mentha aquatica L.)
14.	cumino	cumin (cuminum cyminum L.)
15.	lubestico	lovage (levisticum officinale L.)
16.	feniculum	fennel (anethum foeniculum L.)[390]

A charming contemporary description of a garden of this
type is Walahfrid Strabo's Hortulus, written around 845 in

[ILLUSTRATION]

PLAN OF ST. GALL. MEDICINAL HERB GARDEN

414. PLAN OF ST. GALL. MEDICINAL HERB GARDEN

414.X

414.Y

PLOT PLAN

SHOWING RELATIONSHIP OF HEALTH & MEDICAL FACILITIES

The plot plan suggests two traffic patterns within the Infirmary areas. Moving
north, monks and serfs needing medical attention could leave the Church after
services and report to whichever medical facility they were assigned. The
Monks' Infirmary was available only to regular monks; the House for
Bloodletting was probably used by both monks and serfs. The critically ill were
lodged with the physicians; probably serfs or other laymen with minor infirmities
were treated where they lodged.

Moving southward on the site, the physicians might make daily rounds:
conducting or overseeing bloodletting; at the bath and kitchen for the ill
recommending therapy and special diet, supplies for which might be sent for
from the small stock of luxuries afforded the Abbot in his own nearby kitchen;
thence reporting directly to the Abbot himself (as was their charge and his own)
concerning the ill, recommending further treatment for some, or swifter cures for
suspected malingerers. At mid-point in this course the physicians could stop in
the Chapel and Cloister for the Ill to advise recuperating brothers.

It would be an oversight to regard these economies of movement and communication
as happy accidents; on the contrary, a high degree of skill and
consciousness in such matters helped the Benedictines eventually to influence
the affairs of Carolingian Europe, and gave the Plan of St. Gall its unique
stature as an architectural plan.

The herbs to be cultivated in this small garden are selected for their medicinal properties. Their renascence each spring under the care of man,
after the plants had either died altogether or only back to their roots during winter, has been described by Walahfrid Strabo in an account of
great poetic beauty (Hortulus) as a recurring manifestation of the forces of life imparted to nature by Divine creation.

The physicians cared directly for the critically ill and for those to be bled; their chief duties in addition were making medicines, and prescribing
courses of treatment that might be administered by others. From the nearby garden they could pluck fresh the plants needed to compound the
poultices, purges, infusions, and simples that were the main concerns of pharmacy in the 9th century.

[ILLUSTRATION]

415. MEDICINAL HERB GARDEN. PERSPECTIVE VIEW FROM THE NORTHEAST (INTERPRETATION)

Inde noti conquitur flabris solisque calore
Areola et lignis, ne diffluat, obsita quadris
Altius a plano modicum resupina levatur.
Tota minutatim rastris contunditur uncis,
Et pinguis fermenta fimi super insinuantur.
Seminibus quaedam tentamus holuscula, quaedam
Stirpibus antiquis priscae revocare iuventae.
Denique vernali interdum conspergitur imbre
Parva seges, tenuesque fovet praeblanda vicissim
Luna comas. . . .
Then my small patch was warmed by winds from the south
And the sun's heat. That it should not be washed away,
We faced it with planks and raised it in oblong beds
A little above the level ground. With a rake
I broke the soil up bit by bit, and then
Worked in from on top the leaven of rich manure.
Some plants we grow from seed, some from old stocks
We try to bring back to the youth they knew before.
Then come the showers of Spring, from time to time
Watering our tiny crop, and in its turn
The gentle moon caresses the delicate leaves.

WALAHFRID STRABO, HORTLUS, verse 46-55

Payne and Blunt, eds., 1966, 28-29

the monastery of Reichenau.[391] The poet relates how in the
early spring he rushes into this garden, weeds out the nettles,
and covers the soil with manure which he carries out in
baskets. As soon as the soil is permeated with the fermenting
action of this substance and fanned by the warm winds
from the south, he turns it over with the spade, and
frames the planting beds with boards to prevent the humus
from sliding off onto the walks. Then he sets out his seedlings
and in the following weeks observes with empathy
the miracle of nature's rejuvenation in the growth of plants
whose shape and physical characteristics he describes with
a sharpness of visual definition that reminds one of the
much later plant and water studies of Albrecht Dürer.

Nine of the sixteen plants listed in the herb garden on
the Plan were also grown in Walahfrid Strabo's garden. All
of these plants, as botanists stress, could be raised in the
warm climate of the island monastery of Reichenau,[392] and
all of them, with the exception of pumpkin and melon, had
medicinal value. In the cultivation of these gardens and the
medical uses to which they were put, the monks leaned
heavily on the classical tradition. But they did not expand
just the traditional medical use of plants and herbs; the
benefits they brought to the art of cooking may have surpassed
the contributions their gardens made to medicine.[393]
From the monasteries the use of herbs spread to the nobles
and the peasants, and thus, eventually, herbs became an
integral part of every kitchen garden.[394]

Recipe quotation after Mitteilungen der antiquarischen Gesellschaft,
Zürich, XII, No 6; Bikel, 1914, 99-100.

[ILLUSTRATION]

416. PLAN OF ST. GALL. HOUSE FOR BLOODLETTING

In the Middle Ages bleeding was used to remedy almost every known disease, to such excess that public opinion eventually turned against the
procedure. It is, even today, used as a cure for a small number of pathological conditions where other means fail—but nowhere, now, to the
extent of justifying the construction of special houses for bleeding. The Plan of St. Gall reveals with unique precision the appearance of this
extinct species of house in the 9th century.

V.10.4

HOUSE FOR BLOODLETTING

DESCRIPTION OF HOUSE

The House for Bloodletting (fig. 416) lies west of the
Physicians' House and consists of a large rectangular space
35 feet by 45 feet. It is furnished with a central fireplace
with the customary louver and contains, besides this traditional
heating device, four additional corner fireplaces
as well, doubtless in consideration of the weakened condition
of the monks after being bled. The wall space between
these fireplaces is taken up by six benches and tables
(mensae) on which the monks were bled and purged.

The primary function of this separate house, as Leclercq
has correctly pointed out, is to relieve the Monks' Infirmary
of the many people who were to receive the incision of the
lancet as a cure for a vast variety of ailments, real and
imaginary.[396]

[ILLUSTRATION]

PLAN OF ST. GALL. HOUSE FOR BLOODLETTING

The vulnerable condition in which patients found
themselves through the process of bleeding
required that the House for Bloodletting be well
heated. This was accomplished by installation of
four corner fireplaces, in addition to the traditional
open fireplace in the center of the building. Safety
from fire hazards would require that the walls of
the House for Bloodletting be built in masonry.

416.X.2 TRANSVERSE SECTION LOOKING EASTWARD

Without doubt Carolingian builders could have
covered a house 35 feet wide with a single span
(the nave of the Church after all had a span of 40
feet) but in most medieval buildings such a span
would have had additional support in two rows of
free-standing inner posts, if more than 25 feet
wide. For this reason in our reconstruction we have
introduced four additional inner posts carrying
roof plates, which in the longitudinal direction of
the building are slightly cantilevered to support the
rafters of the hips of the roof.

416.X.1 PLAN AT GROUND LEVEL

AUTHORS' INTERPRETATION

[ILLUSTRATION]

416.X.3 LONGITUDINAL SECTION, LOOKING SOUTHWARD

416.X.5 ELEVATION LOOKING NORTHWARD

416.X.4 ELEVATION LOOKING SOUTHWARD

416.X.6 ELEVATION LOOKING WESTWARD

Caring for the ill was a primary Christian, and therefore also an important monastic occupation, and included study and transmission of
teachings of the great physicians of classical times. Yet monastic tradition also made it clear that the "ultimate decision about sickness and
health" was "the concern of the Lord," not of man (see above, p. 176), which may explain why the physician, although his arts were often
performed by monks, was not a member of the monastery's regular staff of administrative officers.

Among monastic foundations, the separate House for Bloodletting is, we believe, unique to the Plan of St. Gall, attesting the high curative and
prophylactic value attached to this procedure, and demonstrating the perspicuity of the designers of the Plan, who separated this medical facility
from the infirmary. This made sense because of the large number of monks to be bled, and their convalescent state for a few days afterward. If
the full monastic complement of 130 at St. Gall were to be bled at six-week intervals (1,170 bleedings in a year) as was customary at Ely (cf.
p. 188 below), the Infirmary alone could hardly have served both those with longer-term or contagious illnesses requiring lengthy recuperation
or isolation, and those merely recovering from bleeding.

[ILLUSTRATION]

417. LUTTRELL PSALTER (1340). LONDON, BRITISH MUSEUM, ADD. MS 42130, FOL. 61

[By courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum]

A physician bleeds a patient under the interested gaze of a large kingfisher. The iconography of this bird is ancient and complex; with its
ability to hurl itself into the water and then arise after having apparently drowned, it captured the Christian imagination to become a symbol
for the resurrected Christ. Perhaps its association with the act of bleeding symbolizes the hope of the patient for restored health.

MONASTIC VIEWS ON BLEEDING

The Rule of St. Benedict is silent on the subject of
bleeding,[397] and there is no certainty as to what point in
history bleeding became a regular practice in monastic life.
A description in Bede's Ecclesiastical History of a case of
unsuccessful bloodletting causing intensive swelling and
nearly leading to the death of a nun, suggests that bleeding
was a fully adopted form of medical treatment in the
monasteries of England at the time of Theodore of Tarsus
(669-690). The same story also reveals that when something
went wrong with the operation this was likely to be
attributed not to the use of infectious tools or other forms
of medical malpractice, but to the fact that the operation
was performed at the wrong time: "You have acted
foolishly and ignorantly to bleed her on the fourth day of
the moon," Bede records Bishop Wilfrid of Hexham to
have exclaimed. "I remember how Archibishop Theodore
of blessed memory used to say that it was very dangerous
to bleed a patient when the moon is waxing and the Ocean
tide flowing. And what can I do for the girl if she is at the
point of death?"[398] A book, De minutione sanguis, wrongly
attributed by tradition to the Venerable Bede, recommends
that the blood be let between March 25 and May 26, on the
assumption that this was the season "during which the
blood develops in the human organism" (quia tunc sanguis
augmentum habet). After this period, the operation was to be
undertaken only with a due regard for the qualities of
the seasons and phases of the moon (sed postea observandae
sunt qualitates temporum et cursus lunae).[399]

The first synod of Aachen (816) abolished the custom
according to which large segments of the community were
bled at a fixed date, and ruled that individuals be bled
according to need. It reaffirms the right of those who are
exposed to this treatment to receive a fortifying diet of food
and drink, including at least by implication the otherwise
forbidden meats (Ut certum fleutomiae tempus non obseruent,
sed unicuique secundum quod necessitas expostulat concedatur
et specialis in cibo et potu tunc consolatio prebeatur).[400]

The food for the monks who were bled was doubtlessly
prepared in the kitchen of the Infirmary, which lies directly
to the west of the House for Bloodletting. The number and
length of the tables in this house would permit the simultaneous
feeding of a maximum of thirty-two monks, if we
count 2½ feet as the normal sitting space required by each
monk, as we did in calculating the seating capacity of the
Monk's Refectory.[401] The number of monks to be bled on
a single day could not exceed this figure; and if as many as
thirty-two were bled in a single day, this operation could
not have been extended to others, until the first group to be
treated had gone through the entire cycle of convalescence,
which involved several days of special treatment and care.

[ILLUSTRATION]

418. GRIMANI BREVIARY (1490-1510). ILLUMINATION FOR THE MONTH OF SEPTEMBER

VENICE, BIBLIOTECA DI SAN MARCO, FOL. 10

The breviary affords a painfully realistic view of a physician bleeding a patient. The Grimani Breviary, of uncertain authorship, provenance,
and even date, is one of the finest and most profusely illuminated manuscripts of its class; its 110 illuminations depict labors of the months and
numerous other scenes from daily life, religious festivals, feasts of the saints. The illuminations are from many different hands, mostly Flemish,
a few perhaps French; the style suggests a date nearer the start of the 16th century.

MEDIEVAL PORTRAYALS OF BLEEDING

A marginal illustration in the Luttrell Psalter (fig. 417)
furnishes us with a realistic picture of the performance of
this ubiquitous craft. It shows a physician standing and
bleeding a patient from the right arm. The patient is seated
on a stool and holds a bowl in his left hand to catch the
blood. He keeps his right arm steady by propping it on a
staff or pole while the physician places his left foot on that
of the patient. This appears to have been a standard position
for this kind of operation. It occurs again, almost
feature by feature, in the representation of a similar scene
in the Grimani Breviary (fig. 418).[402] In both cases the blood
is taken from the anticubital vein, in the crook of the elbow,
a preferred place for bloodtaking even today, since here one
of the principal veins comes close to the surface and exposes
itself in a relatively fixed position. The staff or pole, apart
from steadying the patient in a general sense, adds muscular
control to the operation, as it enables the patient to
increase or diminish the flow of blood by locking his fist
around the pole or conversely by relaxing his grip.

PHLEBOTOMY: A MEDIEVAL PANACEA

Phlebotomy was a medical omnium-gatherum used for
curing a bewildering variety of ailments.[403] The Regimen
sanitatis salernitanum, a widely read treatise on medicine,
written at the end of the eleventh century for Robert, Duke
of Normandy, the eldest son of William the Conqueror,
probably by John of Milan, head of the faculty of the School
of Medicine of Salerno at that time,[404] defines its beneficial
effects as follows:

The physician points out that the "superabundance of
spirit" (spiritus uberius) that escapes with the blood is
quickly replenished through the drinking of wine, while
the weakness of the body sustained by bleeding is gradually
repaired by the intake of food.

FROM PHYSICIAN TO BARBER

There is no reason to presume that in the early Middle
Ages bloodletting was performed by persons other than
trained physicians. Alcuin and Walahfrid Strabo refer to
the practice as being performed by medici.[406] But in the later
Middle Ages physicians considered this operation to be
beneath their dignity and conceded it to "barbers" and
"professional bleeders" (rasatores et sanguinatores).[407] In the
twelfth century this change must have been well under way.
A hint of the social milieu from which such secular bleeders
may have emerged and how and where they may have
received their training is found in the Chronicle of the
Abbey of St. Trond, where it is said of one of the monastery's
serfs, a recalcitrant oppidanus (inhabitant of a city)
named Arnulf, that in return for the terms of a tenement
granted to him by the abbey, he was not only to assist the
monks whenever they were bled, but in addition to provide
for the abbot's saddle and spurs, repair the abbey's window,
and perform other minor services, such as keeping all of
the monastery's locks in working condition.[408]

RELIEF FROM DREARINESS OF DAILY ROUTINE

Dom D. Knowles attributes the phenomenal spread of
the practice of bloodletting in monastic life to the "general
feeling of physical malaise" brought about by an unbalanced
diet and the sedentary life of the monks, calling for
some violent form of relief.[409] One of the attractive features
of its practice was that it gave relief from the dreariness of
the daily routine and was associated with a fortifying regime
of food, allowed in compensation for the loss of blood. This
gave to the occasion a touch of recreative pleasure, which
monastic discipline found it difficult to repress.

RULES TO BE FOLLOWED IN THE PRACTICE
OF BLEEDING

A detailed account of special rules to be followed in the
practice of bleeding will be found in Ulric's Antiquiores
consuetudines (d. 1093) of the Monastery of Cluny[410] and the
chapter "Permission for Being Bled" in the Monastic
Constitutions of Lanfranc.[411] From a review of these, and a
variety of other sources,[412] the routine of the monk who subjected
himself to bloodletting went as follows:

After having obtained formal permission to be bled
(licentia minuendi) by petition to the chapter, the brother
left the church at the end of the principal mass and went to
the dormitory to exchange his vestments of the day (diurnales)
for his clothing of the night (nocturnales) which he
retained for the three days of rest that followed his operation.
The operation was initiated with a brief prayer which
began with the verse Deus in adjutorium meum intende. (In
the Benedictine monastery this prayer was preceded by an
inclination of the body called ante et retro.) The incision
was made in the morning, save for the time of Lent, when
it was done after vespers. The patients were issued bandages
of linen (fasciae, ligaturae, ligamenta brachiorum, bendae,
arcedo) with which to wrap their arms. Some consuetudinaries
recommend that before being bled a monk should
pass by the kitchen to have his arm warmed.

During recovery the patients were not held to their
regular duties in the choir, but had leave to rise later than
the others and to recite only a part of the divine office.
Moreover, they were at liberty to take walks in the monastery's
vineyards and meadows. Their diet, as already
mentioned, made allowance not only for the ordinarily forbidden
meats, but also for greater abundance. During the
periods when the rest of the community ate only one meal,
the frater minuendus ate two; on all other occasions, three:
the mixtum, the prandium and the coena.

It is obvious that in view of all these special privileges,
bloodletting acquired an attraction that in the minds of
some of the more conservative members of the community
bordered on dissipation; and the monastic consuetudinaries,
indeed, abound with admonitions aimed at curtailing
the spread of merriment, if not of outright breaches of
discipline, with which this activity tended to be associated.
A main concern of those who were in charge of monastic
discipline was to prevent the seynies from coinciding with
important religious festivities; others felt it necessary to
restrict the repetition of the privilege to certain cycles. The
monastery of St. Augustine in Canterbury allowed the
monks to be bled in intervals of seven weeks; at Ely the
interval was six; in other monasteries it was only five or
four times per year that a monk could be bled.

The reconstruction of the House for Bloodletting poses
problems of a special kind. Safety of construction, in the
presence of so many corner fireplaces, requires that its
walls be built in masonry. The house is not inhabited by
any permanent residents and serves one purpose only:
bleeding and recovering from this treatment. There is no
need for the designation of any internal boundaries between
the primary function of the building and such subsidiary
functions as sleeping or stabling animals which in the plans
of other buildings led to the delineation of aisles and leanto's;
and this is the reason, in our opinion, why the drafting
architect showed it as a unitary all-purpose space. Yet the
size of the building argues against the assumption that it
was surmounted by a roof that spanned the entire width of
the house in a single span. For the nave of a church a roof
span of 35 feet would be normal practice in this period, but
in a simple service structure it would be an anomaly. We
have introduced in our reconstruction of the House for
Bloodletting two inner ranges of roof-supporting posts
whose presence cannot be proven from the simple analysis
of the plan of this building.[413]

[ILLUSTRATION]

SITE PLAN

V. 11

THE HOUSES FOR WORKMEN
AND CRAFTSMEN

V.11.1

INTRAMURAL PRACTICE OF CRAFTS

BENEDICTINE AMBIGUITIES

The Rule of St. Benedict did not specifically regulate the
location of the monastic workshops. The only reference to
artifices occurs in chapter 57 where St. Benedict stipulates
"if there be craftsmen in the monastery, let them practice
their crafts with all humility" and "let the goods always
be sold a little cheaper than they are sold by people of the
world."[414] The conditional "if" clause of this sentence,
which implies that under certain conditions the craftsmen
were housed outside the monastic enclosure, caused confusion;
the more so, since it contradicted the famous passage
in the Rule that declares, the "monastery, if possible,
should be so constituted as to contain within itself every
necessity of life. . . so as to avoid that the monks stray
outside of its bounds which is not good for their souls."[415]

CLARIFYING DIRECTIVES ISSUED AT AACHEN

The first synod of Aachen (816) attempted to solve this
problem, and Bishop Haito, in accordance with a directive
issued there, ruled that the craftsmen "be instructed to
perform their work henceforward not without, as heretofore,
but within the monastic enclosure" (non forinsecus
sicut actenus, sed intrinsecus).[416] The Plan of St. Gall conforms
with this rule and provides for two large buildings to take
care of these activities: a Great Collective Workshop, in
which the majority of the monastery's workmen and craftsmen
work and live, and a House for the Coopers and Wheelwrights.
The Great Collective Workshop lies directly south
of the Refectory, between the Granary and the Monks'
Bake and Brew House; the House for the Coopers and
Wheelwrights is at the southwestern end of the claustral
block, in convenient proximity to the Monks' Cellar and
the House for Horses and Oxen.

V.11.2

THE GREAT COLLECTIVE WORKSHOP

Not counting the large untitled building in the northwestern
corner of the monastery, this is the most spacious
of the guest and service buildings of the Plan of St. Gall.
It consists of a main building and an annex, separated from
one another by a narrow court (fig. 419). The main building
is 55 feet wide and 80 feet long; the annex is 27½ feet by
80 feet. Together with their court, which is 10 feet wide,
these installations cover a surface area of 7,200 square feet.
Their function is explained by the hexameter:

The monastic official referred to in this title is the Chamberlain,
who is in charge of the production and maintenance of
the monastery's material supplies and tools, including the
community's footwear and clothing.[418]

THE MAIN BUILDING

The chamberlain's hall and workshop

The layout of the main house (fig. 419) is similar to that of
the Outer School. In both cases, the center hall is divided
by a median wall partition into two equal halves, each
furnished with its own hearth and louver; however, in the
Collective Workshop this partition extends across the entire
width of the hall and has no doors between the two rooms
thus segregated. Each has its separate entrance and exit,
yet both are designated by the collective title, "the chamberlain's
hall and workshop" (domus & officina camerarii).
The coupling of the denotation domus and officina makes
clear that the two center spaces of the Great Collective
Workshop perform the dual function of serving both as
living room and as supplementary work space.

It would be unreasonable to assume that the Chamberlain,
who was in charge of the work performed in this house,
also resided and slept there.[419] His rank in the monastic
polity, had he shared quarters with the workmen, would
have called for a private bedroom with corner fireplace and
private toilet facilities, which do not exist in this building.
The Chamberlain either slept in the Dormitory for the
regular monks, or, more likely, shared the sleeping quarters
of the abbot, to whom he was closely attached not only by
grave responsibilities of his office, but also—at least in
some of the monastic orders—by certain specific duties of
a personal nature.[420] The two central halls of the house,
designated as "the chamberlain's hall and workshop," are
the rooms where the chamberlain conferred with his craftsmen,
assigned workloads, and inspected the finished products.
They were also the place where the workmen, in their
hours of rest, could congregate around the open fire, prepare
and eat their meals.[421] The designer of the Plan was aware of
the fact that the work performed in these rooms required
special lighting conditions, and he met this need with a
double set of louvers capable of flooding the interior of this
house with an abundance of light.

Crafts performed in peripheral workshops

Peripherally ranged around these two center spaces are
the quarters of the workmen, measuring 12½ feet by 32½
feet and 12½ feet by 30 feet, respectively. They are distributed
as follows: on the entrance side, to the left and right
of the vestibule, the "shoemakers" (sutores) and the "saddlers"

[ILLUSTRATION]

419. PLAN OF ST. GALL. GREAT COLLECTIVE WORKSHOP

MAIN WORKSHOP AND ITS ANNEX

The layout of the main house here is identical with what we refer to as the "standard house" of the Plan: a large rectangular center space
with open fireplace serving as living room, with peripheral outer rooms around it (figs. 392, 397, 402, 404, 407). The Workshop, as in the
Outer School, is divided by a median wall partition into two center areas, each with its own fireplace. These rooms are designated the office
and dwelling of the chamberlain, whose duty it was to oversee the craftsmen who used the shop.

Although housing a great variety of activities, the shop was neatly balanced in its division: flanking the north vestibule were leatherworkers
(shoemakers, saddlers); in the center, flanking the chamberlain's quarters were metalworkers (grinders, sword polishers); on the south were those
engaged in finish work: woodworkers who made tools and utensils, and curriers who prepared leather for various purposes. In the Annex were
placed those activities involving fire hazards (goldsmithing, blacksmithing) and the fullers, who probably shared some craft facilities with the
curriers, across the aisle to their north.

[ILLUSTRATION]

PLAN OF ST. GALL. GREAT COLLECTIVE WORKSHOP. AUTHORS' INTERPRETATION

420.B

420.A

GROUND PLAN AND LONGITUDINAL SECTION

This Workshop affords a notable embodiment of the enterprising and innovative spirit of the men who developed the Plan. In marked contrast
to the secular world, where craftsmen tended to be isolated and scattered over a wider geographic area, perhaps among several villages, the
workmen of the Plan were assembled under one roof. Here they manufactured tools, utensils, harness and saddle gear and footwear, as well as
weaponry; the farrier as well as the goldsmith were housed here. The aisled hall, with its constructionally conditioned bay division, lent itself
with ease to such intensive and disparate use.

[ILLUSTRATION]

PLAN OF ST. GALL. GREAT COLLECTIVE WORKSHOP. AUTHORS' INTERPRETATION

420.D

420.C

SOUTH ELEVATION AND NORTH ELEVATION

The criteria for reconstructing this building are the same governing those of the reconstructions of the Hospice for Pilgrims and Paupers (figs.
393.A-E), House for Distinguished Guests (figs. 397.A-F), and the Outer School (fig. 408.A-F). We have gone on the assumption that this
workshop was built entirely in wood. The layout makes perfect sense if we presume the roof was supported by five principal trusses (fig. 420.
A-B) with hips over each terminal bay. As in all other houses of this type there is only one entrance, in the middle of the northern long wall.

[ILLUSTRATION]

PLAN OF ST. GALL. GREAT COLLECTIVE WORKSHOP. AUTHORS' INTERPRETATION

420.F

420.E

WEST ELEVATION AND TRANSVERSE SECTION WITH ANNEX (AT RIGHT)

Our assumption that the house had windows to admit light to the outer rooms is purely conjectural. They may have been needed for functional
reasons, since these rooms were probably to be used for both sleeping and working. Windows were not part of the pre- and protohistoric
tradition of this building type, because they afforded the risk that a house could be entered through them by enemies, a primary consideration
for people living in small groups and at considerable distance from one another, and dependent solely upon themselves for defense.

[ILLUSTRATION]

PLAN OF ST. GALL. GREAT COLLECTIVE WORKSHOP, ANNEX. AUTHORS' INTERPRETATION

421.C

421.B

421.A

PLAN, LONGITUDINAL SECTION, AND NORTH ELEVATION

The layout is identical with that of the Annex of the Abbot's House (fig. 251): a main space, internally divided into three areas for the
performance of different tasks, plus a lean-to, also tripartite, serving as bedrooms for the Coopers and Wheelwrights. That the space between
the main house and the annex should be interpreted as an open court may be inferred from its comparison with the Abbot's House (fig. 251) and
the Hospice for Pilgrims and Paupers (fig. 392) where main house and annex are separated in a similar way.

(sellarii). Their duties require no further comment.
In the two lean-to's at the western and eastern end of the
house are the "grinders or polishers of swords" (emundatores
† politores gladiorum) and the "shieldmakers" (scutarii).
Their presence is not surprising in view of the monastery's
military obligations, discussed in an earlier chapter.[422] The
"grinders and polishers of swords" were probably also in
charge of the production of the monastery's cutlery and
other cutting tools.[423] This is suggested by the fact that this
work is not assigned to any other craftsmen listed on the
Plan. By the same token, the shieldmakers, too, may have
been involved in the manufacture of tools other than
shields. The two rooms in the southern aisle of the house,
to the left and right of the vestibule that gives access to
court and annex, are occupied by the "turners" (tornatores)
and the "curriers" (coriarii). The turners are the men who
manufacture the wooden bowls, dishes, and trays that are
used in eating, the handles of such tools as axes and hoes,
and perhaps the smaller pieces of furniture, such as cupboards
and chairs. Their work may also have included the
making of wooden sculpture.[424] The curriers dress and prepare
leather after tanning; they pare off roughnesses and
inequalities and make the leather soft and pliable. Since the
Plan does not provide for any special facilities for the manufacture
of parchment, it is probable that the curriers' workshop
was also the place where this important material was
made.

The stripping of hides, whether used for the production
of parchment or other commodities, depended on the
availability of water and lime, which was also needed by
the fullers who were quartered in the Annex. It is no accident
that the workshops of the curriers and the fullers face
each other on either side of an open court, where lime pits
and other baths can be installed easily.[425]

Presumptive number of craftsmen

There is no doubt in my mind that the aisles and leanto's
of the Great Collective Workshop were the sleeping
quarters for the men who worked there. This was the traditional
space for sleeping in this type of house.[426] To what
extent the aisles and lean-to's were used additionally as
workshops would have depended on the number of men
they housed, and the amount of floor space left after they
were bedded. If beds were arranged in a single file along the
outer walls of the house, as is the case in most of the other
places of the Plan where beds are shown,[427] the main house
could have accommodated twenty-eight workmen. Another
four men could have been established with comfort in each
of the three workshops of the Annex, which would bring
the total of men in the Great Collective Workshop to forty.
I do not know whether any good comparative figures are
available for this sort of count. Abbot Adalhard of Corbie,
whose monastery was considerably larger than that described
on the Plan of St. Gall, lists the following as the
regular contigent of laymen employed at Corbie:

If we subtract from this roll those laymen who on the Plan
of St. Gall are installed in other houses or have no special
space assigned to them (physicians, carpenters, masons,
and various others stationed at the Cellar, the Dispensary,
and the Infirmary), the remaining number of laymen is
twenty-one, including eleven who on the Plan of St. Gall
are installed in the Annex (blacksmiths, goldsmiths, and
metal founders).

It is hard to say whether such a comparison has any validity,
since Corbie, in addition to the craftsmen here listed,
had also no fewer than 150 prebends (adult oblates, who
received their daily sustenance in return for the performance
of some craft or service),[429] many of whom may have
helped to supplement the work of the regular craftsmen.
In any case it appears to me safe to deduce from the layout
of the Great Collective Workshop that at the time of Louis

[ILLUSTRATION]

422. PLAN OF ST. GALL. HOUSE FOR COOPERS & WHEELWRIGHTS & BREWERS' GRANARY

The layout of this building is in essence the same as that for the Annex to the Great Collective Workshop, with the exception that there are
no bedrooms, of course, associated with the Brewers' Granary. Of some significance as a trait of the general efficiency of the Plan is the large
L- shaped yard lying to the west and south of this structure. It was large enough to afford turn-around access for carts bound for the granary,
while carts or barrels under repair might be conveniently stored in the cul-de-sac forming the southern arm of the L.

the Pious a crew of plus or minus forty artifices (not counting
the coopers and wheelwrights installed in a separate
building) was considered to be the normal contingent of
craftsmen needed for the manufacture of the material requirements
of a monastic settlement, comprised of 250 to
270 souls.[430]

There is no question in my mind that the architect who
drew the plan of the Great Collective Workshop not only
had a clear idea of the number of men to be installed in this
structure and how they should be distributed throughout
the various workshops, but also was equally well informed
about the space requirements involved in each individual
craft, their functional interdependence, and the special
demands for lighting, heating, and fire protection, as we
shall see presently. As in all other buildings of this type,
there is good reason to assume that the walls that separated
the individual workshops from the center halls were not of
rigid construction, since the workmen in these outer spaces
depended on the two central fireplaces in the hall and the
two louvers in the roof above them for their warmth and
light. I should imagine that even the Workshop's interior
looked like a large open barn with barriers substantial
enough to give the workmen that autonomous feeling indispensable
to the performance of their skills, yet not so
obstructive as to preclude almost everyone's remaining in
sight of each other.

THE ANNEX

The crafts performed in the annex

The Annex (figs. 419 and 421) is as long as the main house,
but furnished with a single aisle along its southern side
and has a total depth of only 27½ feet. It is subdivided by
cross partitions into three equal spaces, which contain the
workshops of "goldsmiths" (aurifices), "blacksmiths"
(fabri feram̄torum), and "fullers" (fullones) and in the rear
along the outer wall "their bedrooms" (eorundem mansiunculae).
The annex has no separate entrance. It is accessible
through the main building, from which it is separated by a
courtyard 10 feet wide.

[ILLUSTRATION]

423. BOOKS OF HOURS (1460-1480), LABORS OF THE MONTH OF AUGUST

MUSÉE CONDÉ, CHANTILLY. MS. 1362

[courtesy of the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris]

Coopers work in the village street. Some are hammering hoops of tubs and barrels into final position with wooden mallets and wedges. Others
plane and bevel staves on benches. Two sets of finished barrels are ready for shipment. They have the same shape as the small barrels drawn in
the Cellar of the Plan of St. Gall (fig. I 225) and on the Roman and medieval monuments shown in figs. I 233 and I 234.

The manuscript, once belonging to Adelaide of Savoy, Duchess of Burgundy and mother of Louis XV, is from the school of Jean Foucquet.

It is one of a small group of manuscripts which frame the script with a narrative, rather than an ornamental, surround. (For other illustrations
by the same hand in the same manuscript, see Bouissounouse, 1925, pl. i-xxiv.)

[ILLUSTRATION]

424. LUTTRELL PSALTER (1340)

LONDON, BRITISH MUSEUM. ADD. MS. 42130, FOL. 163

The simple caisson, an old standard for cargo carts, appears on Trajan's column and in the Bayeux Tapestry, attesting the practicality of the
form over many centuries. As farm cart it might with equal ease haul tuns, loose hay, bushels of turnips; the empty cart of the psalter reveals
braided wattle sides that may have been removeable. Its spiked wheels and spike-shod horses indicate this cart type was intended for heavy
work. If not entirely fanciful, the wheel diameter, compared with the size of the draft animals, may afford some notion of the size such a cart
might attain.

To put the workshops of the smiths and fullers under a
separate roof and segregate them from the other craftsmen
by an open court is an extremely sensible procedure. The
fullers need pits for lye and fuller's clay. And the work of
the smiths is associated with enervating noise and high intensity
fires. Their equipment is heavier and requires more
floor space than many of the other crafts. Hildemar lists as
the blacksmiths' tools, the "hammer" (malleus), the "anvil"
(incus), the "prongs" (forcipes), the "bellows" (follis), the
"turning wheel" (rota), the "grapple hook" (foscina), and
the "hearth" (focus),[431] and tells us that with these they
manufacture "swords, lances, hoes, axes, and files."[432] The
task of the fullers was to cleanse, shrink, and thicken clothes
by moisture, heat, and pressure. Their work was dependent
on access to open pits where the cloth could be soaked in
water mixed with detergents (fuller's clay) absorbing the
grease and oil of the cloth. There is no indication on the
Plan of St. Gall that this work was mechanized, unless the
fullers were permitted to use one of the water-powered
triphammers in the nearby Mortar House for this work.[433]

Absence of tailors and weavers

Attention must also be drawn to the absence of facilities
for tailors (sartores). This may suggest that the monks themselves
did the main work of cutting and tailoring clothes in
the large Vestiary that occupied the floor above the Refectory—a
conjecture that is corroborated by a remark in
Hildemar's commentary to the Rule of St. Benedict. It is
said there that the monks who are engaged in tailoring
clothes will have to disrupt their work instantly when the
bell for the divine service is struck, and must not even pull
the needle, awl, and thread (seta, literally "bristle" or
"bristly hair") out of the piece of cloth or leather on which
they are working.[434]

Lastly, it must be noted that the monastery has no
facilities for weaving. This is easily explained, because
weaving was historically a craft performed by women[435] who,
of course, had no place in a monastic settlement for men.
Moreover, it is quite possible that most of the monks'
clothing was not woven, but produced by the process of
felting, i.e., the bringing together of masses of loose fibers

[ILLUSTRATION]

425.A PLAN OF ST. GALL. HOUSE FOR COOPERS & WHEELWRIGHTS & BREWERS' GRANARY

AUTHORS' INTERPRETATION

The association of two workshops with a granary is seemingly in recognition of the size of the space required for all three activities: no less
than a barn-size structure would provide sufficient floor space for making large barrels and utility carts and fittings and a threshing floor.
Temporary storage of unfinished and damaged carts and barrels was probably one consideration determining the size of this building. We have
reconstructed this house according to the same criteria that guided that of the Annex of the Great Collective Workshop and that of the Abbot's
House.

of wool under the combined influence of heat, moisture,
and friction until they became firmly interlocked in every
direction. This task, of course, could be performed by the
fullers.

It is an interesting commentary on the social and economic
structure of the period that it is within this primarily
industrial environment, composed of laymen and serfs, that
we also find the noble craftsmen, the goldsmiths, who furnished
the church with its sacred vessels and reliquaries
and the library with its precious jeweled covers for books.

The Great Collective Workshop is an impressive example
of industrial organization. Contracting into one establishment
practically all the services required for the community's
material survival, it reveals on the level of the service
building the same propensity for systematic architectural
integration which in the layout of the Church had led to a
combination of liturgical functions that had formerly been
distributed over separate sanctuaries.[436] The same spirit had
produced an equally ingenious combination of functions in
the great architectural complex that encompasses the
Novitiate and the Infirmary.[437]

V.11.3

HOUSE FOR COOPERS & WHEELWRIGHTS

The workshops and sleeping quarters of the Coopers and
Wheelwrights are installed in a rectangular building, 90
feet long and 35 feet wide (fig. 422), connected to the
Granary of the Brewers. Its axis runs from south to north,
and it is located midway between the Monks' Cellar and the

[ILLUSTRATION]

PLAN OF ST. GALL. HOUSE FOR COOPERS & WHEELWRIGHTS & BREWERS' GRANARY

425.C

425.B

WEST ELEVATION, LONGITUDINAL SECTION

AUTHORS' INTERPRETATION

House for Horses and Oxen, both of which are dependent
on its services. That it is part of the installations that come
under the supervision of the Chamberlain is expressed in
the superscribed hexameter:

The house is subdivided by a median cross partition into
two equal halves each of a surface area of 27½ feet by 35
feet, one designated as the "hall of the coopers," (tunnariorum
domus), the other as the "hall of the wheelwrights" (tornari-
orum). Their sleeping quarters (famulorum cubi) are in an
aisle attached to the western side of the house, likewise
divided into two equal halves, each of which is capable of
bedding five workmen.

The craft of the coopers needs no further comment. The
product of their handiwork is proudly displayed on the
Plan itself in the form of two impressive rows of barrels
shown in the ground plan of the Monks' Cellar (fig. 225).
These show them capable of producing the staves and
hoops for casks 15 feet long and with a central diameter
of 10 feet. They also made wooden tubs, pails, churns,
and other even-staved vessels for holding liquids used in
bathing, laundering, cooking, and cheese making; or for

[ILLUSTRATION]

PLAN OF ST. GALL. HOUSE FOR COOPERS & WHEELWRIGHTS & BREWERS' GRANARY

425.D

Each of the workshops in this house is 30 feet long (12 standard modules) and 25 feet wide in the work areas (10 standard modules), suggesting
that the part of the structure housing facilities for coopers and wheelwrights was divided lengthwise into six bays, each 10 feet deep. Such a
division would be reflected externally (fig. 425.D) and internally (figs. 425.B and E) in the location of the roof supporting uprights as well as
their connecting tie beams.

Our reconstruction of the Brewers' Granary as a cross wing is purely conjectural, based on the internal symmetry established by the great cross
of the threshing floor: it appeared to call for a space based on the concept of a square rather than of two units of longitudinal axis.

EAST ELEVATION

AUTHORS' INTERPRETATION

storing salted meats and other pickled staples; and likewise,
of course, the barrels used in transportation. Their
work required heat for the proper steaming and bending
of the staves (fig. 423).

The work of the tornarii, who occupy the other workshop
in this building, must have been closely related to that of
the tornatores in the Great Collective Workshop. The terms
are interchangeable, both relating to the same skill, i.e., the
manufacture of wooden tools or pieces of equipment that
had to be fashioned on the turner's lathe. Because the floor
space of the tornarii (27½ feet by 35 feet) is more than twice
that allotted to the tornatores (12½ feet by 32½ feet)—and
also because of its proximity to the house in which the
draft animals are stabled—I would designate the [domus]
tornariorum as the hall of the wheelwrights, whose craft,
like that of their neighbors, the coopers, depends on special
care and skill. They are the makers of the carts and wagons
needed to haul in the harvest of grain and hay (fig. 424),
to carry to the frozen fields fertilizing waste, and to bring
in supplies obtained from the outlying estates. They are
the makers of the ploughs and yokes, and whatever other
wooden equipment is required in the harnessing of draft
animals—the makers, also, when special conditions demand,
of that proficient make of military transport,
which the Capitulare de villis describes in such vivid terms:

[ILLUSTRATION]

425.F PLAN OF ST. GALL. HOUSE FOR COOPERS & WHEELWRIGHTS & BREWERS' GRANARY

TRANSVERSE SECTION AND NORTH ELEVATION

AUTHORS' INTERPRETATION

The side or aisle rooms serving as bedrooms for the coopers and wheelwrights are juxtaposed lean-to fashion along the western long wall of the
two workshops. Structural necessities dictate such a choice in this type of building; for a general analysis of the relation of outer to inner
spaces see our remarks above, pp. 82-85ff.

Although the workshops of the coopers and wheelwrights
are part of a long rectangular structure, which also
includes the Brewers' Granary, they do not appear to be of
identical design with the latter. The roof line of the workshops
of the coopers and wheelwrights runs from south to
north, in the center axis of these two workshops, to which
the bedrooms are attached as subordinate entities in the
west. The section that contains the Brewers' Granary, on
the other hand, looks as though its ridge might have run
from west to east, like the center portion of the House for
Horses and Oxen. We reconstructed it in the manner
shown in figure 425A-F.

V. 12

HOUSE OF THE GARDENER & THE
MONKS' VEGETABLE GARDEN

V.12.1

THE GARDENER'S RANK

Since the monks lived primarily on a vegetable diet, the
management of the monastic gardens was a responsibility
of prime importance. The official in charge of this task was
the Gardener (hortolanus), often not a monk but a layman.
On the Plan of St. Gall he is provided with his own house.
His high position in the monastic community is reflected by
the fact that within this house he occupies an aisle all by
himself, and, more significantly, that this part of the house
is equipped with a corner fireplace, a privilege not accorded
to any other person in the monastery's agricultural sector.

The Gardener's House lies in the eastern tract of the
monastery next to the Cemetery, at the head of the Monks'
Vegetable Garden. Together with the latter it occupies a
plot of land 125 feet long and 52½ feet wide.

V.12.2

HOUSE OF THE GARDENER & HIS CREW

The House of the Gardener (fig. 426) measures 35 feet by
52½ feet. It consists of "the house itself" (ipsa domus), i.e.,
the common living room with its central fireplace[439] and three
aisles attached to it, one to the east, one to the north, and
one to the south. The west wall of the center room remains
exposed and contains the principal entrance. The southern
aisle of the house serves as "dwelling of the gardener"
(mansio hortolani). The eastern aisle is divided into two
rooms, which are designated as "sleeping quarters for the
servants" (cubilia famulorum). They are separated from one
another by a vestibule which gives access to the Garden.
The northern aisle of the house is "a storage place for the
garden tools and for the vegetable seeds" (hic ferram̄ta
reseruant' & seminaria olerū).

Abbot Adalhard in his manual on the economic management
of the monastery of Corbie gives us an account of the
kind of tools we may expect to find in this room; he also
tells us by whom they are supplied and kept in repair:

In our reconstruction of the Gardener's House (fig. 427,
A-F) we have kept the roof line of the peripheral spaces on
the same level, which leaves the upper parts of the walls on
the two narrow sides of the center space exposed as timber
framed gables. Another alternative would have been to lead
the rafters on the two narrow sides of the house up to a
cross piece near the ridge of the main roof, as we have done
in all of the larger guest and service buildings where hipped
roofs have clear constructional advantages. In small houses,
such as the Gardener's House, the solution here suggested
might have been the simpler one, provided that the rafters
of the main roof were protected against longitudinal displacement
by some secondary provision, such as a center
purlin framed into collar pieces. This is a very common
stabilizing device in English roof construction of the thirteenth
and fourteenth centuries (a typical example is St.
Mary's Hospital in Chichester, above fig. 342). Whether
we can expect it to have been used on the continent in
Carolingian times is another question.

V.12.3

THE MONKS' VEGETABLE GARDEN

The Monks' Vegetable Garden (HORTUS) lies to the east
of the Gardener's House and to the south of the shadowing
fruit trees of the Cemetery (fig. 426). It covers a rectangular
plot of land 52½ feet wide and 82½ feet long, and is entirely
surrounded by a wall or a fence, having a single entrance
at the side which faces the Gardener's House. Internally the
garden is divided into two rows of planting beds separated
from one another by a central path that carries the inscription
"Here the planted vegetables flourish in beauty" (Hic
plantata holerum pulchre nascentia uernant"). There are nine
planting beds in each row. They are separated from one another
by eight crosswalks, and from the surrounding wall or
fence, by a continuous peripheral walk, all of the same width.
We have to imagine the planting surface of these beds as
being raised above the level of the walks and framed in by
planks held in place by stakes. This is suggested by a passage
in Walahfrid Strabo's Hortulus[440] as well as a variety of
paintings and drawings of medieval gardens, such as the
famous hortus conclusus (Paradiesgärtlein) in the Städelsches
Kunstinstitut of Frankfurt, painted around 1410 by an
unknown Rhenish master;[441] the charming illustrations of
the labors of the month of April in the Heures de Turin (fig.
428), or the illumination of a garden with clipped trees in
the Grimani Breviary (fig. 429).[442]

2 Consuetudines Corbeienses, chap. 4, ed. Semmler, in Corp. Cons.
Mon., I, 1963, 381. For difficult and unexplainable terms, see translation
and annotations to this passage, III, 108f and notes 76-82.

[ILLUSTRATION]

426. PLAN

[ILLUSTRATION]

426.X PLAN OF ST. GALL.
HOUSE OF THE GARDENER AND HIS CREW AND MONKS' VEGETABLE GARDEN

The position of the Monks' Vegetable Garden between the Orchard (y) and the poultry runs (21, 23) as well as its proximity to the Monks'
Latrine (4) demonstrates the awareness for functional inter-relationships characterizing the intelligence of those who designed the Plan. Both
Orchard and Garden come under the care of the Gardener. The Garden would have drawn the most effective fertilizer from the nitrogen-rich
droppings of the nearby fowl yards; grain feed for chickens and geese (the Granary is in close proximity) could be augmented by trimmings from
the vegetables. However, the most important source for fertilizer might have been the Monks' Privy, if the waste there was not swept away
through water channels but (as seems more reasonable to assume) was gathered in settling tanks.

The garden plots were devoted largely to what we today consider to be seasonings or spices; with root crops in need of more space than that
available within the monastic compound, and therefore grown on land outside the walls, the produce of the garden could be largely devoted to
crops for enhancing the flavors of the monks' heavily vegetarian diet.

Each bed of the Monks' Vegetable Garden is used for
the cultivation of a specific type of plant, the name of which
is entered by the hand of the second scribe in the pale ink
that characterizes his writing.[443] Read from top to bottom in
the sequence in which they were written they are:

SOUTHERN ROW

                 

1.	cepas	onion (allium cepas L.)[444]
2.	porros	leek (allium porrum L.)
3.	apium	celery (apium graveolens L.)
4.	coliandrum	coriander (coriandrum sativum L.)
5.	an&um	dill (anetum graveolens L.)
6.	papaver	poppy (papaver somniferum L.)
7.	radices	radish (raphanus sativus L.)
8.	magones	poppy[445] (papaver . . . L.)
9.	betas	chard (beta vulgaris or beta cicla L.)

NORTHERN ROW

                 

10.	alias	garlic (allium sativum L.)
11.	ascolonias	shallot (allium ascolonicum L.)
12.	p&rosilium	parsley (apium petrosilium L.)
13.	cerefolium	chervil (anthriscus cerefolium Hofmann)
14.	lactuca	lettuce (lactuca scariola L.)
15.	sataregia	pepperwort (satureia hortensis L.)
16.	pastinchus	parsnip (pastinaca sativa L.)
17.	caulas	cabbage (brassica oleracea L.)
18.	gitto	fennel (nigella satira L.)

Then the garden patch is baked with the gust of the South wind and the heat
of the sun, and the flat-planted bed, lest it slide away, is raised a little higher than
the flat ground with wooden squares.

[ILLUSTRATION]

PLAN OF ST. GALL. HOUSE OF THE GARDENER AND HIS CREW

427.C WEST ELEVATION

The entrance, located in the middle of the western
long wall, leads directly into the common living
room. The northern lean-to with corner fireplace
serves as the Gardener's private dwelling.

427.B LONGITUDINAL SECTION

The door in the center leads from the common
living room into a vestibule which gives access to
the servants' quarters and has an exit to the
Garden.

427.A GROUND PLAN

Since the Gardener's private room had a corner
fireplace, it was independent of the communal
fireplace in the living room and could have been
separated from the rest of the house by wall
partitions as well as by a ceiling. If provided with
a ceiling it would have needed windows in the
outer wall for light and air.

AUTHORS' INTERPRETATION

[ILLUSTRATION]

427.F NORTH ELEVATION

The Gardener's private dwelling is a lean-to
attached to the northern end of the communal
living room. Whether its roof ended on the level
here shown or reached up to the ridge in the form
of a hip, is impossible to ascertain.

427.E SOUTH ELEVATION

The southern lean-to serves as tool shed. It
received its light and warmth (if any) from the
fireplace and louver in the communal living room.

427.D TRANSVERSE SECTION

The door to the left connects the living room with
the Gardener's private dwelling. The door to the
right leads from a vestibule, located in the middle
of the eastern aisle of the house into one of the
two bedrooms of the servants.

The layout of the Gardener's House is identical with that of the House for Cows and Cowherds (fig. 438) and the House for Foaling Mares and
their Keepers. (fig. 487). In all of these the common living room with the traditional open fireplace is surrounded with subsidiary outer spaces
on three sides only. The entrance is in the middle of the wall that lacks an aisle. The House of the Physicians (fig. 410) belongs to the same
family of structures.

[ILLUSTRATION]

428. HEURES DE TURIN (CA. 1390). LABORS OF THE MONTH OF APRIL

(FORMERLY) TURIN, BIBLIOTECA NAZIONALE, MS. K. IV. 29, FOL. 4, DETAIL

[after Durrieu, 1902, pl. IV]

The scene showing the seeding of staked and raised garden beds is one of twelve calendar pictures forming part of a manuscript begun at the
end of the fourteenth century for the Duc de Berry, but never finished. Before 1413 the manuscript was held by Robinet d'Estampes, keeper
of de Berry's jewels. Other parts of the same manuscript are in the Museo Civico of Turin, and the Bibliotheque Nationale and the Louvre,
Paris. The fragment shown above perished in a fire that destroyed the whole library in 1904; fortunately, Durrieu had published it two years
earlier.

Sörrensen points out that most of these plants, although
not native to the north, are still today the main stock of a
well-planned vegetable garden.[446] Their choice discloses that
this garden was primarily a kitchen garden. It does not
include such crops as beans, lentils, beets, carrots, and the
bulkier cabbage varieties whose cultivation required larger
plots. These heavier crops must have been raised in the
outlying fields.

In a monastery like the one represented on the Plan of
St. Gall, around 250 men had to be fed each day.[447] The
Abbey of Corbie, which had to feed over 400 persons daily,
maintained four gardens outside the monastery walls under
the direction of four gardeners (hortolani) who were assisted
by eight prebends (prouendarii) and a large number of
workmen from the neighboring villae whose exclusive task
it was, between April 15 and October 15, to hoe and weed
the land as well as to repair its huts and fences.[448] This and
the fact that each gardener had at his disposal an ox and
a plow suggests that the gardens outside were large.[449]

In addition to the crops harvested from the gardens and
fields managed by the monks themselves, there were those
which the monastery received as tithes from its leased
possessions. Accounts of the Abbey of St. Gall tell us of
deliveries of beans from its lands at Gossau, Geberardiswiller,
Arnegg, Tiefenbach, and Opferdingen, as well as of
large shipments of leek, such as the "thirty loads of leek"
(XXX pondera porri) which were annually transported to
St. Gall from Hohenweiler in the Voralberg or Scheidegg
in Bavaria.[450] Lastly, the local produce was enriched by
staples imported from the south, such as olives, lemons,
dates, raisins, pomegranates, and chestnuts. Most of these
latter goods the Abbey of St. Gall imported from the
monastery of Bobbio in Lombardy, with which it entertained
a lively trade.[451]

[ILLUSTRATION]

GRIMANI BREVIARY (CA. 1490). GARDEN WITH TOPIARY TREES

429.

This masterpiece of illumination, of
uncertain authorship, provenance, and
date, was made at the period of
transition between the Middle Ages
and the Renaissance. The style of the
manuscript, in which many masters
collaborated (the majority Flemish, a
few perhaps French), suggests a date
between 1490 and 1510, probably
nearer the latter according to David
Diringer (The Illuminated Book;
New York-Washington, rev. ed.
1967, p. 455). The manuscript, one
of the largest in existence, is composed
of 832 leaves measuring 22 × 28 cm.
It was published in a facsimile edition
of thirteen volumes (ed. Scato de
Vries) in 1903-1908.

VENICE, BIBLIOTECA DI SAN MARCO. FOL. 613

[after Morpurgo and de Vries, I, 1903-1908, pl. 1165]

A typical late medieval "Ziergarten" (decorative pleasure garden) shows planting beds raised by means of staked boards above the level of
the walks, as in Walahfrid Strabo's garden (above, p. 183). The beds are laid out in two rows and are framed by a peripheral row of bordering
beds, as in the Medicinal Herb Garden (figs. 414-415).

[ILLUSTRATION]

PLAN OF ST. GALL. MONKS' CEMETERY AND ORCHARD

430.

The cemetery contains thirteen planting
areas for trees and fourteen (= twice
seven) burial plots. Seven of them lie to
the east of the great cross in the center,
and seven of them at and below it. It is
probably not an accidental arrangement
but rather one of the countless examples of
preoccupation of the drafters of the Plan
with sacred numbers. Thirteen evokes the
memory of Christ and the twelve
Apostles and in particular their
congregation at the supper that preceded
His death. (The tendril-shaped symbol
used to locate the trees of the orchard is
a key to identifying the designer of the
original Plan; see I, 27ff).

The number seven, Augustus writes,
expressed "the wholeness and completeness
of all created things" (cf. I, 118ff, and
Horn, 1975, 351-90). The modular scheme
of the Plan applies to the burial plots:
their width, 6¼ feet, is composed of two
standard 2½-foot modules plus one 1¼-
foot submodule, while their length, at
17½ feet, reflects once again the sacred
number seven: 7 × 2½ = 17½. Thus, in
each plot the bodies of seven brothers
could be accommodated, in keeping with
the application of standard modules to
achieve the human scale of the other
facilities of the Plan. And as elsewhere,
this compounding and multiplication of
sevens can hardly be fortuitous, but on
the contrary, quite purposeful in the
planning of the Cemetery.

V. 13

THE CEMETERY AND ORCHARD

To the side of the Novitiate, the home of the incoming
monks, and in convenient proximity to the Infirmary and
the House of the Physicians, is the monastery's burial
ground. It is a large field 80 feet wide and 125 feet long,
enclosed by walls or hedges, with only a single entrance to
the west facing the monks' cloister (fig. 430).

The grounds of the Cemetery served, in addition, as an
orchard, and this dual role of giving rest to the dead under
the shadow of the Cross as well as furnishing the living
with delectable fruit is poetically expressed in a distich,
inscribed into a large square enclosure in the center of the
cemetery, which designates the location of a monumental
cross:

V.13.1

THE CEMETERY

There are fourteen burial plots, each 6¼ feet wide and 17½
feet long.[452] They are identified by the distich:

The death and burial of a monk was a matter of intense
concern to the entire community, as may be inferred from
the moving descriptions of the last hours of the monks
Wolo, Ratpert and Gerald in Ekkehart's IV Casus sancti
Galli or the latter's poetic account of the death of his teacher
Notker Labeo in his Liber Benedictionum.[453] An English
consuetudinary of the end of the tenth century, the Regularis
concordia of St. Dunstan, describes the share which
the community had in the death of one of its brothers as
follows:

V.13.2

THE ORCHARD

The spaces between the burial plots are planted with fruit
trees. Their location is indicated by thirteen tree-symbols
which, save for the thickness of their stems, resemble tendrils
rather than trees. The fact that one of them is associated
with the names of two different species (sorbarius and
mispolarius) suggests that in each case there was meant to
be a group of plants rather than an individual specimen.
This is also suggested by the largeness of the space for
planting left between the burial plots, which in some cases
amounts to as much as 12½ feet by 40 feet. The names of
the trees have been tampered with by the same hand that
tried to revive the erased titles of the large anonymous
building in the northwest corner of the monastery.[455] As
there, the chemical substance used in this attempt has left
thick blue streaks in the parchment. This action damaged,
but did not destroy, the names of the trees. Listed in the
sequence in which they were written by the scribe, from
top to bottom, and in columns, moving from left to right,
they are:

                           

1.	mal[arius]	apple (malus communis L.)
2.	perarius	pear (pirus communis L.)
3.	prunarius	plum (prunus domestica L.)
4.	sorbarius	service tree (sorbus domestica L.)
5.	mispolarius	medlar (mespilus germanica L.)
6.	laurus	laurel (laurus nobilis L.)
7.	castenarius	chestnut (fagus castanea L.)
8.	ficus	fig (ficus carica L.)
9.	guduniarius	quince (cydonia vulgaris L.)
10.	persicus	peach (prunus persica L.)
11.	auellenarius	hazelnut (corylus tubulosa L.)
12.	amendelarius	almond (amygdalis communis L.)
13.	murarius	mulberry (morus nigra L.)
14.	nugarius	walnut (juglans regia L.)[456]

Of the fourteen listed species the apple, the pear, the
plum, the quince, and the peach are fruit trees in the proper
sense of the term; the others—the medlar, the chestnut,
the hazelnut, the mulberry, the walnut, the almond, and
the service tree—in the broader sense. Two of the trees
listed, the fig and the laurel, are not suited to a northern
climate. All of these fourteen trees are also listed in the
repertory of plants which the Capitulare de villis prescribes
as mandatory for the gardens in the king's estates. The
inclusion in this manual for the management of crown estates
of a considerable number of plants and trees that require
a Mediterranean climate had formerly led to the belief that
it was issued for the kingdom of Aquitaine.[457] Recently this
attribution has been questioned,[458] and the entire problem of
the presence on the Plan of St. Gall, as well as in the
Capitulare de villis and other Carolingian sources, of plants
not suited for a northern climate is now being interpreted
as an expression of literary classicism.[459]

The yield of the fruit trees in the Cemetery could not
have met all the needs of a community of an estimated
250 to 270 mouths. The monastery has a special house for
the drying of fruit (locus ad torrendas annonas), where
staples were produced which enabled the Kitchener to
bridge the dietary shortages in the critical winter months
when the fields and gardens were barren. The bulk of the
fruit, however, that was needed for that purpose must have
come from outlying orchards, managed either by the abbey
itself or by tenants.

The business accounts of the monastery of St. Gall tell
us of the deliveries of nuts from Rorschach, of apples from
a place called Bachwille, and from an orchard maintained
at a place called Muolen.

The contribution made to European horticulture by
skills practiced by monks in the growth and propagation of
fruit trees cannot be overestimated. The number of indigenous
fruit trees north of the Alps was limited, and the
native fruit too small and too bitter to be eaten raw. They
could be used for the preparation of fermented beverages
(in Old and Middle High German sources we read of
epfildrac [cider] and slehendrac [an alcoholic beverage made
of sloe]),[460] but for fruit to be served at the table the indigenous
trees had to be improved through selective breeding
and grafting. The knowledge of this art was acquired
by the inhabitants of transalpine Europe from the Romans;
it spread from Gaul along the Moselle into the Rhine
valley.[461] The monasteries adopted this legacy and applied it
on a large scale. The orchards of the abbey became the
model for the orchards and gardens of their secular tenants;
and from them the knowledge spread to the tenants of the
secular lords.

*

[ILLUSTRATION]

430.X ROME. CHURCH OF ST. JOHN LATERAN, SANCTA SANCTORUM CHAPEL

ENAMELLED RELIQUARY CROSS, 817-824

[courtesy of the Museo Sacro Vaticano]

The arms of the reliquary cross taper toward their intersection and show the concave extremities typical of Carolingian crosses. The arms of the
large cross in the Monks' Cemetery are drawn to show concave extremities. Given the evidence in coins and architectural carving, one cannot
conclude that the arms of the Cemetery cross owe their shape only to drafting mannerisms.

The registers of the St. John Lateran reliquary cross are, top to bottom: Annunciation, Visitation, Navity, Presentation, Baptism; on the
horizontal arms: Adoration and Transfiguration (?)

Drawn from silver coins: I, II, IV, V, struck 794-805; III, 768-72; VI: Cross
carved in stone closure slab (Musée Centrale, Metz, late 8th cent.)

Vertical and horizontal arms of the typical Carolingian cross taper slightly from
the outer ends to their intersection. The thick, stocky design of IV, less usual,
has a pronounced concavity at the extremities.

The stone cross, VI, of pronounced taper, has flat extremities. A common type
in architectural carving, it was much in vogue in Visigothic Spain. The
sculptured stone prevails over the cross with parallel sides.

[ILLUSTRATION]

PLAN OF ST. GALL. GRANARY

431. FOR AUTHORS' RECONSTRUCTION SEE PP. 220, 221

In this barn, with its floor area of almost 4,300 square feet, the drafters of the Plan allowed for the storage and threshing of the entire annual
harvest of grain from the monastery's local fields (but not including any grain threshed elsewhere on outlying estates and then delivered sacked
directly to the miller). The needs of the community for grain for both men and beasts would have been prodigious. The Granary was not
intented as a multiple-use building; the size of the harvest and the need to store its by-product—straw for animal stalls and for mulching—
would preclude any combined utility.

All the sheaved grain would have to be stored indoors before the onset of the first autumn rains. The work of threshing would no doubt have
continued long into the winter. Threshing, in most medieval barns, was performed in the center or wagon bay at one end of which was the
entrance to the barn, as here. The lateral extension of the threshing floor of the Granary of the Plan into its cruciform shape would have
allowed as many as six men to thresh simultaneously—four in the wagon bay and one in each segment of the lateral arms, allowing a space
approximately 12 feet square for each man and his flail. (If the Luttrell Psalter illustrates typical practice, fig. 437, the number of threshers
could have been twelve, two per area.) The task was among the most arduous and labor-intensive that the largely nonmechanized society could
require to be done.

Except for its great cruciform threshing floor and the single entrance designated in the western long wall, structural details of the Granary are
entirely lacking. To have drawn them in would have been redundant, and possibly confusing. The drafters of the Plan, concerned with
providing enough space for the tasks of the harvest and the needs of the community, and locating the facility appropriately on the site, would
have left the details of the barn's posting and internal division to be planned and executed under the direction of a master carpenter. Every
able-bodied man in the empire would have known that such a barn must be an aisled and timbered structure with its roof supported by two inner
rows of freestanding posts: so barns had been from time out of mind.

[ILLUSTRATION]

431.X

The smaller of the two granaries, serving only the Brewery, has little floor space
beyond that required for transitory storage of sheaved or sacked grain. Any
straw from threshing could be taken immediately to the animal barns at the
west; threshed grain could be moved directly to the Mortar and thence to the
brewing ranges. There is no direct path internal to the Plan between animal
barns, Mills and Mortars, and the great threshing barn to the east. One must
assume that on an actual site, a gate giving direct access from the fields without
to the Granary would have been provided.

V. 14

FACILITIES FOR STORAGE AND
THRESHING OF GRAIN

V.14.1

THE MAIN GRANARY

Between the Great Collective Workshop and the Gardener's
House is a large Granary (fig. 431) for storing the annual
harvest and threshing the grain:

The draftsman takes great care to define the two complementary
functions of this building: the first, with an
inscription, "barn, i.e., storehouse for the annual harvest
of grain" (horreum um repositio fructuü annaliū);[462] the second,
by designating a cross-shaped area of ground as "the area
where grain and chaff are threshed" (area in qua triturant'
grana et paleae).

The Granary is 47½ feet wide and 90 feet long. Its axis
runs from south to north. The building has only one
entrance, in the middle of its western long wall; it is a
double-winged door wide enough to allow the loaded
wagons to enter. It is not likely that a barn of these dimensions
would have been covered by a single span in the
ninth century. Even in the great monastic barns of the
thirteenth century the roof was carried by two rows of
freestanding inner posts when the width of the barn exceeded
25 feet. The draftsman must have taken these constructional
features for granted. Had the Granary been intended
to shelter human beings or animals as well, the floor plan
would have indicated the wall partitions separating the
spaces used for storing the harvest from the spaces reserved
for people or animals; and the course of these partitions
would, in turn, have given us a clue to the location of the
roof-supporting posts. But the barn of the Plan of St. Gall
had no such secondary function, except that a certain
amount of its floor space had to be kept vacant for threshing.
The draftsman makes this clear by carefully delineating
the surface area needed for this purpose: two threshing
lanes intersecting each other at right angles, each lane about
12 feet wide, i.e., the distance two rows of men would
require when flailing grain from opposite sides.

The layout of the Granary of the Plan of St. Gall teaches
us that broadside access must have been a very common
feature, if not the standard form, in Carolingian barn
construction. It was and remained throughout the entire

[ILLUSTRATION]

432. LUTTRELL PSALTER (1340). LONDON, BRITISH MUSEUM, ADD. MS. 42130, fol. 173

[By courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum]

Three men stack bound sheaves of grain while two others carry sheaves to the pile. The work of cutting and sheaving grain is arduous; it must
be cut when the kernels are still in the barb and sufficiently moist so that the grain heads will not shatter and spill the harvest to the ground.
At this point the grain stalks are technically "green", and too tough to scythe, but must be hand cut with sickles.

Middle Ages the traditional form of monastic and secular
English barn construction. In medieval France and in the
medieval and post-medieval dwelling barns of Lower Saxony
the entrances were invariably in the gable walls. In the
Lowlands and in southern Germany—as a glance at the
engravings of Pieter Bruegel the Elder or the watercolors
of Albrecht Dürer (figs. 335; 336) show—the two types are
mixed.

A typical English parallel comparable in size to the
Granary of the Plan of St. Gall is the priory barn of Little
Wymondley, Hertfordshire (fig. 434A-C)[463] , probably dating
from the first half of the thirteenth century. Other examples
of the same period, both English and Continental, were
discussed above on pp. 103ff. The earliest evidence, other
than the Plan of St. Gall, for monastic barns with broadside
entrances are the barns that the Dean and Chapter of the
cathedral of St. Paul's in London maintained on its outlying
estates in the counties of Hertfordshire, Essex, Middlesex,
and Surrey. They are described in lease agreements
dating from 1114 to 1155.[464] A careful reading of these texts
makes it clear that traditionally the harvest was stored in
this type of barn by filling the bays closest to the gable walls
first and working from there toward the center of the
building, the center bay being left empty for the entry and
exit of the wagons. This center bay was thus the natural
place for threshing. In many of the surviving English
medieval barns these entrance bays are paved, either in
stone or with wooden planks, and were used for threshing
until the invention of modern harvesting machinery[465]
eliminated the need for any such provisions (cf. fig. 437).

[ILLUSTRATION]

433. LUTTRELL PSALTER (1340). LONDON, BRITISH MUSEUM, ADD. MS. 42130, fol. 173v

[By courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum]

In moderate climates, sheaved grain may be stored in the field for a few days to many weeks. Sheaves are stacked upright and over them, a few
sheaves are splayed with grainheads down, to form a protective thatching that sheds occasional rain. In northern climates the sheaves had to be
under shelter long before the onset of autumn rains; hence the great size of the Plan's threshing barn. The cart of the Psalter, with three
horses and three men, does not exaggerate the weight of the sheaves nor the labor required to load them.

Our reconstruction of the Granary of the Plan (fig. 435AE)
is not modeled after any particular example. We have
chosen a type that might have been found anywhere at any
time during the Middle Ages. We have given it a roof with
rafters of uniform scantling and hipped bays at the end,
because of the restraining effect such lean-to's exert on
any tendency of such a roof to give way under longitudinal
stresses. We could also have reconstructed it as a purlin
roof, analogous to Little Wymondley, except for the curved
arch and wind braces of this building which are typically
English and have no parallels on the Continent.

[ILLUSTRATION]

434.C LITTLE WYMONDLEY, HERTFORDSHIRE, ENGLAND. PRIORY BARN

FIRST HALF OF THE 15TH CENTURY

EXTERIOR VIEW FROM THE SOUTHWEST

A classical example of a medieval monastic barn of England, its purlin roof is hipped over the terminal bays; two transeptal porches give
access to the center bay. The barn does not, as we formerly believed, date to the 13th century when the priory was founded, but was rebuilt in
the 15th century on the site of an earlier building; some beams from previous structure were reused to make this one. Had the Granary of the
Plan been built, it would have resembled this one in many details.

[ILLUSTRATION]

LITTLE WYMONDLEY, HERTFORDSHIRE, ENGLAND. PRIORY BARN

434.B

434.A

GROUND PLAN AND LONGITUDINAL SECTION SCALE INCH EQUALS ONE FOOT [1:192]

At 100 feet long and 38 feet wide, Little Wymondley is only 9 feet narrower, and 10 feet longer, than the Granary of the Plan. Eight roof
trusses divide it into a nave, 23 feet wide, and two aisles, 7½ feet wide. The nine bays are 11 feet deep except for the wagon bay at 12 feet,
which serves as entrance and as threshing floor after the harvest is in.

The trusses supporting the roof are connected lengthwise by roof plates tenoned into the principal posts immediately below the tie beams; and in
the roof slopes by two tiers of purlins. The trusses are locked longitudinally by arched braces into principal posts and at the level of the purlins.

[ILLUSTRATION]

PLAN AND LONGITUDINAL SECTION SCALE INCH EQUALS ONE FOOT [1:192] GRAPHIC SCALE, 408.D, PAGE 172 FOR COLOR PLAN SEE P. 214

435.B

435.A

In all major medieval barns the center aisle was considerably broader than the outer aisles by at least twice as much; but they rarely exceeded a
width of 21-23 feet. The depth of the bays ranged in general between 11 and 13 feet. Barns the size of Great Coxwell (figs. 349-351) and
Parçay-Meslay (figs. 352-355) are exceptions; because of their unusual size they depended on heavy masonry walls and gables.
A building 90 feet long would most probably be comprised of seven bays each 13 feet deep. We have assigned to the Granary nave a width of
22½ feet and to each aisle, 12½ feet. The short arm of the paved threshing floor is edged, in the nave, by unpaved areas ca. 5½ feet wide where
men might stand while threshing.

[ILLUSTRATION]

PLAN OF ST. GALL. GRANARY. AUTHORS' RECONSTRUCTION

435.C

435.D

435.E

TRANSVERSE SECTION, SOUTH ELEVATION AND WEST ELEVATION

Enough is known about the history and protohistory of the medieval barn to allow a safe assumption that a building 47½ feet wide and 90 feet
long would have been an aisled structure. But there is no reason to assume that any part would have been of masonry except for the foundations
and a shallow plinth on which to foot the upright timbers and protect them from dampness. In the majority of medieval and prehistoric
buildings of this type the roof was hipped over the terminal bays (compare prehistoric examples, figs. 295-97, 313-14, and medieval barns and
houses portrayed by Dürer, fig. 335, and by Bruegel, fig. 336).

[ILLUSTRATION]

436. PLAN OF ST. GALL. BREWERS' GRANARY

The location of the Brewers' Granary (30) next to the Monks'
Bake and Brewhouse (9), the Mortar (28) and Drying Kiln (29),
and its proximity to the Bake and Brewhouse of the Hospice for
Pilgrims and Paupers (32) is ideal, since the work performed in all
of these installations represents separate and successive stages in the
making of beer: threshing, crushing, parching and brewing. If the
threshing floor of the Brewers' Granary seems disproportionately
large, it may owe to the fact that much less grain needed to be
stored there for any length of time, although the work of threshing
for brewing no doubt was continuous (cf. fig. 431. X).

The Granary of the Plan of St. Gall was the storage
place, I should imagine, not only for the harvest yielded
by the fields that the monastery worked with the aid of its
own serfs, but also for the revenues obtained through the
tithing of land leased out to tenants.[466] The volume of the
annual revenues derived from any of these sources was a
carefully regulated matter. Abbot Adalhard of Corbie, who
had to take care of a monastic community of an average of
300 souls, furnished a detailed account of the manner in
which the supply of grain was handled in his own monastery.
The total income in grain "well winnowed and husked"
(spelta bene uentilata et mundata) was 750 baskets per year
(two baskets per day plus 20 additional baskets for safety).[467]
Abbot Adalhard informs us that two baskets average ten
modii, each modius yielding 30 loaves of bread; two baskets
thus giving assurance of 300 loaves per day. He establishes
how many sheaves make up a modius of grain, allowing for
the variation in quality of grain obtained from different
fields, and he draws attention to the detrimental effect of
such variance on the attempt to attain an accurate system
of measurement. He points out that the straw ought always
to be delivered with the grain, as it, too, has uses, and he
rules that when places are too far away for the tithe to be
carted in, the villages lying near should pay double tithes
and then collect from their neighbors farther out. In conclusion,
he admonished the Porter, who is in charge of all
these operations, to keep an accurate inventory of all these
deliveries.[468]

V.14.2

THE BREWERS' GRANARY

The Monks' Brewery has its own granary with bins for the
storage of grain and other ingredients used in brewing.
This facility is attached to the south end of the House of
the Coopers and Wheelwrights and lies directly between
the Monks' Bake and Brew House and the buildings that
contain the machinery indispensable in the process of
brewing, the Drying Kiln and the Mortar. The Brewers'
Granary is a square, 32½ feet by 35 feet, internally divided
into a cross-shaped floor, which leaves four storage bins in
the corners (fig. 436).

The purpose of the building is explained by the following
title:

The title implies that the grain used for brewing was subjected
to special cleaning and husking practices, which is
also suggested by the above-quoted passage from the
Statutes of Adalhard of Corbie, where it is stipulated that
the grain should be delivered to the monastery "well
winnowed and husked." The other ingredients referred

[ILLUSTRATION]

437. LUTTRELL PSALTER (1340). LONDON, BRITISH MUSEUM, ADD. MS. 42130, fol. 74v

[By courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum]

Two men with flails thresh sheaved grain. Throughout the Middle Ages and into modern times the work of harvesting grain was done by hand
in the separate and successive steps of cutting, bundling, stacking, carting, storing, and threshing. Today these operations are performed
simultaneously by powered combine harvesters, allowing one man to reap and thresh many acres in a day; likewise, pressure balers reduce the
space required for storing straw to only a fraction of that needed in pre-industrial times. The efficient operation of this versatile machinery
spelled death to the medieval barn, the maintenance of which has become an economic liability (cf. Charles and Horn, 1973, 5ff).

to in the title must include hops (humblo), to the delivery,
reception and distribution of which, in the monastery of
Corbie, Adalhard devoted an entire paragraph.[470]

The storage bins in the four corners of the Brewers'
Granary are designated as "repositories of these same
things—likewise" (repositoria eorundem rerum—similiter).
There is no unequivocal reference to threshing in the
inscriptions of this building, unless the word seru&tur be
interpreted to imply this activity, but the cruciform shape
of the floor space left between the bins, by analogy with the
threshing floor in the large Granary, suggests that the grain
used in brewing might have been threshed in its own
granary.

[ILLUSTRATION]

PLAN OF ST. GALL. DRYING KILN, MORTAR, AND MILL

438.

6. MONKS' REFECTORY

7. MONKS' CELLAR

8. MONKS' KITCHEN

9. MONKS' BAKE & BREWHOUSE

25. GREAT COLLECTIVE WORKSHOP

26. ANNEX OF GREAT COLLECTIVE WORKSHOP

27. MILL

28. MORTAR

29. DRYING KILN

30. HOUSE OF COOPERS & WHEEL WRIGHTS AND BREWERS' GRANARY

33. HOUSE FOR HORSES AND OXEN AND THEIR KEEPERS

31. HOSPICE FOR PILGRIMS AND PAUPERS

32. KITCHEN, BAKE AND BREWHOUSE FOR PILGRIMS AND PAUPERS

A. FENCE OR WALL SEPARATING "OUTSIDERS" FROM "INNER" ACTIVITIES

B. FENCE OR WALL EXTENDING TO EXTERNAL BOUNDARY

438.X SITE PLAN

The alignment of installations for grinding, crushing, and parching grain (27, 28, 29) at the southern edge of the monastry complex appears to
have been purposeful. If the topography of the site were ideal, with stream and land gradient permitting the development of water power, these
facilities on the Plan could all have been water driven. (A reconstruction of the presumptive waterways of the Plan is suggested, I, 74, fig.
53; and Horn, 1975, 228, fig. 4.

The Drying Kiln, Mortar, and Mill are sited next to the Monks' Bake and Brewhouse (9) and the Monks' Kitchen (8), and near the Bake
and Brewhouse of the Pilgrims and Paupers (32). Traffic patterns and usage demonstrated that the location of mills and mortars was carefully
planned. The Monks' Bakery and Kitchen required flour from the Mill; the Mortar produced crushed grain for brewing and for many other
dishes basic to the monks' diet. The Drying Kiln was used not only for parching grain but for drying fruit.

The noise of the mortars and mill would also have made it desirable to locate them at a distance from the center of monastic activities.

V. 15

FACILITIES FOR GRINDING,
CRUSHING, & PARCHING OF GRAIN

V.15.1

THREE IDENTICAL BUILDINGS FOR
DIFFERENT FUNCTIONS

Along the southern edge of the monastery, directly behind
the Bake and Brew House for the Monks, are ranged three
rectangular structures which house the apparatus needed
in the three main phases of preparation of bread and beer:
the grinding, crushing, and parching of the grain (fig. 438).
Only one of these, the Drying Kiln, is identified by a
descriptive legend: "the place in which the grain is
parched" (locus ad torrendas annonas). The purposes of the
other two may be inferred from their equipment, which
consists of two large "mortars" (pilae) in one, and two
"millstones" (molae) in the other. The buildings are identical
in shape and may be assumed to be of identical construction.
They measure 35 feet by 35 feet and are internally
subdivided into a principal work space 25 by 35 feet, which
contains the basic machinery, and a lean-to 10 feet wide,
serving as the dormitory for workmen (eorundem famulorum
cubilia). As in the more elaborate structures of the Plan,
the servants' quarters are not accessible from the outside,
but from the interior only. We assume that in their
exterior appearance these buildings looked much like the
mill shown in the background of the painting Seated
Madonna by Gerhard Memling (fig. 439A), now in the
Uffizi at Florence.[471] This painting also gives us an idea
about the device used to provide power in the operation
of mills and mortars—a subject that is controversial and
requires further explanation.

V.15.2

THE MILL

MAN-, ANIMAL-, WATER-POWERED?
THE ROMAN TRADITION

Ferdinand Keller referred to the molae of St. Gall as
"hand mills."[472] Albert Lenoir expressed the same view:
"The place they occupy in the room, as well as the absence
of any sort of motor mechanism in the vicinity, permits no
doubt that these mills were operated by the hand of man."
He felt convinced that they were similar to a type of mill
common among the ancients, which was set in motion by
driving the upper stone on a center spindle with a wooden
bar (fig. 440).[473] For commercial purposes the Romans used a
larger variation of this type of mill; its size required
the strength of a donkey or horse to turn it, or lacking
such beasts of burden, it was turned by slaves (figs. 441442).
In the first century B.C., these devices found a
powerful rival in the water mill.[474] Among the Roman water
mills two basic types can be distinguished: the vertical
mill (fig. 443A), in which the millstone is turned by means
of a water paddle attached to the lower end of a vertical
spindle; and the horizontal or "Vitruvian" mill, the type
in which a vertical water wheel is mounted on a horizontal
axis, from which its rotation is transmitted to the millstone
spindle by a pair of cogwheels (fig. 443B). The vertical mill
is typologically the more primitive form, and therefore
considered by some to be the earlier one.[475] The "horizontal"
water mill was probably a Roman invention, and
judging from Vitruvius' description (23-25 B.C.), it was
still a relatively recent phenomenon at the time of his
writing. The earliest water mills of the city of Rome
apparently were installed in the Tiber "a little before
Augustus,"[476] but for the first three centuries of the Empire
man-powered or animal-driven mills remained in the
majority.[477] It was only from the beginning of the fourth
century onward that the water mill began to supersede the
earlier forms. The earliest pictorial representation of the
Vitruvian water mill is to be found on a fifth-century

[ILLUSTRATION]

439.A GERHARD MEMLING. SEATED MADONNA

FLORENCE, UFFIZI GALLERY. DETAIL

[Courtesy of the Gabinetto della Soprintendenza alle Gallerie]

The painting shows in the background a Northern waterwheel in a form that the
artist perceived it; the work, probably about mid-15th century, cannot be dated
with precision.

mosaic of the Great Palace of Byzantium,[478] but an actual
mill dating from the time of Leo I (457-474) has recently
been excavated in the Agora of Athens.[479] As early as A.D.
370 water-driven corn mills and saws for cutting marble
were seen by Ausonius on the Ruwer, one of the tributaries
of the Moselle River.[480] An intensely industrial application
of water power for the grinding of grain was a
Roman flour factory with sixteen wheels, erected 308-316
on a mountain slope at Barbegal near Arles (fig. 444). It
worked with two sets of eight overshot wheels, fed by two
channels of water from the aqueduct of Les Beaux, and
could produce in a ten-hour day, with all wheels in operation,
a total of twenty-eight tons of flour, sufficient to feed
a population of 80,000—which fact suggests that it supplied
the entire army of the province of Narbonne (besides
meeting the local demands of Arles, which had a population
of 30,000). There is archaeological evidence for the
existence of a similar flour mill at Prety (Pistriacum), near
Tournus, Burgundy, which ground the grain of the Saone

[ILLUSTRATION]

439.B GERHARD MEMLING. MADONNA AND CHILD

LONDON, NATIONAL GALLERY. DETAIL

[Courtesy of the National Gallery, London. Photo no. 61275]

The waterwheel in the London version of the painting is substantially of the
the same design, and shows with greater detail some of its construction. This
painting dates to about 1468.

valley and may have been the principal source of flour
supply for the army of northern Gaul.[481] These two facilities
were unusual and owed their existence, unquestionably, to
pressing military demands, but their existence nevertheless
denotes a general trend.

The historical motivations for this mounting interest of
the fourth-century Romans in water as a source of power
for grinding grain are still somewhat mysterious. One cause
was, without doubt, the increasing shortage of slave labor
in the later days of the Roman empire; another one, the
new attitude toward labor associated with the Christian
concept of caritas, resulting in the view that the forces of
nature should be captured and trained to ease the life of
man; still another cause, perhaps, was the fact that the
center of cultural gravitation had shifted from the Mediterranean
basin, where most rivers carry widely varying
quantities of water in different seasons, to a northern area
that abounded with mountain streams fed by a constant
flow of water. Finally, but not least to be contended with:

[ILLUSTRATION]

440.A, B, C, D HAND OPERATED ROMAN MILLS

Stationary or portable mechanisms like these shown above were used in every
Greek and Roman household and were diffused throughout Europe by Greek and
Roman armies. In Roman military camps, where soldiers ground their own corn,
such handmills were a common sight. One mill was provided for every ten men;
each soldier was prepared to carry his own thirty-day flour supply (Forbes, 1956,
109; Moritz, 1958, 116; Horn, 1975, 223, and 231, fig. 7).

The upper stone, in examples A, B, C, D,
weigh, respectively, about 130, 55, 30 and
45 pounds. Quern A, with two handles, could
be operated by two persons. Quern D, a great
advance in the art of milling, provided for
adjustment of the upper stone by an under-table
device that controlled clearance between
stones at their outer rims, thereby regulating
the fineness of the milled particles. Advances
in the arts of military machines were paralleled
by invention in the agrarian arts.

the inventive freshness of the barbarians of the north, who
were not slow in putting into the service of their growing
manorial economy technological devices that offered new
prospects of exploitation to the landlords who had the
right and means of building and of operating these mills.[482]

[ILLUSTRATION]

ROMAN MILL IN POMPEII

441.A

441.B

[After Mau, 1908, 408, fig. 237]

The mill of Pompeii operates on the same principle as the table pepper mill. Its
lower fixed stone (meta) is raised on a plinth that also forms a basin to catch freshly
ground flour. The mill is charged with grain at the top; kernels fall into the space
between the two stones (which can be enlarged or decreased by adjusting the spindle
of the moving stone, the catillus, on its overarm) and are ground at the lower edge of
the catillus flange where it touches the meta.

[ILLUSTRATION]

441.C ROMAN DONKEY MILLS

POMPEII. REMAINS OF A ROMAN BAKERY WITH

FOUR DONKEY MILLS AND A BAKING OVEN

[after Forbes, 1956, 110, fig. 77]

Donkey mills are known to have been used in Greece from about 300 B.C. They
could be set up anywhere on land, and for that reason became the favorite Roman
flour mill. The turning circles the animals were forced to follow in this and other
mills of the type were brutally narrow.

[ILLUSTRATION]

442. ROME, MUSEO CHIARAMONTI. FRAGMENT OF A SARCOPHAGUS (2nd cent. B.C.)

HORSE HARNESSED TO A DONKEY MILL

[By courtesy of the Archivio Fotografico delle Gallerie dei Musei Vaticani]

The relief shows the hourglass shaped mill being worked by a horse harnessed to a trace that fits into the rotating upper stone of the mill (cf.
fig. 441. A). The question of the relative distribution of water- and animal-powered mills in medieval Europe, and their differing functions,
requires a new systematic study. In an inquiry into conditions prevalent in certain Carolingian territories west of the Rhine, Weber reaches the
same conclusions that Bennett and Elton came to more generally:

"Wenn man die urkundlich nachweisbaren Standorte berücksichtigt, weiss man auch, dass es sich bei unseren Beispielen nur um Wassermühlen
gehandelt haben kann. Die von Tieren getriebene Mühle bleibt fortab die Ausnahme. Sie wird meist nur für Notfälle eingerichtet, z.B. auf
Burgen und ummauerten Städten für die Zeiten langdauernder Belagerungen." (F. W. Weber, "Die ersten urkundlich nachweisbaren
Wassermühlen westlich des Rheins," Pfälzer Heimat, vol. 3/4, Dec. 1972, 101-103. The journal is not easily available outside Germany.)

[ILLUSTRATION]

ROMAN WATER MILLS

443.A Horizontal water wheel at the end
of a vertical shaft fixed to the
upper millstone.

443.B Vertical waterwheel, with power
transmitted to the upper millstone
by means of gears.

[redrawn by C. B. Lund, after Forbes 1956, 595, fig. 540]

The earliest water mill of which we have any record is one to which the Greek
historian Strabo refers as having been built by the Pontic king, Mithradates VI
Eupator, in his palace at Cabeira (some distance inland from the southern shore
of the Black Sea), which was completed in 63 B.C. (For sources and a
suggestion that this may indicate an Asiatic origin, as in the case of the water-powered
triphammer, see Horn, 1975, pp. 226-27 and below, pp. 245f.)

THE MONASTERY A PRIMARY AGENT
IN THE HARNESSING OF WATER POWER AND IN
DIFFUSING ITS USE

The medieval monastery, a leader in all other aspects of
rural economy, became one of the primary agents in the
dissemination of water power for the grinding of grain as
well as for many other uses. The earliest transalpine water
mill put to monastic use is recorded by Gregory of Tours
at the time of the Visigoth ruler Alaric (484-507).[483] This
account is of particular interest, since it tells us how, during
and for a short time after the construction of the monastery
of Loches (Indres-et-Loire) by Abbot Ursus, "the brothers
ground the wheat required for their sustenance by turning
the millstones by hand" (molam manu vertentes). Ursus
decided to supplant their labor by constructing a mill at
the banks of the river Endria: "Setting stakes across the
river and heaping a great pile of large stones, he built
sluices, gathered the water in a channel, and by its impetus
thus drove the wheel of the work into swiftly spinning

motion" (cuius impetu rotam fabricae in magna volubilitate
vertere fecit). Another water mill is mentioned by the same
Gregory of Tours in his description of the city of Dijon.[484]

More evidence (so far overlooked) attesting the rapid
spread of use of water mills in Merovingian Europe may
be found in the Lives of Father Romanus (fifth century),
of St. Remy (ca. 437-533), and of Athala, Abbot of Bobbio
(615-627).[485] The availability of water for the operation of a

[ILLUSTRATION]

445. HERRADE DE LANDSBERG. HORTUS DELICIARUM (1195), fol. 112A

(formerly) STRASSBOURG, BIBLIOTHÈQUE PUBLIQUE

[after Straub and Keller, 1901, pl. xxx]

Two women attend a water-powered mill. This illustration
is after a postmedieval copy of a manuscript that was
destroyed during the Franco-German war.

mill and other monastic workshops was a crucial factor in
situating a monastery which Count Wibertus and Countess
Ada, during the reign of King Pippin, erected for their
daughter St. Hiltrud (d. ca. 790) at Liessies.[486] Two water
mills on the Leto River were given to the monastery of
Aniane by Charlemagne in a donation charter dated Aachen,
June 799;[487] another one in the vicinity of Dover is mentioned
in a charter of King Ethelbert, dated 762.[488] The
context of the chapter in which Abbot Adalhard in 822
defines the duties and privileges of the millers employed
by the Abbey of Corbie and its various dependencies leaves
no doubt that he is referring to water-powered mills, since
he stipulates that the millers be furnished, inter alia, with
everything that is required for the maintenance and repair
of their sluices (sclusa).[489] The Abbey of St.-Riquier in 798
had a water-driven mill which received its power from a
small stream called Scarduo running through the middle
of the monastery.[490] From the ninth century onward references
to water mills are made with increasing frequency.
An interesting incident in connection with the establishment
of water mills is the account of the failure of Abbot
Habertus of Laubach (d. A.D. 835) to cut an aqueduct to
channel water to the mills through the rugged slopes of the
mountain which surrounded his monastery.[491] In the centuries
that follow, references to water mills become legion.
The Domesday Book (ca. 1080) lists 5,624 of them.[492] From
the twelfth century on they are frequently depicted in
illuminated manuscripts. In the precision of their detail,
some of these representations compare favorably with
modern engineering drawings; (cf. fig. 445).[493]

EVIDENCE FOR A WATER-POWERED MILL

In the light of this abundant and clear evidence, Keller's
and Lenoir's opinion that the mills of St. Gall were hand-operated
mechanisms seems quite open to debate. What
Keller had in mind, I should think, was the kind of hand
mill that is depicted in a German manuscript of the fourteenth
century (fig. 446), reproduced by Bennet and

[ILLUSTRATION]

446. MEDIEVAL HAND MILL

The drawing, from a German 14th-cent. manuscript, shows a mill
derivative of the hand-operated Roman mill (fig. 440. A, B) that
survived the advent of the watermill.

[ILLUSTRATION]

447. HAUSBUCH MASTER. MILLING APPARATUS

CA. 1480

[after Bossert and Stork, 1912, pl. 46]

Although the drawing is rendered in the clumsy perspective of a
Middle Rhenish master of the pre-Dürer period, it portrays the
milling mechanism with great factual accuracy. The pen and ink
drawing appears in a manuscript written and illustrated by an
official who in 15th-century Germany was called "Büchsenmeister"
—master of firearms. Of relatively high social standing, such a
personage would today hold a position comparable with civil or
military engineer. (The manuscript is the property of Fürst
Waldburg-Wolfegg-Waldsee.)

[ILLUSTRATION]

448.B, C PLAN OF ST. GALL. MILL

AUTHORS' INTERPRETATION. GROUND PLAN

Waterpower for the Mill and Mortar of the Plan of St. Gall is a viable proposal; we have therefore reconstructed the mechanisms as water driven, for these reasons:
As regards the millstones, their size, at a literal diameter of 7½ feet, would tend to eliminate the possibility of hand operation. Their depiction on the Plan lacks any
indication of drive systems, but that lack is consistent with other such omissions where practicalities, to be left to a master craftsman to execute, have been eliminated in
favor of clarity of scale and function.

The alignment of mills and mortar on the southern edge of the Plan site would facilitate use of water power assuming that a stream existed on the site and could be
channeled down a gradient sufficient to provide it (cf. I, 68-69 and fig. 53). Abundant documentary evidence shows that from the end of the 5th century onward and
with increasing frequency in succeeding centuries, monastic mills of transalpine Europe were water powered; finally, references to animal-driven mills in these some
sources are almost entirely lacking (see above, p. 228, fig. 442 caption).

We have already discussed the question of why the Romans, although they had it, made scant use of the water mill; whereas the young barbarian nations of the north
adopted and diffused it with enthusiasm. To reasons already set forth we suggest here, as a factor so far overlooked, that the strongest impetus for the phenomenal spread
of waterpower in the early Middle Ages came not from the secular world but from the ascendancy of Benedictine monasticism.

The records of many abbots show that extensive monastic estates included mills located far outside the immediate vicinity of the monastery; Gozbert himself doubtless
would have controlled several beyond the two proposed by the Plan for the monastery. Adalhard records that Corbie's bakeries had to produce 450 one-pound loaves
each day, for which the monastery drew on an annual volume of 5,475 modii of grain from 15 mills, each of six millstones, all of which had to be maintained in good
working order (see III, 106-107). And the abbey of St.-Germain-des-Prés had several times again that number of mills (see Horn, 1975, 248ff, for details and sources.)

Building and operating such facilities required impressive capital investment dependent on ownership of great acreage and an unparalleled degree of managerial
competence. The monastic school-trained leaders of the period brought to the vast monastic holdings the ingenuity and spirit of radical innovation that necessity alone
would have made welcome. In addition, the monastries and their high officials had the pressing moral committment to free the monks from long hours of arduous
physical labor, in order to further the Opus Dei. By contrast the secular world, lacking intellectual advantages, integrated physical resources, administrative unity, and
religious incentives, lagged behing the great monastries in technical innovation; as in most labor-intensive societies, medieval secular institutions tended toward
conservatism.

Gregory of Tours leaves as an anecdote about Abbot Ursus that constitutes the first documentary evidence of a monastic mill. After relating that "on account of this
[water mill] the work that formerly had to be done by many monks could now be accomplished by a single brother," Gregory repeats a dialogue between Ursus and
Sichlerius, a Visigoth and nobleman whose land bordered the abbey's, and who had seen first hand the installation of the new mill and its sluices:

"Covetous to acquire the mill, he told the abbot, `Give me this mill, to become my property, and I shall give you, in return, whatever you ask for,' Replied the Abbot:
`It was only with the greatest of pain, on account of our poverty, that we were able to install this mill; and now we cannot give it to you lest our brethren die of
hunger.' Sichlerius retorted: `If you wish to give it to me by your own free will, I shall be grateful. Otherwise I will take it by force, or build another mill, for which I
shall divert the water from your sluice; and in this way it will no longer be able to turn your wheel.' The abbot replied, `You will not do what God shall not permit you
to do, you will not take it at all!' Sichlerius, in ire, did what he had threatened to do, but because of divine intervention, the water failed to turn the wheels of his
mill." Thus the intransigent noble was defeated.

The story, embodying all the social dichotomies between secular and religious spheres, is symptomatic and may have remained so for the most of the Middle Ages.
Ingenuity and initiative, in addition to divine justice, were clearly on the side of the abbot.

[ILLUSTRATION]

PLAN OF ST. GALL. MILL

448.D LONGITUDINAL SECTION

448.E TRANSVERSE SECTION

AUTHORS' INTERPRETATION

Elton.[494] It is obvious that two hand-operated units of this
type could never have produced the volume of flour needed
in a settlement the size of that represented on the Plan of
St. Gall. Hand-operated mills, because they were subject
to the limitations of manual operation, were bound to be
small. Yet the millstones of the Plan are not only large,
they seem colossal. They are drawn at a diameter of 7½ feet.
Even if the representation is not literal,[495] such weight and
volume could not possibly have been set in motion by manual
operation. There are other factors suggesting water power.
The drafter of the Plan, as we have seen, did not consider it
part of his task to include a delineation of the monastery's
water system, but he was not oblivious to the fact that
buildings requiring water power would have to be located
in places to which water could easily be conducted. This is
clearly indicated by the way he carefully aligned all the
buildings and activities requiring water along the edge of

[ILLUSTRATION]

449.C LUTTRELL PSALTER (1340). LONDON, BRITISH MUSEUM. ADD. MS. 42130, FOL. 207

BY COURTESY OF THE TRUSTEES OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM

A cook tends his kettles and his assistant wields choppers; at the right a third man macerates some substance with a long pestle in a large
container. It is not clear whether he is pounding meat (as Millar, 1932, 49, thought), crushing grain, or churning butter.

the monastery in a manner that, were a water source available,
it could have been channeled to serve all of them
efficiently.[496]

RECONSTRUCTION OF MILLING APPARATUS

The reconstruction of the milling apparatus poses no
major problem, since both Herrade de Landsberg (1195)[497]
and the Hausbuch Master (ca. 1480)[498] have furnished us
with very detailed drawings of water-driven milling mechanisms
(figs. 445 and 447). Herrade's mill is undershot. A
large waterwheel transmits its rotation through an axle to
a smaller wheel, the cogs of which are geared into a vertical
drum. The vertical power of the driving wheel is thus converted
into the horizontal motion of the millstone. A hopper
feeds the grain from overhead into a hole in the center of
the upper stone, the so-called "runner". This system is
essentially the same as that of the so-called Vitruvian mill,
except for a difference in the speed of transmitting power.
The Vitruvian mill is relatively small and moves faster
than the wheel that turns the millstone. In the medieval
mill, with its larger waterwheel, the transmission is from
slower to faster.[499] In our reconstruction of the Mill of the
Plan (fig. 448A-E) we have adopted the latter system.

The Mill of the Plan would have taken care only of those
milling operations which were performed within the monastic
enclosure. On its outlying estates a monastery usually
operated a great number of additional mills. According to
Guérard's calculations, at the time of Abbot Irminon (ca.
800-826) the Abbey of St.-Germain des Prés managed as
many as eighty-four mills on its outlying estates.[500] The

[ILLUSTRATION]

HAND-OPERATED MORTARS AND PESTLES
OF OAK

449.A.1

449.A.2

[after Keller, 1860, 45 and 50]

BELTIS, LAKE WALLENSTADT, SWITZERLAND

Devices of this kind, used for crushing cereal grains, were in the Middle Ages
employed in every household; porridge made from these grains was one of the
principal items in the common man's diet.

status of the millers in charge of these installations, to
judge from the Administrative Directives of Adalhard of
Corbie, differed from that of the other monastic tenants in
that they were exempt from the manual labor to which the
other tenants were held, such as "plowing, sowing, harvesting
grain or hay, making malt or hops, delivering wood
or anything else in the service of the lord" (ad opus
dominicum).[501] Adalhard stipulates that each miller was to
be provided with a pair of oxen and other things necessary
for the sustenance of himself and his entire family, so that
he could raise pigs, geese, and chickens, and set up his
mill, and might obtain or manufacture all such materials
as he needed in order to improve his mill, repair his sluice,
transport his millstone, and everything else that he might
need to own or manufacture.[502]

[ILLUSTRATION]

449.B LE THORONET, VAR, FRANCE

MORTAR AND PESTLE

Hand mortars of this kind continued in use in the Middle Ages along with
water-powered trip hammers (figs. 454, 457), and were important in seasons
when streams were too low to drive trip hammers.

[ILLUSTRATION]

450. MODERN TRIP-HAMMER

[redrawn after Meringer, 1906, 16, fig. 26]

Trip-hammers of this type are used even today in areas stretching from Central
Europe throughout the whole of Asia, as far as India, China, and Japan. The
hammer shown is of the foot operated type.

V.15.3

THE MORTARS

MAN- OR WATER-POWERED? CONFLICTING VIEWS

The crushing devices designated by the term pilae, i.e.,
"pestles," in the house lying west of the Mill (fig. 438),
raise the same problems posed by the milling apparatus.
Were they operated by hand or water? Keller, in this case
too, took the first position. He drew attention to two old
hand-operated mortars which he discovered in the remote
village of Beltis on the lake of Wallenstadt in Switzerland
(fig. 449 A.1, A.2).[503] One was three feet high, cut out of a
solid trunk of oak, with the interior hollowed out conically.
The pestle, likewise, was made of a single piece of oak,
except for its handle, and was studded with nails at its
base. This, Keller thought, must have been the contrivance
that the drafter of the Plan of St. Gall had in mind when
he drew his peculiar L- or key-shaped pilae (fig. 438).

[ILLUSTRATION]

451. HOKUSAI. JAPANESE TRIP-HAMMER (19th cent.)

[after Singer, Holmgard, Hall, II, 1956, 107, fig. 71]

If his expression of grim determination is an indication, the man acting as
counterweight to the hammer could scarcely have worked harder using a mortar
and pestle for his task.

That instruments of the Beltis type were used during the
Middle Ages is beyond question, and easy proof of this
may be found inter alia in a delightful marginal drawing
of the Luttrell Psalter (fig. 449C), which shows a bearded
cook pounding a huge mortar with a pestle almost twice
his own height.[504] The mortar, apparently made of iron or
bronze, reaches to slightly above the knee of the pounding
cook, and by that criterion should have been meant to have
a height and width of roughly two feet. The largest implement
of that type I have ever examined is a mortar carved
of a single block of stone, that stands now in the medieval
granary of the Abbey of Le Thoronet in Provence, only a
few yards away from the millstone discussed in an earlier
part of this chapter. This mortar (fig. 449B) has a round
base, 2 feet in diameter, is 3½ feet high, and 4 feet wide at
the top. Its pounding cavity tapers from the rectangular
opening at the top to a conical form at the bottom. The
pestle—which does not look to me to be the original—is
a roughly hewn trunk of a young tree, about 9 inches thick

and nearly 5 feet high. In testing it on the spot it seemed to
me that it could be worked with some effort by a single
man, and with ease by two men lifting it in conjunction.

Yet I would be inclined to think that in the Middle Ages
mortars and pestles of this order of magnitude were water
driven, rather than hand-operated mechanisms. This was
also the view of Rudolf Meringer who has made a special
study of this type of instrument. In an article on the implements
of the pinsere series and their names, published in
1909, Meringer[505] drew attention to the fact that the pilae
of the Plan of St. Gall (fig. 438) were not only considerably
larger than those with which they had been compared by
Keller (fig. 449A) but also of vastly different shape. He
claimed that, rather, they bore striking resemblance to a
type of crushing device which in German is called Anke,
and illustrated his views by a startling juxtaposition of the
pilae of St. Gall and a drawing of a modern water-driven
iron hammer (fig. 453).[506] The earliest pictorial representation
of a water-driven recumbent western tilt-hammer
appears to be a woodcut in Spechthart's Flores Musicae,
published in 1488 (fig. 455).[507] In an earlier period this contrivance
was operated by hand or foot, as it was still in very
recent times in Galicia (fig. 450), Poland, China, and
Japan in very much the manner in which this is depicted
in a whimsical drawing by the Japanese painter Hokusai
(fig. 451). Man-powered tilt-hammers of this type, as was
subsequently shown, were used in China in remote periods,
and their design and mode of operation is well attested by
two small models in green glazed pottery from the Han
period (206 B.C. to A.D. 220) which are now in the Nelson
Art Gallery (fig. 452A-C), Kansas City, as well as a Han
moulded brick found at P'en-shan Hsien, in the Szechuan
Provincial Museum, Chengtu (fig. 452D).[508] Meringer
was convinced that the pilae of the Plan of St. Gall
did not belong to the foot-operated type, but that they were
water driven, and he attempted a reconstruction (fig. 454),
in which the pestle beams were alternately lifted and
released for fall by the cogs of a cylindrical drum mounted
directly upon the axle of a water wheel, as in the modern
iron hammer (fig. 453). Hydraulic trip-hammers of this
or a similar design are attested for China through unequivocal
literary descriptions as early as the reign of Emperor
Wang Mang (A.D. 9-23) and through less reliable sources
perhaps even as early as the third century B.C.[509] Meringer
could not prove that the camming action employed in this
device was known in Carolingian times,[510] and his interpretation
of the pilae of St. Gall as hydraulic cam-operated
pounding mechanisms did not come to the attention of
Marc Bloch who, in his classical and widely read study on
the advent and spread of the water mill, referred to the
pilae of St. Gall as "a crushing instrument which, on the
plan, was certainly not shown as being water driven;"[511]
a view which was reiterated in 1954 by Bertrand Gille,[512]
and subsequently adopted, although perhaps not with the
same degree of conviction, by Lynn White in 1962.[513]
Finally, in 1965, it looked as though Meringer's interpretation
had received a final blow, when Joseph Needham,
in his monumental Science and Civilization in China, after
a thorough account of the Chinese history of the hydraulic
trip-hammer[514] advanced the theory that this mechanism
was introduced in Europe "about the time of Marco Polo,"
in connection with the fulling trade when much other
Chinese textile machinery appears to have made its way to
Europe. Needham proclaimed that all water powered European
stamp mills prior to that period were machines in
which pestle beams moved in vertical action in the manner
illustrated by a drawing made by an anonymous Hussite
engineer around 1430 (fig. 456).[515]

EVIDENCE FOR WATER-POWERED TRIP-HAMMERS

The Plan of St. Gall contradicts these views. The pilae
of its Mortar House can under no circumstances be interpreted
as vertical pestles. Their design—a hammer attached
at right angles to a pestle beam connecting at the opposite
end with a body of cylindrical shape—leaves no doubt
that they were recumbent hammers activated by the cams
of a revolving drum. Their dimensions as well as their
location, next to a water-driven grain mill, suggests that
they were water powered. The pestle beam alone is 10 feet
long (4 standard modules), the hammer has a length of 6
feet (2½ standard modules) and the drum has a diameter
of 6¾ feet. The over-all length comes close to 17½ feet. This
is a very heavy piece of equipment that could not possibly
be operated by hand or foot. The Plan may somewhat
exaggerate the dimensions of the drum,[516] but it leaves no

[ILLUSTRATION]

452.A MODEL. FARMYARD DETAIL WITH FOOT-OPERATED TRIP-HAMMER. HAN DYNASTY, 206 B.C.-220 A.D.

IRRIDESCENT GREEN GLAZED POTTERY, 8¾ × 6 × 2½ INCHES

question about the presence of a drum, which makes sense
only within the context of a water-powered apparatus.
Marc Bloch's argument that water is not shown on the
Plan, does not militate against this conclusion. We have
shown in our chapter on omissions and oversights how
waterways, although nowhere in evidence on the Plan,
could be a determining factor in siting of facilities dependent
on this power source, and were therefore clearly a
possibility taken into account by the designing architect.[517]

The crushing mechanisms of the Mortar House of the
Plan of St. Gall are, as far as I can see, the earliest historical
evidence of the use of hydraulic trip-hammers in Western
Europe. Their appearance on the Plan makes it clear that
water-driven trip-hammers were, at the time when the
original scheme was drawn, i.e., in 816-817, considered
standard equipment of a paradigmatic Carolingian monastery.
There is no reason to presume that the inventor of the
scheme was also the inventor of the mechanism. The
system as such may, even in Europe, have been of considerably
greater age. It may have been diffused in Frankish
times from China, as the stirrup certainly was, as the two
forms of modern horse-harnesses probably were, and as
the mechanical crank may have been.[518]

A SURVIVING MEDIEVAL HYDRAULIC TRIP-HAMMER

I feel strengthened in this conjecture by the circumstantial
historical evidence surrounding a water-powered
medieval trip-hammer that came to my attention, in the
summer of 1970, while travelling in the mountains of the
province of León in Spain. This mechanism, not only
intact but able to be operated, is housed in a smithy located
in the valley of Compludo, on the grounds of a former
monastery of that name. San Fructuosus, a Visigoth of
royal blood and the founder of Spanish monachism, established
Compludo as the first of a vast web of monasteries.
The trip-hammer owes its anachronistic survival to the

[ILLUSTRATION]

452.B

The processing of grain for domestic use
in China during the centuries just before
and after the birth of Christ in the West
reveals wholly familiar technologies and
associations. The model of the farmyard
(fig. 452. A) contains, in addition to the
trip-hammer, a small mill and what
appears to be a parching kiln built into an
enclosure wall—an association also
reflected in the Plan of St. Gall, some 6
centuries later.

The trip-hammer in the model (figs.
452.A-B) was the simplest of mechanisms;
in it is applied the principle of fulcrum
and lever actuated by direct force.

452.C

WILLIAM ROCKHILL NELSON GALLERY OF ART, ATKINS MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS, KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI

IRRIDESCENT GREEN GLAZED POTTERY, 10¾ × 3½ × 3½ INCHES

complete and utter isolation of the site, which even today,
is accessible by only a stony mountain road whose narrow
and precipitous course offers to the unexpecting modern
visitors moments of breathtaking suspense.[519] The instrument
is described by Florentino-Augustin Diez Gonzáles,[520]
in a study of the political and social life of the Spain of San
Fructuosus, which also includes a sketch of this unusual
mechanism.[521] It conforms in all respects to the trip-hammer
shown in Spechtshart's woodcut of 1488 (fig. 455)
and the modern specimen discussed by Meringer (fig. 453),
except that it is considerably larger.

The water that sets the Compludo hammer into motion
is channeled from the confluence of two narrow mountain
streams, the Miera and the Miruello, into a collecting
basin (banzao) from where it falls upon the heavy wooden
studs of a waterwheel. This wheel, 8 feet in diameter, is
driven by a shaft (árbol) made of chestnut, 16 feet long
and 2½ feet thick. Rotating horizontally this timber,
hardened by age like stone, activates with its wooden cogs

[ILLUSTRATION]

452.D CHENGTU, SZECHUAN, PROVINCIAL MUSEUM

RUBBING, CLAY TOMB TILE, (46 × 28cm) DETAIL, EASTERN HAN PERIOD, 23-220 A.D.

[after Liu Chih-yuan]

Two men are shown pounding rice with trip-hammers, a scene of daily life of the lower social strata of Chinese society that artists of the
Eastern Han loved to portray.

The tile was excavated in 1956 at T'ai-p'ing-hsiang, P'enghsien, Szechuan Province. It was published in Ssu-ch'uan Han-tai hua-hsiang
pei-t'o p'ien (Portfolio of Han Dynasty Impressed Clay Tiles from Szechuan), Ssu-ch'uan sheng po-wu-kuan (Szechuan Provincial
Museum) by Shang-hai jen-min mei-shu ch'u-pan she (Shanghai People's Art Press), 1961, pl. 3, from which this detail is taken.

[ILLUSTRATION]

453. MODERN TILT-HAMMER (SCHWANZHAMMER)

PLAN AND SIDE ELEVATION

[redrawn after Meringer, 1907, 285, fig. 10]

The cam block driving the hammer can be linked to a drive system
as sophisticated as one powered by steam, or as simple as one driven
by an animal on a treadmill.

a sturdy lever (palanca), 13 feet long, at whose extremity the
smashing hammer (mazo) rises and falls. The rhythm or
beat of the stamp can be controlled from within the forge
by a second mechanism that augments or decreases the flow
of the water turning the wheel, as the varying nature of the
work requires (sketched roughly in Gonzáles's drawing).
The ore is smelted in the furnace by a fire fanned to intense
heat by means of air drafted into it by hydraulic action
(shown in the background of Gonzáles's sketch) and under
the beat of the hammer, converted into malleable iron.[522]
To watch this primordial mechanism in operation was
truly an awe-inspiring experience.

MONASTIC ECONOMY AND WATER POWER
UNDER ST. FRUCTUOSUS

The date of the hammer is unknown.[523] Local tradition
ascribes it to "Romanesque period" (edad romanica).

González believes that mechanisms of this type might well
have been an integral part of the monastic economy of the
time of San Fructuosus (d. 665).[524] This view is not so

[ILLUSTRATION]

455. SPECHTSHART. FLORES MUSICAE

STRASSBOURG, 1488, fol. 7v

[courtesy of the University Library, Freiburg i. Br., Germany]

The woodcut shows an iron forge with a water-powered tilt-hammer
activated by a cylindrical cam block mounted on the axle of a waterwheel.
Two blacksmiths forge iron on an anvil with the hammer's
aid; behind them Pythagoras weighs hammers. In the background,
Tubal chisels musical notes into a column, representing Pythagorean
philosophical preoccupation with order, number, and harmony of the
spheres of the Ptolemaic universe (cf. I, 231, fig. 187).

shocking as it might appear to be at first exposure. The
seventh century, as has been shown in the preceding
chapter, was the great century of systematic application of
water power to milling in the economy of coenobitic
monachism.[525] The development was spurred by the need to
provide great quantities of flour for the sustenance of large
numbers of men whose religious activities required that they
be freed from certain common forms of labor, in order to
devote themselves to the more serious task of serving God
in prayer and chant. It is not an unreasonable conjecture
that the same need may also have fostered the invention or
adoption of the cam which made it possible to harness water
for tasks requiring the crushing blow of a rising and falling
mechanical hammer. It is quite possible that this idea (or
its adoption) was first conceived in connection with iron
works where the brutal blow of a hydraulic stamp offered
advantages highly superior to those that could be derived
from its use in the lighter task of crushing grain or of
fulling cloth. The banks of the rivers in the mountains of
Eastern Leon, where San Fructuosus founded his first
monasteries, carry iron deposits important enough to be
mentioned by Pliny the Elder and other Roman writers;[526]
numerous localities in this area, now in ruins or deserted,
carry even today the name herrería (iron forge).[527]

The Fructuosan monastic economy formed an ideal
ambiance for the invention of such a power mechanism. It
created a sudden and vast demand for agricultural tools by
converting virtually overnight deserted valleys into densely
populated rural communities, formed not only by the
multitude of monks that settled in the monastery itself, but
in addition by a veritable army of secular followers who
were allowed to establish themselves as tenants in the vast
stretches of land which the monastery owned in the valleys
and mountains around it. Among them were members of
the former household of San Fructuosus (whose paternal
inheritance was enormous), magnates from the royal court
with their entire families, soldiers from the Visigothic
army who fell under the spell of the saint, and in a mystical
commotion that had no precedent, followed him in such
numbers that their chieftains found themselves compelled
to legislate against such wholesale desertion of the army
and flight into the country.[528] A blacksmith capable of
converting ore into iron with the aid of water power and
shaping it into usable tools could meet the demands created
by such a sudden population increase in the country, and the

[ILLUSTRATION]

VALLEY OF COMPLUDO, LEÓN, SPAIN. MEDIEVAL IRON FORGE & WATER-POWERED TRIP-HAMMER,
WITH FORGE BLOWER ASSOCIATED WITH FLUME. Date of the initial installation unknown,
concept possibly dating from Visigothic period. See caption above.

457.A

PERSPECTIVE VIEW

In 1975 we paid another visit to the Compludo
forge and discovered that the trip-hammer we
first inspected in 1970 was being rebuilt, and the
waterwheel replaced by a slightly sturdier one.
The hammer had been moved to the outside yard
to serve as a template for its replacement. The
sturdy cammed trunk, strongest member of the
mechanism and subject to great torsional strain,
was considered in good enough condition to serve
another span in the life of the hammer. It had
earlier been reinforced lengthwise by iron bars
banded to it with iron hoops.

The carpenter directing the work was convinced
that in continuous use, wheel and hammer would
need replacement every 40 years, the main trunk
every century. He shared local belief that the
mechanism is medieval and would tend to retain
its original design for a virtually indefinite span
of time, even though its components were
periodically renewed.

These drawings were made with aid of measurements
taken in 1975. They do not show the
apparatus governing the flow of water to the
wheel and thus the speed of the hammer's
action. For rough sketches of that mechanism
and the means by which air is drafted into the
forge furnace, a function also associated with the
flow of water to the wheel race, we still depend
exclusively on the drawing published by
Gonzáles (1966, 46) and reproduced by Horn
(1975, 245).

457.B

457.C

457.D

presence of ore in these places would give an added stimulus
to the adoption of devices facilitating their production.

The Romans, it is generally conceded, did not make any
use of water-powered trip-hammers transmitting the
rotational movement of the wheel and its axle into the
vertical beat of a recumbent hammer by means of cogs.
China, unquestionably is the prime inventor. But the Plan
of St. Gall attests that at the beginning of the ninth century
such mechanisms were, even in the West, well known and
widely employed. This seems to vitiate the theory of its
westward diffusion by Marco Polo and suggests that the
knowledge of this invention came to Europe in the wake of
contact established with the Far East, in the fourth and
fifth centuries A.D. by the invasion of the Huns and other
Asiatic tribes, with whom the Visigoths were in close, and
often mortal, association over long periods of time.

FROM CHINA TO EUROPE DURING THE
MIGRATION PERIOD?

The display of water-powered trip-hammers on the Plan
of St. Gall gives added credence to such literary sources
as had been adduced by Bloch, Gille and Carus-Wilson[530]
in favor of the contention that hydraulic trip-hammers were
operated in eleventh- and twelfth-century Europe; as well
as the claim advanced by Uccelli and White[531] that the fulling
mills of Prato made use of hydraulic trip-hammers from
the beginning of this industry in A.D. 983.[532] An even
earlier reference (datable 883-904) to molinis vel pilis is to
be found in the Formulae Sangallenses miscellaneae.[533]

EUROPEAN SOURCES BEFORE MARCO POLO

A literary account of poetic beauty of water-driven
trip-hammers, written decades before Marco Polo's visit
to China (A.D. 1280), is to be found in a remarkable thirteenth-century
description of the waterworks of the monastery
of Clairvaux. There, after telling how the river Aube
had been deflected from its natural course, the writer
traces the water's path as it travels from workshop to
workshop, "launching itself at once upon the wheels of the
mill, and lashed into foam by their motion, it grinds the
meal under the weight of the millstones, and separates the
fine from the coarse by a sieve of fine tissue." Then, after
a brief excursion into the brewery, "where it fills the
boiler and is heated for brewing. . . not hesitating nor
refusing any who requires its aid," it follows the call of the
fullers, at whose workshop, close by the mill, "you may
see it causing to rise and fall alternately the heavy pestles,
that is to say, hammers or wooden foot-shaped blocks—for
that name seems to agree better with the treading-work, as
it were of the fullers—and so relieves them of the heaviest
part of their labor" (sed graves illos, sive pistillos, sive malleos
dicere mavis, vel certe pedes ligneos—nam hoc nomen saltuoso
fullonum negotio magis videtur congruere—alternatim elevans
atque deponens, gravi labore fullones absolvit. . .)[534]

TRIP-HAMMERS WITH VERTICAL PESTLES

There existed in the Middle Ages, as already mentioned,
yet another pounding mechanism making use of camming
action that cannot be overlooked in this context. It worked
with vertical pestles rather than with recumbent hammers.
Illustrations of these are found in the Mittelalterliche
Hausbuch of about 1480,[535] in several manuscripts of
Leonardo da Vinci[536] and in the manuscript attributed
to an anonymous Hussite engineer of around 1430 (fig.
456). Needham considers these vertical stamping mechanisms
"as characteristically European as the recumbent
tilt-hammer was Chinese."[537] This may be true, but there
is no historical assurance whatsoever that in Europe the
invention of the former preceded the adoption of the
latter[538] and any attempt to interpret the pilae of the Plan
of St. Gall, or the pistillos, sive malleos, vel certe pedes
ligneos of the thirteenth-century description of the water-powered
trip hammers of the Abbey of Clairvaux in the
light of this vertically operated pounding mechanism
would be straining the available historical evidence beyond
the limits of propriety. Amongst the vertical medieval
crushing devices listed by Needham, or anyone else
as far as I can see, there is not a single one with pestles
the shape of which could in any manner be compared
with that of a hammer (malleus) or a foot-shaped member
(vel certe pedes ligneos). A hammer, whether struck horizontally
or vertically, hits its object on impact, in a position
which places its longitudinal axis parallel to the surface
that receives its blow. It can accomplish this only with the

[ILLUSTRATION]

PLAN OF ST. GALL. MORTAR HOUSE. AUTHORS' INTERPRETATION

458.B

458.A

458.D

458.C

PLAN. TRANSVERSE SECTION, LONGITUDINAL SECTION; SOUTH ELEVATION

The Mortars of the Plan are here reconstructed as water-driven mechanisms, with their axle-trees oriented east and west and the presumptive
waterwheels to which these were geared oriented in the same direction, as are the waterwheels of the reconstructed Mill (above, fig. 448. A-E).

[ILLUSTRATION]

PLAN OF ST. GALL. AUTHORS' RECONSTRUCTION

458.E

458.F

WEST ELEVATION, NORTH ELEVATION

If a stream existed on the site and the land gradient permitted the development of waterpower, great efficiency could be achieved by this
alignment of the wheel races. For justification of water-powered mechanisms see above, p. 232, caption to fig. 448. In actual construction, we
believe such details would have been resolved by experienced craftsmen.

aid of a "foot-shaped" head piece lying at right angles to
its longitudinal axis. In the vertical crushing mechanism,
illustrated by the anonymous Hussite engineer (1472-78),
the Hausbuch Master (ca. 1480) and Leonardo da Vinci
(turn of the fifteenth to the sixteenth century), the pestles
are pointed, i.e., pencil-shaped, and could not by any
stretch of the imagination be interpreted as "hammer-" or
"foot-shaped" instruments. There is no doubt in my mind
that the pilae shown on the Plan of St. Gall must be interpreted
as recumbent hammers. They have the shape of
hammers, and the presence of a drum at the end, which
lies opposite the head of the hammer, as well as their
dimensions, allows for no other interpretation.[539]

RECONSTRUCTION OF PILAE ON THE
PLAN OF ST. GALL

Using as a model the trip-hammers of the iron forge of
Spechtshart's Flores Musicae (fig. 455), the trip-hammer of
the monastic smithy of Compludo (fig. 457), and the modern
example described by Meringer (fig. 453), we have reconstructed
the mortars of the Plan of St. Gall as water-driven
crushing hammers whose movement is controlled by the
cogs of a cylindrical drum mounted directly upon the axis
of a waterwheel (fig. 458).

DIETARY IMPORTANCE OF CRUSHED GRAIN IN
WESTERN EUROPE

The amount of crushed grain used daily in a medieval
monastery must have been considerable. A mixture of
barley and oats, made into a kind of porridge or "pap" by
the crushing action of the mortar was a chief item in the
diet of the people of Western Europe prior to the introduction
of the potato. The German word for this dish is mus,
and in the monastery of St. Gall the use of this term, as

[ILLUSTRATION]

459.A PLAN OF ST. GALL. DRYING KILN. AUTHORS' RECONSTRUCTION [1:192]

The shelter for the Drying Kiln is identical with those for the Mills and
Mortars of the Plan. This house could have been the simplest kind of structure,
perhaps even open-sided. Although the Drying Kiln would not develop
temperature so high as those needed for baking, some fire hazard would have
existed in a closed building; the Plan does not show either smoke exit or stack
port for this facility. We reiterate that these service structures of the Plan are
highly abstract; their purpose and siting were of foremost importance to the
Plan's makers; their constructional details, secondary.

Keller has pointed out,[540] was so prevalent that the monk
Kero renders the Latin word cibus, i.e., "food," with the
German word mus, and caenare, i.e., "to take one's supper,"
with the term abendmussen, i.e., "to sup on pap."

Crushed grain was also one of the primary ingredients in
the making of beer.[541]

V.15.4

THE DRYING KILN

The drying apparatus in the "house in which the grain is
parched" (locus ad torrendas annonas) need not detain us.
The egg-shaped symbol in the center is obviously a furnace
or oven enclosing a contained fire capable of producing
the slow and even heat needed for parching. Its form is a
hybrid between the ovoid corner fireplaces in the bedrooms
of the higher-ranking monastic officials, and the baking
ovens in the monastery's bake and brew houses.[542] The grid
of squares around this furnace is the frame of a drying rack.
Annonas should not be interpreted to refer exclusively to
grain parched in preparation for brewing. The Drying Kiln
was also the place where fruit from the abbey's orchards was
dried for use during the winter months as a substitute for
vegetables unavailable during this period.

[ILLUSTRATION]

459.B

POMPEII. CARBONIZED LOAF OF BREAD

The division of the loaf into equal-sized segments for easy distribution may have
had some relevance for Benedict's later instruction that the monks' ration of bread
be carefully and fairly weighed.

[ILLUSTRATION]

460. POMPEII. ROMAN ATRIUM HOUSE

[redrawn after Kahler, 1960, 163, fig. 80]

BAKING ESTABLISHMENT WITH LIVING QUARTERS

The layout combining living quarters with a commercial and industrial establishment,
shows Roman planing at its best. The forward part of the building is the
traditional Roman atrium house—descendant of a long lineage of Near Eastern and
Greco-Roman courtyard houses (cf. above, p. 6ff) which are as characteristically
Mediterranean as the aisled and bay-divided timber hall, from which guest and
service structures of the Plan descend, are Northern (cf. above, p. 23ff).

On the street front, to left and right of the entrance (1) are two three-room shops
(2, 3, 4; 5, 6, 7) unconnected with the interior. From the atrium (8) two stairs (9)
lead to the balcony giving access to an upper tier of rooms. To the left and right are
two cubicles (10, 11, 12, 13).

The rear part of the house, accessible through a fore room (14), which under normal
conditions would serve as tablinum, accommodates in an area of 8 × 10.2m (15)
four mills of the type shown in fig. 441, with paved walking strips for the donkeys.
Remaining rooms are: (16), a donkey stable with water trough; (17) a baking oven;
(18) a room for kneading and shaping dough; (19) a room for cooling bread; (20) a
bedroom for the mill slave, or kitchen (?).

V. 16

FACILITIES FOR BAKING
AND BREWING[543]

V.16.1

SYMBIOSIS OF BAKING & BREWING

In large medieval monasteries, the community's baking
and brewing facilities were almost without exception installed
in the same building. This is an intrinsically medieval
arrangement that has no parallels in Greco-Roman life.
Up to the time of the second Macedonian War (200 B.C.197
B.C.), Pliny informs us, the women of Rome used to
bake their bread themselves in their homes,[544] as had been
customary in the country since the remotest times, and
continued to be among the peasants for ages to come. The
flour was ground in mills operated by mules or by slaves.[545]
From 180 B.C. onward, however, as Rome began to develop
into a megalopolis with multistory apartment houses, the
millers began to usurp the task of baking, because the
architecture of the city and the social conditions of their
inhabitants no longer permitted each family to operate its
own oven. Baking became a professional activity and its
association with milling gave rise to the appearance of
shops, where both of these operations were combined.[546] A
typical example of this industrial symbiosis is a house in
Pompeii, the plan of which is shown in fig. 460. The forward
half of this establishment, facing the street, is a typical
Roman atrium house (1) with the rooms ranged peripherally
around a central court. The rearward part consists
of a court with millstones and baking troughs (2); a baking
oven (3); a room for storing flour (4); a room for kneading
and leavening dough (5); a shop for selling the finished
product (6). This tradition of combining milling and baking
in one and the same shop was not adopted by the Middle

[ILLUSTRATION]

460.X ROME. MUSEO CHIARAMONTI. MONUMENT OF P. NONIUS ZETHUS, OSTIA (LATE IST CENT.)

[courtesy of the Archivo Fotografica dei Musei Vaticani]

This large slab of marble (1.37 × .46 × .75m) imitates the form of a sarcophagus with two rows of conical sockets in the upper surface to receive
incinerary urns. Reliefs illustrate the symbiosis of the trades of milling and baking in Roman life. In the center of a framed panel, the inscription,
resolved of its abbreviations, reads:

PUBLIUS NONIUS ZETHUS AUGUSTALIS
FECIT SIBI ET
NONIAE HILARAE CONLIBERTAE
NONIAE PUBLI LIBERTAE PELAGIAE CONJUGI
PUBLIUS NONIUS HERECLIO

My colleague, Arthur E. Gordon, translates:

Publius Nonius Zethus, an Augustalis, has made [this monument] for himself and nonia hilaria
his fellow freedwoman, [and] Nonia Pelagia, freedwoman of Publius, his wife.—Publius Nonius Hereclio

The donkey in the lyre-shaped wooden trace, the hourglass-shaped mill and its meta and catillus are typical in form (cf. figs. 441. B, 442); an
assortment of standing containers of different capacities are doubtless measures for grain and flour, with additional containers hung on the wall.
A sieve is also depicted, and two or three wooden battens used to level flour or grain to the rim of the container into which it was poured.
The dating of the monument to the end of the 1st century A.D., Gordon informs me, is suggested by both style of writing and Zethus's title,
"AUGUSTALIS," which in the late 1st or early 2nd century was changed to "SEXVIR" or "SEVIR AUGUSTALIS" (see Russel Meiggs,
Roman Ostia, 1960, p. 217, and Wolfgang Helbig's Führer durch die öffentlichen Sammlungen Klassischer Altertümer
in Rom, I, 1963, 245, No. 316.)

Ages. Milling, by increasing its efficiency through water
power, became a highly specialized professional function
and a privilege jealously guarded by the feudatory who
owned the land and the stream over which the mill was
raised.[547] Baking was dissociated from this craft and entered
instead into a symbiosis with brewing—at least in all those
cases where there was a need for the production of bread
and beer in quantities that required using industrial
techniques, as inevitably was so in a monastic community—
and this association lead to the creation of a new architectural
entity: the monastic bake and brew house.

An impressive example of such a dual-purpose structure,
dating from the end of the eleventh century, is portrayed
on the plan of the waterworks of Christchurch Monastery
(fig. 461), drawn up by the engineer Wibert around 1165.[548]
Measuring approximately 40 by 170 feet (its foundations
can still be traced[549] ), this installation was more than twice
the length of the Monks' Bake and Brew House on the
Plan of St. Gall (fig. 462). Inscriptions tell us that half of
the building was used for brewing (bracium) and the other
half for baking (pistrinum). Precisely when the association
of these two crafts came about historically I do not know.
On the Plan of St. Gall it is an accomplished fact. The
paradigmatic character of the Plan may well have contributed
greatly to the adoption and continuance of this
architectural solution in later monastic planning.

V.16.2

THE NEED TO MAINTAIN AN ACTIVE
YEAST CULTURE

There are some functional requirements shared by brewing
and baking that could readily dictate that facilities
for the two tasks be installed beneath the same roof.
Both processes depend on the maintenance of an active
yeast culture and the successful completion of a yeast
cycle, each of which requires a temperature that can be
held above 75°F and by consequence, an architectural
ambient capable of furnishing this condition. Yeast is the
indispensable ingredient without which the bread could not
rise nor the beer ferment. The genesis and maintenance of
a yeast culture, or "sponge," must have been a primary
consideration and cause for concern among those whose
duty it was to furnish the daily bread requirements of the
monastery. When the monastery population of St. Gall
was at full complement, nearly 300 loaves daily were to be
produced by the monks' bakery.[550] In today's terms, the
amount of yeast required to cause such a bulk of flour to
rise must have been considerable—the monks did not have
modern dried yeast, but must have had to maintain and
daily replenish a potent yeast culture and reserve in a good-sized
crock, cauldron or bin, to assure the rising of the new
bread from one day to the next.

The life of a yeast culture is tenacious enough, for the
organism survives even long-term freezing, but it is
quiescent below lukewarm temperatures, and will not instigate
fermentation in beer, nor cause bread to rise steadily
at temperatures much below 80°F. The oven in the bake
house provided that continuance of temperature. Its temperature
rose and declined with the rhythm of the baking
cycle but it was never cold so long as the requirements of
the full community demanded fresh bread daily. For this
reason, the Bake and Brew House maintained a rather
predictable range of temperature throughout the year and
thus afforded a basic precondition for the production of
both bread and beer. To effectively use a large oven such
as the one in the monks' bakery presupposes that it was
warmed, even between firings, by a small banked fire in
its interior. Were it allowed to cool completely and then be
reheated rapidly in daily succession, only a short time would
pass before the oven and its chimney stack would crack
and disintegrate from the effects of too-rapid expansion
and contraction (thermal shock). On the other hand, by
being prewarmed the oven could be heated to temperatures
high enough to bake bread in a relatively short time (at a
probable internal loading-time heat of 700°F) without
straining its thermal tolerance. Keeping the fire alive from
one baking to the next would have made it possible to
"control" the air temperature of the Monks' Bake and
Brew House merely as a side effect of properly tending a
large oven in daily use, thus maintaining an ambient in
which a successful brewing fermentation cycle could be
virtually assured all year round.

V.16.3

DUPLICATION OF DESIGN
AND EQUIPMENT

SUBTLE DIFFERENTIATIONS IN DESIGN

In the monastery shown on the Plan of St. Gall there are
three bake and brew houses, one for the Monks, one for
the House for Distinguished Guests and one for the House
for Pilgrims and Paupers (figs. 462-464). The maker of
the Plan was sensitive to varying demands upon the baking
and brewing facilities in the St. Gall community. While
the layout, design, and equipment of the three bake and
brew houses of the Plan are virtually identical, planned
variations exist in both size and details, in order to accommodate
different traffic through each installation.

The differences are subtle yet persuasively illustrate the
compositional flexibility of this house type and its ability
to adapt with ease to specific needs by an addition to the
principal space of one or several peripheral rooms. The
Bake and Brew House of the Pilgrims and Paupers, with

[ILLUSTRATION]

461. CANTERBURY. PLAN OF WATERWORKS FOR CHRISTCHURCH MONASTERY

DRAWN ABOUT 1165

DETAIL SHOWING MONKS' BAKE AND BREW HOUSE

[by courtesy of the Trustees of Trinity College Library, Cambridge University]

The drafters of the Plan of St. Gall considered the association of the crafts of baking and brewing to be both ideal and a practical necessity.
The Christchurch drawing demonstrates, together with many other documentary and archaeological sources, that this association became a
standard trait of monastic architecture in the ensuing two centuries. The plan of the waterworks of Christchurch, Canterbury, shows the
conventual buildings in the state they attained under Bishop Lanfranc (d. 1089), after the Saxon church and monastery were destroyed by fire
in 1067.

The bake and brewhouse of this new monastery was built in the large open court (CURIA), to the north of the claustral compound. It was a
large rectangular building, 40 feet wide and 170 feet long, running with axis parallel to the precinct and city walls bounding the monastery to
the north at a distance of 70 and 100 feet respectively. The building was divided transversely by an internal wall into two unequal sections; the
western and larger of these, covering a surface area of 40 by 110 feet served as Brewhouse (BRACINUM), the eastern and smaller one, measuring
40 by 60 feet, as Bakery (PISTRINUM). A few feet to the east and co-axial with the bake and brewhouse, stood a granary (GRANARIUM)
which, because of its small dimensions, (40 by 40 feet) can only have been a brewers' granary; it is in fact thus referred to in documents of 1803
and 1313 (granarium in bracino, pro novo bracino cum granario; cf. Willis, 1968, 150). Christchurch Monastery had only one bake and
brewhouse. The Plan of St. Gall shows three (figs. 461-463) but the surface area of the Canterbury facility (6,800 square feet) almost equals
the combined surface area of the brewhouses of the Plan (7,120 square feet).

* The entire plan of Canterbury is shown in vol. I, 70, fig. 52.A.

only one aisle attached to its main space, was at 1,350
square feet (figs. 463 and 392-393) the smallest of the
installations, serving a constant but modest number of
travellers who received from the monks a fare almost as
simple as their own. On the other hand, the Bake and
Brew House for Distinguished Guests (figs. 396, 400, and
464), although only used occasionally, was at 2,636 square
feet the same size as the Bake and Brew House of the
Monks. This provision of a seemingly too-large space may
be accounted for by the recognition that a large progress
of nobles and their retainers might at times approach the
number of resident monks, with the added complication
of more sophisticated dietary demands of the worldly.

The baking and brewing facilities of the two guest
houses, for example, include cooking facilities, an acknowledgement
of the differing dietary requirements for guests
and monks. Thus, it is seen that the need for three separate
bake and brew houses in the monastery was unavoidable,
because of the different diets involved for the three classes
of men—fuedal lords, paupers and monks—who were to
be served by these separate facilities. Differentiation in the
type and quality of bread is well attested.[551] It is not unreasonable
to assume that similar distinctions entailed the
production of different types and qualities of beer. In an
article dealing with hops and its history Charles Dimont
points out that "it was the monks who began the classification
of beer by its strength into prima, secunda, and
tertia (which simplified into the categories `X', `XX'
and `XXX', are used even today) and that this tradition
of producing different qualities of beer was carried on in
the universities and colleges which brewed their own
specialities such as `Chancellor', `Audit', and `Archdeacon'."[552]

The Bake and Brew House for Distinguished Guests is
provided with additional space, apparently for storage, in
the form of two lean-to's on the entrance side. Despite the
larger numbers it served, the oven of this installation is
no larger than that in the Bake and Brew House for Pilgrims
and Paupers; at 7½ feet it is smaller in diameter by
one fourth than the monks' oven (dia. = 10 feet), but
therefore more quickly and easily brought to baking heat
after standing cold during periods of disuse. The relation
in the subordinate installations of baking to brewing
facilities is such that the ovens could have served to control
the temperatures for successful brewing, as was likely done
in the Monks' Bake and Brew House, a discussion of which
follows.

V.16.4

THE MONKS' BAKE AND BREW HOUSE

We have already dealt with the bake and brew houses for
the pilgrims and paupers and for the distinguished guests
in connection with the two houses to which they are
attached.[553] The Monks' Bake and Brew House, largest of
the three, remains to be discussed (fig. 462).

The Monks' Bake and Brew House lies south of the
Monks' Kitchen and is connected to the latter by a covered
passageway that allowed the monks to go back and forth
between these two installations without violating the terms
of claustral seclusion. The House is 42½ feet wide and 75
feet long. It has an aisle on each long side and a narrow
lean-to at the east end. The general purpose of the building
is explained, surprisingly in unspecific terms, by a hexameter
running parallel to the entrance side: Here the
brothers' viands shall be taken care of with thoughtful
concern (hic uictus fr̄m̄ cura tract & tur honesta).

The aisle that faces the Kitchen contains two "bedrooms
for the servants" (uernarum repausationes). Uerna, a
term that appears only in this place on the Plan, is probably,
as Leclercq suggests,[554] the name for a serf, who because he
was born on the monastic domain and had been attached
to the monastery since birth, was treated, if not as a monk,
at least as a brother of inferior rank rather than as a
domestic.

THE BAKERY

The term PISTRINUM

A small vestibule left between the two bedrooms of the
servants gives access to the "brothers' bakery" (pistrinū
fr̄m̄). It occupies the eastern half of the house and its center
space forms an area 22½ feet wide and 32½ feet long.

It should be mentioned in this context that the term
pistrinum is used exclusively as a designation for "bakery"
on the Plan of St. Gall, and never in the sense of "mill,"
its original classical meaning.[555] The equipment with which
the spaces that carry this designation on the Plan are
furnished offers the proof (figs. 462-464). Hildemar, who
touches on the matter of bake houses in his commentary
of chapter 66 of the Rule, makes some interesting etymological
comments about this term: "Pistrinum," he says,
"is the equivalent of pilistrinum, because in the early days
people used to crush grain with the aid of a pestle (pilo)
for which reason the ancients did not call them grinders
(molitores) but crushers (pistores), i.e., people engaged in
the crushing of grain (pinsores) for there were no mill stones
(molae) in use at that time, but grain was crushed with
pestles."[556]

[ILLUSTRATION]

PLAN OF ST. GALL. MONKS' BAKE AND BREW HOUSE

462.X

THE SYMBIOTIC SCHEME IN PLANNING

The efficiency internal to the Plan of St. Gall is nowhere better demonstrated
than in the relationships among the Brewers' Granary, Mortars,
Mills, Drying Kiln, and Monks' Bake and Brewhouse. The traffic patterns
demonstrate with what economy of movement raw material, grain—bulky
and heavy even after threshing—could be moved from the Brewers' Granary
to facilities where it was further refined, and finally into the Brewhouse
where the end product, beer, was produced. Similar efficiency of movement
existed between the Mill, the Bakehouse, and the Monks' Kitchen.
However, planning for isolation of the monks' sanctum takes precedence over
convenience where monastery met the world. See fig. 463.X, p. 256.

SITE PLAN

The makers of the Plan devoted extraordinary attention to the visual detail and verbal instruction for this house, for it lay, in a most
immediate sense, at the physical heart of the monastic complex, as the Church lay at its spiritual heart. The technology of this house is among
the most highly elaborated and least abstract of all facilities of the Plan that existed to support daily life in the monastery.

The close proximity of facilities for processing raw material (grain), refining it (Drying Kiln, 29; Mortar; 28; Mill, 27), and using it in the
Monks' Bake and Brewhouse assumes intense daily use—transporting sheaved grain, sacking threshed grain, carrying it after processing to
bakery or brewery, carrying end products, new bread and new beer, to their destinations.

All the starting points and termini for these processes are found in a very small area relative to the size of the whole site of the Plan. Each day
some major part of the cycles and processes for brewing and baking would be set in motion by monks assigned to such chores. The traffic in
numbers of men, to say nothing of their burdens—grain, buckets, barrows, sacks, baked bread—achieved a density of use and compaction
nowhere else found in the Plan. The planning of the associated facilities would therefore be highly specific, with little assumed and nothing left
to improvisation that would affect efficiency adversely. In this small area of the overall site, the makers of the Plan demonstrated their
thoroughness and ingenuity as administrators and architects.

The term is fascinating, since its shifting values reflect
the entire history of grain preparation from the mortar-and-pestle
stage to the milling stage, and thence by an associative
leap (because bread was often baked near the mill)
from the building in which grain was ground into flour to
the facility where bread was baked.

Layout and equipment

The principal piece of equipment in the Bake House is
the large oven (caminus) which is installed in the southern
aisle of the house directly opposite the entrance. The oven
has a diameter of 10 feet, and is serviced from the main
room of the bakery. This room is furnished with a continuous
course of tables or shelves running in a U-formation
around three of its four walls. The total linear length of
this shelf is 62½ feet. Its depth is 2½ feet. Thus it provides
an ample general work space that could have been used
variously for any number of purposes in the course of
breadmaking.

Next to the oven and in the same aisle with it there is
a trough (alueolus) 12½ feet long and 2½ feet wide. The
space under the lean-to at the east end of the house serves
as a "storage bin for flour" (repositio farinae); this area is
7½ feet wide and 30 feet long. The Plan shows no doors
giving access either to the flour bin or to the room with the
kneading trough—one of the few genuine oversights on
the Plan.[557]

In the axis of the center space, and almost equidistant
from their edges to the shelves that line the room on three
sides, are two rectangles that together form an area 6¼ feet
wide and 10 feet long. A similar but smaller object is found
in the corresponding space in the bakery of the House for
Distinguished Guests. In the bakery of the Hospice for
Pilgrims and Paupers, however, this space is occupied by
the kitchen stove[558] that seemingly displaces to the brew
house an oblong surface that probably corresponds to the
same pieces found in the center of the bakeries of the other
two houses. Unfortunately the Plan does not provide any
explanatory titles that would enable us to identify the
nature, construction, or function of the objects designated
by these rectangles. This is somewhat surprising because
similar objects situated in the outer aisles are clearly identified
with titles that not only explain their shape or form
(alueolus, trough) but also their function (locus conspergendi,
the place where the dough is mixed; and ineruendae
pastae locus, the place where flour is mingled [with water].)

There is no doubt that the large rectangles in the side
aisles of the bake house were the troughs in which the
dough was first mixed. Good baking practice would require
that the yeast sponge be added to the dough at this beginning
stage, and it is quite possible that after being vigorously
mixed, it was likewise here that the dough was allowed to
enter its first stage of rising. The warmth of the enclosure
near the oven, already fired by a considerable heat, would
significantly aid the rising process in the large mass of
dough.

To convert the bulk of dough into a multitude of loaves
required a different setting: large surfaces sprinkled with
flour where the mass could be broken up, kneaded, divided
and weighed into uniform batches, and shaped into loaves.
All these purposes could have been served by the large
rectangular surfaces in the center of the bakery, or, if these
rectangles were actually troughs, the work could have been
done on the shelves that lined the central space on three
sides. After the loaves were shaped and before they were
placed in the oven for baking, they probably went through
a second stage of rising.[559]

The reconstruction of the equipment used in baking
poses no problem. We have already discussed the oven
together with other heating units shown on the Plan.[560]
Their form was established early and until very recent times
did not undergo any significant changes. The same can
also probably be said about bakers' troughs, a good medieval
example of which is shown in figure 388.

I am inclined to believe that in medieval ovens, the
firing and baking chamber were one and the same unit—as
they were still in the earlier decades of this century in the
bakeries of the German village where I spent my childhood.
There the ovens were heated by wood, as was done
in the Middle Ages. When the right temperature was
reached, the coals were raked out to make room for the
loaves, and the bread was baked as the oven temperature
entered its descending cycle.

The daily allowance of bread

The daily ration of bread allowed to each monk was
fixed by St. Benedict:

[ILLUSTRATION]

464. PLAN OF ST. GALL. KITCHEN, BAKE & BREWHOUSE FOR DISTINGUISHED GUESTS

463.X SITE PLAN

[ILLUSTRATION]

463. PLAN OF ST. GALL. KITCHEN, BAKE & BREWHOUSE FOR PILGRIMS AND PAUPERS

Of three baking and brewing houses on the Plan, that of the monks is largest; but it
includes, besides purely functional space, two rooms for servants' sleeping quarters
and a lean-to for storing flour. Servants attached to houses for pilgrims and distinguished
guests lodged in their respective main buildings, not in the bakeries. The size
of the Bake and Brewhouse for Distinguished Guests is augmented by its separate
larder and kitchen; but when areas used solely for baking and brewing are compared,
it will be seen that the differences in size among the three like facilities are minor.
The essential replication of facilities for baking and brewing, both in function and
in the layout of each, apparently marks both traditional juxtapositions and
recognition of the combined bakery-brewery plan to adapt to efficient service for a
widely varying number of people—on the Plan from as few as twelve pilgrims to
as many as 300 monks if the population ever reached its full complement.

Routes between grain supply (Mills, Mortars, Brewers' Granary) and breweries
of pilgrims' and guests' facilities are highly circuitous and lie right through the
western paradise of the Church. But traffic of burdened servants in this most public
area of the site would hardly have presented an interruption. The sacrifice in
efficiency in this pattern was regained in maintaining the desired segregation
between worldly and claustral activities.

e. PORTER'S LODGING

f. PORCH ACCESS TO HOUSE FOR DISTINGUISHED GUESTS

i. LODGING, MASTER OF HOSPICE FOR PILGRIMS & PAUPERS

h. PORCH ACCESS TO HOSPICE FOR PILGRIMS & PAUPERS

9. MONKS' BAKE & BREWHOUSE

10. KITCHEN, BAKE & BREWHOUSE FOR DISTINGUISHED GUESTS

30. BREWERS' GRANARY, ETC.

31. HOSPICE FOR PILGRIMS & PAUPERS

32. KITCHEN, BAKE & BREWHOUSE FOR PILGRIMS & PAUPERS

28. MORTAR

29. DRYING KILN

Charlemagne, in trying to establish the exact weight of
this pound, learned from Abbot Theodomar of Monte
Cassino that in St. Benedict's own monastery bread was
baked in loaves weighing four pounds and divisible into
four quarter sections, weighing a pound each: "This
weight," the Abbot assures the emperor, "just as it was
instituted by the Father himself, is found at this place."[562]
The Roman pound was the equivalent of 326 grams.
Charlemagne increased it by one fourth of its former size,
sometime before 779, which brought it up an equivalent of
406 grams.[563] The Synod of 817 defined the weight of one
pound as corresponding to 30 solidi of a value equivalent to
12 denarii.[564]

Adalhard distinguishes between "bread of mixed grain"
(panos de mixtura factos) and that "made of wheat or
spelt" (de frumento uel spelta). The former was issued to
the paupers; the latter, to visiting vassals and clergymen
on pilgrimage.[565] He gives a complete account of the daily
and yearly bread consumption in the monastery of Corbie,
specifies the quantity of flour needed to produce that volume,

[ILLUSTRATION]

PLAN OF ST. GALL. MONKS' BAKE AND BREW HOUSE. AUTHORS' INTERPRETATION

465.B LONGITUDINAL SECTION

465.A PLAN

This facility belongs to the third variant of the building type from which the guest and service buildings of the Plan descend: a central hall
with peripheral spaces on three sides (see above, pp. 178ff). The partition wall in the central hall, dividing Bakery from Brewery, was not
structural; in the Bake and Brewhouses for Pilgrims, and for Distinguished Guests, such a divider does not appear. In the Monks' Bake and
Brewhouse the dividing wall allots more floor space to the Bakery, but in fact the work areas for each space were virtually identical. The
location of the partition wall here in effect clears between entryway and oven; the task of loading or unloading loaves could go on without
encumbering the bakers' working space. Certain doors connecting work and storage areas, not shown on the Plan itself, are provided here.

and the sources from which it was obtained.[566] He
cautions the "keeper of the bread" (custos panis) to make
allowance for the yearly fluctuations in the number of
mouths to be fed by providing for a reasonable surplus of
flour in order not to be caught with a shortage, and he
admonishes him at the same time not to bake more for the
brothers than is needed, "lest what is left over should get
too hard." If this were nevertheless allowed to happen,
the old bread would have to be thrown away, and the
supply of bread replenished.[567]

A single cycle of firing and baking

If we presume that St. Benedict's allowance of a daily
pound of bread for each monk applied to the monastery's
serfs as well, the monks' bakery on the Plan of St. Gall
would have to have been capable of producing 250 to 270
pounds of bread per day.[568] An analysis of the dimensions
of its oven and the amount of space required for this output
discloses that this volume of bread could be produced in a
single cycle of firing and baking.[569]

A passage in Ekkehart's Casus sancti Galli, which has
consistently been misconstrued, reads that the monastery
of St. Gall had an oven (clibanum) capable of baking a
thousand loaves of bread at once and a bronze kettle
(lebete eneo) and drying kiln (tarra avenis) capable of
holding one hundred bushels of oats.[570] This is not a
statement of fact, but a passage in a speech by Abbot
Solomon III, which Ekkehart himself refers to as "boastful"
and "fraudulent."[571]

THE BREWERY

From Babylon and Egypt to St. Columban

Beer is a malted beverage that was brewed in Babylon and
Egypt from primordial times[572] but it was held in low esteem
by the wine-loving Greeks and Romans, and because of
this deeply rooted cultural aversion made no imprint whatsoever
on early monastic life, from the literature of which
the terms cerevisa or celia are wholly absent. The drink
acquired significance, however, as monachism spread into
the north and west of Europe where beer has been a
traditional beverage since the remotest times and where wine
was as yet not made in sufficient quantities to take care of
all of the needs of the monks.

Pliny describes caelia, cerea and cerevisia as words of
Celtic origin denoting beverages drunk in his days in
Spain and in Gaul and remarks that its froth was used by
the women of these countries as a cosmetic for the face.[573]
The terms do not occur at any place in the Rule of St.
Benedict. The earliest evidence of the consumption of beer
in a monastic context, to the best of my knowledge, is a
passage in the Life of St. Columban, (543-615) written by
the monk Jonas of Bobbio (ca. 665) which relates that in the
days of Columban, beer was served in the refectory of the
monastery of Luxeuil (founded by St. Columban ca. 590).
In this account cervisia is referred to as a beverage "which
is boiled down from the juice of corn or barley, and which
is used in preference to other beverages by all the nations
in the world—except the Scottish and barbarian nations who
inhabit the ocean—that is in Gaul, Britain, Ireland, Germany
and the other nations, who do not deviate from the
custom of the above."[574]

[ILLUSTRATION]

PLAN OF ST. GALL. MONKS' BAKE AND BREW HOUSE. AUTHORS' INTERPRETATION

465.D LONGITUDINAL SECTION

465.C NORTH ELEVATION

The length of the main space of the Monks' Bake and Brew house, 67½ feet, suggests that its roof was carried by seven trusses dividing the
interior into six bays, each 11 feet deep. Such a division would have been in full accord with the asymmetrical location of the entrance. The
width of the center space, 22½ feet is conventional. Although louvers are not marked on the Plan, their presence is postulated for purely
functional reasons (need for air, light and a means for smoke to escape). Whether the lean-to at the eastern end of the building terminated on
tie beam level or reached all the way up to the ridge of the roof, is impossible to say. We have kept it low, because we saw no functional need
to take it higher.

Basic procedures in the making of beer

Beer is brewed in a number of different ways, resulting
in a variety of different brews. The manufacture of all of
them has certain basic steps in common:

1. First, grain, usually barley, is "malted," i.e., allowed
to steep in water until it begins to germinate, and starches
in the grain undergo chemical changes that produce
sugars.

2. Then the malted grain is mashed and infused in
gradually heated water, the temperatures of which are
raised in stages to 165° or 175°F. This heating arrests the
germination of the malted grain and results in a liquid
known as wort (sweet wort) which retains the natural
sugars and enzymes generated by infusion.

3. After completion of the infusion process the wort is
transferred to a kettle and to it is added the blossoms of
hops that give beer its characteristic aroma and flavor. This
mixture of wort and hops (hopped wort) is boiled for about
two hours.

4. After this operation is completed the liquid is
cleansed by straining out the hops and sediments, and
filtered into a cask or trough for cooling. At this point
the yeast is added to the wort and fermentation begins.

Beer may be fermented in a variety of ways, but until
relatively recently, the process favored on the Continent
was that of top fermentation, in which the yeast rises to
the top of the fermentation vat and is there skimmed off
when fermentation is complete. Some beers can be drunk
immediately after fermentation is complete. Others, particularly
those made by top fermentation are stored in
casks from two or three weeks to six months. During the
storage period the beer brightens and becomes charged
with carbon dioxide. Beer fermented in this way is stored
in an ambient of 58°-70°F, a condition entirely consonant
with temperatures that could be maintained both in the
Monks' Brew House where fermentation of the beer was
instigated, and in the great cellar used for wine and beer
storage (see I, 292-307).

Layout and equipment

On the Plan of St. Gall, the monks' brewery lies in the
western half of the Monks' Bake and Brew House (fig.
462). It covers the same area as the bakery, but has no
lean-to on the narrow end of the building. The space in
which it is accommodated is marked by the title "Here let
the beer for the brothers be brewed" (hic fr̄ībus conficiat
ceruisa). It is reached from the monks' bakery and has no
separate access from the outside. The monks' brewery is
furnished with all the equipment needed in brewing: a
stove with four ranges for heating water and boiling wort
with hops. The stove is identical in design with the large
stove in the Monks' Kitchen.[575] Around that stove four
round objects are shown—vats or cauldrons, no doubt,
wherein the grain was steeped for malting, and infusion
was done. These could have consisted either of simple
wooden tubs, or of heatable cauldrons or of a combination
of both, and may have been in shape or construction like
any of those shown in figure 387 and 390. The south
aisle of the brew house serves as a cooler. It is furnished
with two troughs and a vat, explained by the inscription
"Here let beer be cooled" (hic col&ur celia). Here the
yeast was added to the worted liquid and fermentation
began. From the cooling troughs unquestionably the beer
was moved to casks in the cellar, and allowed to finish
fermenting and clearing, before it was brought to the table.

Replacement of wine by beer in ratio of 1:2

We have already drawn attention to the fact that wine was
the traditional monastic beverage, beer only a substitute,
and that a ruling of the Synod of 816 directed that if
shortages in wine had to be made up for by beer, this should
be done in the ratio of 1:2.[576] Therefore, if such an emergency
arose, beer would have had to be available in considerable
quantities. Abbot Adalhard of Corbie allows each
visiting pauper a ration of 1.4 liters of beer per day.[577] If
this same amount were issued to the monks and the serfs
of the monastery, this would mean that the monastery
shown on the Plan of St. Gall issued 350 to 400 liters a
day. Over a period of time, this practice would have required
storing a considerable volume of beer. Unlike wine,
beer is not a seasonal product, but can be manufactured
continuously, and in the monastery it probably was manufactured
continuously, like the bread in the nearby bakery.

Today the brewing of beer is almost exclusively in the
hands of commercial firms. Throughout the major part of
the Middle Ages it was a small-scale domestic operation.
Before the twelfth and thirteenth centuries when brewing
first emerged as a commercial venture, the monastery was
probably the only institution where beer was manufactured
on anything like a commercial scale.

Use of hops as a flavoring agent

The explanatory titles of the various bake and brew
houses of the Plan of St. Gall contain no direct reference to
the use of hops as a flavoring agent in the production of
beer, but it is quite possible that a tacit allusion to this
plant is hidden in the second half of the title which defines
the Brewers' Granary as the place "where the cleansed
grain is kept and where what goes to make beer is prepared"
(granarium ubi mandatū frumentum seru&ur & qd ad
ceruisā praeparatur).[578] This granary is ideally located, in
the middle between the Monk's Brewhouse and their
Drying Kiln—which in addition to serving as a facility for
parching fruit and grapes, could also have performed the
function of a monastic oast house.[579]

[ILLUSTRATION]

PLAN OF ST. GALL. MONKS' BAKE AND BREW HOUSE. AUTHORS' RECONSTRUCTION

465.F WEST ELEVATION

465.E EAST ELEVATION

At the western end of the building the aisles and the center space terminated in a straight line. Under such conditions, the design of the
terminal truss, together with all of its secondary members and infillings, would have been visible for the entire width and height of the structure.
At the opposite end, because of the presence of a lean-to, only the triangular wall section above tie beams could have been exposed to the
exterior. The design of these two sides of the building has a close parallel in the Physicians' House (figs. 413.C and D) except for the different
placement of the entrance.

There is sufficient evidence to make it clear that the
hopping of beer was in the early Middle Ages a widespread
monastic practice north of the Alps. In his Administrative
Directives of A.D. 822 Abbot Adalhard of Corbie addresses
himself in detail to the procedures that should control the
tithing of hops and their distribution among the various
monastic officials placed in charge of brewing.[580] He makes
it a point to exempt the miller from making malt or from
growing hops (nec braces faciendo nec humulonem) because
of the weight of his other duties.[581]

Ural-Altaic origins

The origins of the use of hops as a constituent ingredient
in brewing is an intriguing literary and linguistic subject.
E. L. Davis, and others before him, have drawn attention
to the importance given to hops in the folklore of Finland
and the Caucasus region and believed to reflect a cultural
heritage of great antiquity. They thus inferred that hops
were used as an ingredient for beer in the northeast and
east of Europe long before this practice was introduced in
western Europe.[582] In a more recent study, Arnald Steiger
traced the origin of the custom even further eastward.
The earliest word forms for hops (best reflected in Old
Turkish qumlaq), Steiger contends are found in a variety of
Ural-Altaic languages of great antiquity. From there the
term migrated west into the orbit of the Slavic languages
(Old Slavic chǔmelǐ and through the latter into the North
Germanic language groups (Old West Nordic humili) which
transmitted it to the Salian and Ripuarian Franks (Middle
Latin humelo . . . leading to Modern French houblon). This
evidence, Steiger argues, suggests that the practice of
hopping beer originated in Central Asia and was transmitted
from there to Northern and Western Europe by the
Slavs along the linguistic channels indicated by the
migration of the word for hops.[583]

The Greeks knew the plant only in its uncultivated state
(and under a different name), but the Romans grew it in
their vegetable gardens and used it as a flavoring agent for
salads.[584]

Earliest medieval mention of hops

Probably the earliest medieval mention of the plant is a
charter of A.D. 768 in which King Pepin the Short deeded
some hop gardens (homularia) to the monastery of St.Denis.[585]
During the reign of Charlemagne and Louis the
Pious the evidence multiplies. Abbot Ansegis (823-833)
lists amongst the annual deliveries to be made to the Abbey
of St.-Wandrille (Fontanella): "beer made from hops, as
much as is needed" (sicera homulone quantum necessitas
exposcit).[586] Hops were part of the revenues paid to the
Abbey of St.-Germain-des-Prés from several outlying
possessions (The fiscs of Combs-la-Ville, of Marenil and of
Boissy),[587] and the plant is mentioned in various places in
deeds of the abbey of Freisingen, dating from the reign of
Louis and Pious as well as from later periods.[588]

All of these references to the plant, in conjunction with
the detailed directives issued by Abbot Adalhard on the
tithing and internal distribution of hops leave no doubt
that, at the time of Louis the Pious, hops had become a
customary ingredient of beer produced in the transalpine
monasteries of the Empire.[589]

One of the beneficial effects of its admixture, besides the
distinctive flavor it imparted to the brew, was that owing
to its antibiotic properties it prolonged the life of beer
considerably over that of the older and more perishable
ale.[590] This was of great importance when storage in bulk
was required and where transportation was involved—as
they inevitably were in the beer economy of a monastic
settlement.

Contemporary sources make it quite clear that not
all the beer consumed by the monks and their serfs
was brewed inside the monastic enclosure. All the larger
outlying agricultural holdings, and many of the smaller
ones, had their own facilities for brewing. The delivery of
a tenth of their home-brewed beer was a standard procedure
in the tithing of tenants. Records of these tithes
appear in the deeds of the monastery of St. Gall from as
early as the middle of the eighth century. Some of the
tenants had licenses to set up taverns, and many of these
continued to pay for their tenancy through the delivery of
beer even later, when all other forms of tithing in naturalia
had been abolished.[591]

Work in the bake and brew house:
a privilege of the monks

Working in the Bake and Brew House was one of the
manual labors traditionally required of the brothers, and
so specifically stipulated both in the preliminary and the
final resolutions of the First Synod of Aachen (816).[592] The
brothers apparently liked this work, since one of the protests
lodged before the emperor in the same year by the
monks of Fulda about the hardships brought upon them
by Abbot Ratger's excessive building program included the
complaint that it deprived them of their traditional right
to work in the Bake and Brew House (pistrinum and brati-
arium).[593] It does not seem far-fetched to suppose that the
constant warmth of the bakery attracted the brothers to
the chore of breadmaking. During the long northern winters,
when all warmth was leached from the cloister, the
bakery was one of the few places in the community a monk
could work in comfort of body as well as of soul, and
surrounded by the incomparable fragrance of new bread.

V. 17

FACILITIES FOR THE RAISING
OF POULTRY AND LIVESTOCK

V.17.1

ANIMAL HUSBANDRY:
AN INTRINSIC
PART OF THE MONASTIC ECONOMY

The presence on the Plan of St. Gall of a vast array of
houses for livestock and poultry and their keepers may at
first seem puzzling in view of the monks' essentially vegetarian
diet. It becomes a less surprising phenomenon,
however, when one considers that, although meat was categorically
interdicted to the monks themselves by a rule
that left no margin for ambiguity, it was permitted to
the serfs and workmen, who outnumbered the monks, and
even to the monks themselves in times of sickness and
during the period of bloodletting.[594] But there are other
reasons, and probably more important ones, why the raising
of livestock was a necessary part of the monastic
economy. Animals were needed for hauling and riding.
Without horses and oxen harnessed to plows and carts,
the serfs could neither have tilled the soil nor brought in
the harvest. Saddle horses were an indispensable means of
transportation for the abbot or any other monastic official
whose business took him onto the monastery's outlying
estates. Horses had to be raised for the king as an annual
contribution to the common defense, and horses had to be
kept in readiness for the armed men whom the monastery
was required to dispatch to the king's army in times of
war.[595]

Cows, sheep, goats, and pigs were slaughtered for their
meat, and from the Liber benedictionum of Ekkehart we
learn that the cuts of meat from these animals were as
cherished in his day on the tables of those who could
afford them as they are today.[596] But cows, goats, and sheep
also produced milk, a more important product, because it
was used to make cheese—a staple in everyone's diet.
Sheep's wool was indispensable for making coats and
blankets. Leather was made from the hides of oxen. The
skin of the calf and the lamb yielded a commodity that was
of prime importance for the monastery's religious and
educational mission: parchment. The quill used in writing
the sacred texts came from the wings of geese.

The meat of poultry, as has already been pointed out,
was not subject to the same restrictions as the meat of
quadrupeds. The second synod of Aachen (817) granted
it to the monks for a period of eight days on each of the
great religious feasts of Christmas and Easter. Later the
number of days was reduced to four on each of these

[ILLUSTRATION]

PLAN OF ST. GALL, HENHOUSE, HOUSE FOR FOWLKEEPERS, GOOSEHOUSE

466.

466.X

SITE PLAN

The proximity of the fowl runs to the Granary, Vegetable Garden, and
Orchard shows with what degree of skill convenience and necessity were planned
for by the makers of the Plan. Grain for feed could be gleaned or threshed at
need in the Granary and carried to the fowl runs. Proximity to the gardens was
a boon for both birds and their keepers—garden clippings might provide the
chickens and geese with additional food, while in the beds and orchard manure
from the pens could quickly be distributed, enhancing sanitation. In all facilities
housing animals on the Plan of St. Gall, the herdsmen and keepers lived in
close contact with beasts; while the fowlkeepers were spared the literal
necessity of "going to bed with the chickens," their house is separated by only
ten feet from the two poultry enclosures.

The house for fowlkeepers is 35 feet in length (ridge axis E to W) and 42½ feet wide. Its communal hall with fireplace measures 22½ × 35 feet,
allowing two 10-foot aisles at either side for sleeping accommodation.

The form that the pair of circular pens may have taken is discussed extensively on the following pages. Their sheer size, at a diameter of
42½ feet (across the outermost circle) is impressive evidence of the importance that poultry (perhaps including ducks) had in the monastic
economy. A monastery population of the size postulated on the Plan of St. Gall would in itself have required many birds to augment diet; the
guest facilities and lay dependents proposed for St. Gall made planning for fowl pens of this size a necessity. The poultry houses and that for
their keepers are masterpieces of functional planning; they exhibit great charm in the symmetrical composition of circular with rectangular
structures.

[ILLUSTRATION]

467. LUTTRELL PSALTER (1340). GOOSEHERD

LONDON, BRITISH MUSEUM, ADD. MS. 42130, fol. 169v (detail)

[By courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum]

A goose and five goslings are threatened by a hawk; the gooseherd waves his hood and staff at it to drive it off. Geese were not only useful as
food, but kept vermin and garden pest populations down; their raucous and hostile response to strangers, well known since the early days of
Rome, may have added to their utility in the life of a large monastic complex.

occasions.[597] For the rest of the year, when consumption was
prohibited, hens were of vital importance for their capacity
to produce eggs—a year round staple in the monastic diet
and one of its most important sources of protein. For egg
production alone, the raising of poultry was bound to be
one of the most important aspects of monastic animal
husbandry, and the polyptichs and household accounts from
medieval abbeys abound with records of supplementary
deliveries of eggs, chickens, and hens (ova, pulli et gallinae)
from the abbey's outlying farms.[598]

Lastly we must not overlook the fact that these animals
provided the only good fertilizer that was known to the
medieval agriculturalist and one that made a vital contribution
to the enrichment of the community's crop and
harvest.

It becomes quite clear then, that despite the monks'
essentially vegetarian diet, the monastery as a self-sustaining
economic and agricultural entity could not forego
the need to raise livestock and poultry in quantities commensurate
with the number of men whom it had to clothe
and feed. In the spring, summer, and autumn the majority
of monastic animals were unquestionably put out to pasture.
For that reason, the houses for livestock and their
keepers shown on the Plan of St. Gall are likely to define
only that space which was needed to stable the animals
kept under roof and shelter during the harsh winter months
in order to insure the propagation of the species. The
costliness of stall feeding demanded that this be done with
discretion. A thirteenth-century directive recorded in the
cartulary of Gloucester Abbey rules that "no useless and
unfertile animals are to be wintered on hay and forage"
(quod nulla animalia inutilia et infructuosa hyementur ad
consumptionem foeni vel foragii) and the text makes it clear
that exceptions to this ruling should be made only with
regard to such useful and deserving animals as the plow
oxen and breeding cows (talia scilicet de quibus non credatur
posse nutriri aliquis bos utilis ad carucas vel vacca competens
ad armentum).[599] The directive reflects a general condition
of medieval animal husbandry that pervaded all social
strata and the whole of medieval life, with only minor
variations on the highest levels.

The importance of animal husbandry is eloquently
attested by St. Fructuosus in the ninth chapter of his
Galician Rule. As noted in the translation by Barlow, this
chapter does not appear in the Fructuosan Rule for other
areas, presumably because (as Fructuosus acknowledges)

[ILLUSTRATION]

468. MEINDERT HOBBEMA

A FARM IN THE SUNLIGHT (1660-1670)

NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART, WASHINGTON D.C.

[By courtesy of the Trustees of the National Gallery of Art]

then, as now, Galicia required "more work on the soil than
any other land" and the monk in whose charge lay the
pasturing of livestock needed not only firm direction but
also moral support:

The total area set aside for animal husbandry on the
Plan of St. Gall takes up more than one-fourth of the
monastery site. It accommodates six houses for the larger
breeds and two enclosures for poultry, as well as the living
rooms and bedrooms needed for their keepers. The stables
for the larger animals are concentrated in a large service
yard lying to the south and west of the claustrum; the
houses for the poultry are in the southeast corner of the
monastery site, between the vegetable garden and the
granary.

V.17.2

HOUSES FOR POULTRY & THEIR KEEPERS

The monastery's facilities for the raising of poultry consist
of a dwelling for the fowlkeepers and two circular enclosures—one
for hens, the other for geese. They lie in a plot
of land about 60 feet wide and 145 feet long.

HOUSE OF THE FOWLKEEPERS

The House of the Fowlkeepers (fig. 466) lies midway
between the Hen House and the Goose House. It is a
relatively small and simple house, 42½ feet wide and 35
feet long, consisting of a "common hall" (domus communis)
with a fireplace, and two aisles, one serving as "dwelling

for the keeper of the hen house" (mansio pullorum custodis),
the other as "dwelling for the keeper of the goose house"
(item custodis aucaru). The house is entered axially through
doors in its eastern and western gable walls, which assure
the shortest and most direct communication with the Hen
House and Goose House.

The House of the Fowlkeepers is the only example
among the Plan's guest and service buildings in which the
principal room of the house has aisles on only two sides
and is connected directly with the exterior by doors located
in the two gable walls. A fine pictorial record of this type
of house may be found in a painting by Meindert Hobbema
(fig. 468) entitled A Farm in the Sunlight. This small,
relatively modest farmhouse is aisled but has no lean-to's
on the gable side. A chimney in the ridge of the roof suggests
that it has a central fireplace. The entrances, as in the House
of the Fowlkeepers, are obviously in the longitudinal axis
of the building. The frame of timber supporting this roof
may have corresponded, beam by beam, to that of the
House of the Fowlkeepers. Our reconstructions (fig. 469)
are an attempt to interpret this system.

HENHOUSE AND GOOSE HOUSE

Layout and design

The Hen House and the Goose House lie on either side
of the House of the Fowlkeepers, one to the west, one to
the east (fig. 466). They are the same size and identical
in design. Each consists of three concentric circles, drawn
at diameters of 12½, 27½, and 42½ feet. The only entrance
to each is on the side facing the House of the Fowlkeepers.
The enclosures are identified by metric titles written in
capitalis rustica (a distinction not accorded to any other
building housing animals):

and:

The intermediate bands are not provided with titles, and
the inner circle is decorated with an eight-lobed rosette—of
the same design and probably the same apotropaic purpose
as the corresponding symbol in the two church towers.
The interpretation of these two circular poultry houses
poses problems.

Classical, medieval, and modern parallels

I do not know of any classical prototypes. The Roman
hen and goose houses described by Columella and Varro
were buildings of rectangular shape.[601] But the question
arises whether there may be some typological connection
between the hen and goose houses of the Plan of St. Gall
and the circular bird house which Varro built in his villa
at Casinum.[602] There appear to be no medieval parallels,
unless a circular enclosure with two rectangular attachments
on the grounds of the tenth-century royal palace at Cheddar,
in Somerset, England (fig. 470)—which its excavator,
Philip Rahtz, interpreted as a mill with grain bin and
bakery—was in reality a chicken house. The light construction
of its walls, all braided in wattlework, may speak in
favor of such an assumption.[603]

In his model of 1877 Julius Lehmann reconstructed the
poultry houses of St. Gall in the image of a medieval dovecot
(fig. 267). He interpreted the outer circle as a wall, and
the area between this circle and the inner circle as an open
poultry run. Besides the fact that this interpretation completely
disregards the existence of an intermediate circle,
Lehmann's solution involves a conspicuous imbalance between
running and roosting space and would appear to
be incompatible with the functional perspicacity that the
author of the Plan exhibits in the handling of all other
details of this nature.

The clue to the riddle may be found in an octagonal
chicken house built in the nineteenth century by Freiherr
von Ulm-Erbach, and described in 1886 in Bruno Dürigen's
monumental work on poultry breeding (fig. 472).[604]
Dürigen referred to the design of this house as "a formerly
favored" but "now superannuated" form that had a long
tradition and was used in many zoological gardens because
of its specific suitability for exhibition purposes.[605] The
house is 26 feet (8 meters) in diameter and 23 feet (7
meters) high. Like the poultry houses of the Plan, it has
three concentric strips of space and only one entrance. The

[ILLUSTRATION]

HOUSE OF THE FOWLKEEPERS

469.B TRANSVERSE SECTION

469.A GROUND PLAN

469.D LONGITUDINAL SECTION

469.C WEST ELEVATION

AUTHORS' RECONSTRUCTION

Among the guest and service buildings of the Plan, this house is the sole example in which the communal inner hall is flanked by aisles only on
its two long sides. The hall is divided into three bays—a center bay 15 feet deep and two gable bays 10 feet deep. A division into four bays of
equal width would have brought the center truss into conflict with the fireplace and doors leading from hall into aisles. In all other respects our
reconstruction is modeled after the farmhouse in the Hobbema painting of fig. 468.

[ILLUSTRATION]

470. CHEDDAR, SOMERSET, ENGLAND

SAXON PALACE SITE, 10th CENTURY

[Redrawn from Rahtz, 1962/3, 62, fig. 24]

Of the two alternatives considered by Rahtz, the identification of this site as a
poultry house (rather than a corn mill) appears to be the more plausible, unless
it could be demonstrated that an animal-driven mill, common among the Romans
(cf. figs. 441-442), but subsquently used only when water power was lacking
(as during drought), would still have been operating in the 10th century in an
Anglo-Saxon palace. All available literary sources seem to offer evidence to the
contrary. Had the circular component of this structure housed a mill, it seems
likely that the supports of so heavy a mechanism would have left evidence more
tangible than that found on the site.

outermost strip is open to the sky and serves as a daytime
run for the chickens. The intermediate strip is roofed
over and serves as coop, leaving in the center a tower-like
projection, the raised roof of which admits air and light
through clerestory windows. The chickens are fed and
watered from this center space, and the house can be
heated by a stove set up in this area.

The portion serving as coop consists of a lower and an
upper tier, the lower being used for laying and brooding,
and the upper, for fattening.[606] Both tiers have trap doors
toward the chicken run which can be closed at night, with
ladders enabling the birds to descend to the ground from
their roosting pens and to ascend again in the evening.
Freiherr Ulm-Erbach's chicken coop had a housing capacity,
on the lower tier alone, of 192 birds. The Hen House
of the Plan, which is practically identical in dimensions,
could have accommodated the same number—and if it
were meant to be a double-tier arrangement, twice that
number. For the geese and ducks (should anseres be a
generic term for both of these breeds) this figure would
have to be reduced by a ratio commensurate with their
larger size.

In Roman times, according to Columella,[607] one laborer
was considered sufficient to care for 200 chickens. On the
Plan of St. Gall the keepers of the hen and goose houses
are referred to in the singular, but the rooms in which they
sleep are large enough to accommodate beds for three or
four additional hands. The raising of chickens is a year-round
operation; but geese generally mate in December,
so that goslings can be grazed in the open fields in the
spring, without supplementary feed and extra housing
(fig. 467). The guarding of these flocks would require
additional hands.

Materials and location

I am inclined to believe that the poultry houses on the
Plan were meant to be masonry structures (fig. 473), not only
because circular walls are more readily built in stone than
in wood, but also because masonry makes more feasible
the construction of holes into which the birds may retreat
for laying and hatching. Columella rated laying-nests holed
into masonry superior to wicker baskets suspended in
front of the walls.[608] It is likely that a wattlework fence was
intended for the outer fence that enclosed the poultry runs.

The siting of these houses is ideal, as the chickens and
geese are located near their two basic foods. The granary
lies on one side of the poultry enclosure, and the Monks'
Vegetable Garden on the other. The chickens would doubtless
have been eager to eat the weeds and scraps of vegetables,
after these had been cleaned and cropped for the
monks' table, as the gardeners were anxious to part with
them. And the Monks' Vegetable Garden provided a suitable
place to dispose of the birds' droppings when the
poultry houses were cleaned out.

[ILLUSTRATION]

GOSPELS OF ST. MEDARD OF SOISSONS (9TH CENT.) CANON ARCHES

471.A

471.B

PARIS, BIBLIOTHÈQUE NATIONALE, MS. LAT. 8850, fol. 12v (detail)

Two cocks perch on slender columns that rise from the outer edges of the abaci of the two outer capitals of a canon arch; they are typical of
the classicizing style of manuscript painting cultivated in the Court School. For other manuscripts of the Court School see figures 18-23, and
183-184 in Volume I.

V.17.3

HOUSE FOR HORSES AND OXEN
AND THEIR KEEPERS

LAYOUT AND DESIGN

The House for Horses and Oxen and Their Keepers
lies west of the House of the Coopers and Wheelwrights
and south of the Hospice for Pilgrims and Paupers (fig. 9).
Measuring 145 feet in length and 37½ feet in width, it is
the largest of the buildings housing livestock. It contains
in its center the "the hall for the oxherds and horse grooms"
(domus bubulcorum & equos seruantium). This is a large
square room with an open fireplace in the center and
benches all around its four walls, another unique and
distinguishing feature among the buildings used for livestock
and their attendants. The fireplace has unusually

[ILLUSTRATION]

CHICKEN HOUSE

472.B ELEVATION

472.A PLAN

BUILT BY FREIHERR VON ULM-EHRBACH

The complexity of this poultry house may reflect centuries-long skills
in efficient fowl husbandry; it could be a structure identical with that
proposed for the Plan of St. Gall. (see p. 272).

generous dimensions (12½ feet by 16 feet) and has inscribed
into it a

[ILLUSTRATION]

-shaped symbol which appears nowhere else
on the Plan. The size of the fireplace and the seating capacity
of the benches in this hall, both of which exceed by a
considerable margin the needs of the occupants of this
building, suggest that the hall of the oxherds and grooms
might have served as kitchen and dining room for a larger
segment of the monastery's serfs and laymen, perhaps for
all those who were in charge of livestock. The

[ILLUSTRATION]

-shaped
symbol may have been the sign either for a hearth or for a
wooden frame for the cranes from which caldrons were
suspended on chains over the open fire.[610] One might also
consider the possibility that it was a rig for making shoes
for the draft animals, but there is no positive evidence that
the hooves of horses and oxen were shod this early.[611]

The northern hall of the building serves as "stable for
the mares" (stabulum equarum infra). It has overhead, a
wooden ceiling (supra tabulatum), certainly a loft for the
storage of hay.[612] The "mangers" (praesepia) are carefully
delineated on the Plan and seem to consist of a hayrack
and a feeding trough. The grooms slept in an aisle running
along the entire eastern side of the horses' stable (ad hoc
seruitiū mansio).

The southern half of the building contained the "stable
for the oxen, below" (boum stabulum infra) and "overhead,
a hayloft" (supra tabulatū). The "mangers for the oxen"
(praesepia boū), like those of the horses, ran along the
western wall of the stable. The lean-to on the opposite
side served as "quarters for the oxherds" (conclaue assecularum).
The mangers of the oxen are separated by means of
cross divisions into feeding areas 5 feet wide, doubtless to
prevent the animals from striking each other with their
horns. As there are eleven stalls, the stable for oxen was
equipped to stall eleven head (five plowing teams and a
spare). The same number of horses could have been
accommodated in the stable for mares. Modern farming
manuals recommend standing areas slightly larger (6½ feet),
but the length of the stalls for horses and oxen on the Plan
is not incompatible with the requirements of present-day
stock management. There is ample space behind each
animal to serve as a dung trench, and there is a generous
margin of space on the other side of the stall for the storing
of plows and yokes and other equipment needed for the
operation of teams. Throughout the entire Middle Ages
horses and oxen alike were used as draft animals. Numerous

[ILLUSTRATION]

PLAN OF ST. GALL. HEN HOUSE. Authors' reconstruction

473.B SECTION

473.A PLAN

473.C ELEVATION

For SITE PLAN showing relationship of the HENHOUSE to GOOSEHOUSE
and to FOWLKEEPERS' HOUSE, see figure 466. X, page 265, and figure 466.

The installation of the monastery's poultry in circular enclosures indicates that this kind of structure was not only in use at the time the Plan
was made, but was sufficiently well known to be proposed as an exemplary solution for a monastic community of some 250-270 people. The
enclosure provided for maximum flock size with greatest economy of space. With eggs a chief source of protein in the monks' diet, the more
haphazard methods of raising poultry—i.e., letting birds run and nest at will all over the farmyard—were inappropriate; there was no time in
so well-regulated a community to search each morning for the eggs of perhaps several hundreds of birds! Feeding, watering, sanitation, and
doctoring were likewise attended to with ease through the architectural sophistication of circular fowl houses. A disadvantage of this type of
enclosure is that it cannot readily be enlarged, and is thus most appropriate for a community of planned population.

[ILLUSTRATION]

PLAN OF ST. GALL. HOUSE FOR HORSES AND OXEN AND THEIR KEEPERS

474.

474.X

This house differs from the other guest and service buildings in that its center space with fireplace and benches (designated as the "living room
of the oxherders and grooms") reaches across the entire width of the building. The stables for the horses and oxen do not surround, but extend
laterally away from it. The early and high medieval buildings shown in figs. 477-481 demonstrate that tripartite long houses of this type were
not uncommon in the Middle Ages.

medieval illuminations could be adduced to attest to this
fact; two of the finest examples of this type, from the
margins of the Luttrell Psalter, are shown in figures 475
and 476.[613]

IMPORTANT ROLE OF THE MONASTERY'S
HORSES AND OXEN

The generous dimensions assigned to the House for
Horses and Oxen testifies, not only to the important role
these beasts of burden played in the monastic economy,
but also to the high social standing their caretakers held
amongst the monastery's permanent body of servants.[614]
Columella writes that in his day one farm laborer was
considered enough to look after two yokes of oxen.[615] The
bedrooms of the oxherds on the Plan are large enough to
provide bed space for seven hands; and the same number
of men could be accommodated in the quarters of the
horse grooms.

MEDIEVAL & PROTOHISTORIC PARALLELS OF THE
HOUSE FOR HORSES AND OXEN

The House for Horses and Oxen and their Keepers
differs from all the other livestock buildings shown on the
Plan in that the stabling areas for the animals and the
bedrooms of the herdsmen are not arranged peripherally
around a central living room with a fireplace, but rather,
extend outward on the two opposite sides of that room so
as to form a longhouse. This particular layout is a very
ancient one and was used in the Middle Ages for other
purposes as well.

[ILLUSTRATION]

475. LUTTRELL PSALTER (1340). HARROWING

LONDON, BRITISH MUSEUM, ADD. MS. 42130, fol. 171 (detail)

[By courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum]

The harrow is pulled by one horse and led by a man. A slinger following the harrow tries to drive off two crows flying overhead. Harrows with
iron teeth or tines pegged through a wooden frame (and perhaps originally operated with wooden pegs) are among the oldest animal-powered
agricultural tools. They were used to break up clods after the soil was plowed, to level the earth for seeding, and to cover the seed after it was
broadcast. One horse, properly harnessed, as this drawing shows, was able to draw the harrow.

Royal guesthouses of the Consuetudines Farfenses

An interesting guesthouse for royal travelers, bearing
striking resemblance to the House for Horses and Oxen,
is described in the Consuetudines Farfenses[616] , a literary
master plan for a monastic settlement written around 1043
in the monastery of Farfa in the Sabine mountains, but
now generally believed to record the layout of the monastery
which Abbot Odilo (994-1048) built at Cluny:[617]

The Farfa Consuetudinary describes a guesthouse that is
to be an integral part of the architectural layout of an
eleventh-century monastery. (The mounts and grooms of
the traveling party were to be housed in a separate building.)

The measurements of this building, as listed in this
account, are wholly compatible with the function it was to
perform, as is demonstrated in the reconstruction of its
layout shown in fig. 477, where it is assumed that the
mattresses were ranged side by side at right angles to the
long walls. Laid out in this manner, the two wings of the
building could indeed yield sleeping space for forty men
and thirty ladies, leaving in the center a dining hall 30
feet square. The privies, as the text implies, were separate.
They could not have been arranged in a single line, as that
would have required an outhouse 175 feet long (40 feet
more than the house itself). The proportions are more
reasonable, if we assume that they were arranged in a
double row.[619]

Monks' dormitory in the monastery of
St. Wandrille

There is other, and even earlier, evidence for the use of
a longhouse of this description as sleeping quarters. The
Gesta abbatum Fontanellensium describes a building of this
type erected by Abbot Ansegis (823-833) as a dormitory
for the monks of the monastery of St.-Wandrille (Fontanella):

Again, we are dealing with a building of extremely
elongated shape, with arms reaching out in opposite directions
from a central space whose function differs distinctly
from that of the extended parts. In St.-Wandrille this
central portion served as sunroom (solarium) and therefore
must have been more open than the wings in which the

[ILLUSTRATION]

478.A FONTANELLA (ST.-WANDRILLE) SEINE-MARITIME FRANCE, FOUNDED BY ST. WANDRILLE, 645
SCHEME OF CRITERIA FOR AN INTERPRETIVE STUDY

FONTANELLA (ST.-WANDRILLE)

These studies show in the Carolingian monastery of Fontanella a dormitory that is a
monastic variant of a Germanic long house of very ancient vintage, examples of which
are discussed in this chapter. Our present interpretation, differing from those proposed by
von Schlosser, 1889, Hager, 1901, and in minutiae even from one proposed by Horn
(1973, 46, fig. 47), makes no claim for authenticity in particulars. The design of the
architectural envelope, its fenestration, and its "graceful cloister walks" is an exercise
of imagination. But we feel confident of the interpretation of the disposition of primary
building masses.

The Gesta Abbatum Fontanellensium, written around A.D. 830 and 845,
describes the church of Abbot St. Wandrille, begun in 649 (here translated pending
fuller treatment in a subsequent study):

"The above-said admirable father built in this place a basilica in the name of the
most blessed prince of the Apostles, Peter, in squared stones and having 290 feet in
length and 37 feet in width."

Almost 200 years later Ansegis began construction of the cloister. First to be built was a
new dormitory (see Latin and English text, p. 277). The Gesta describes the erection
of a new refectory and a third structure, the MAIOR DOMUS:

"Thereafter he built another house called the refectory, through the middle of
which he had constructed a masonry wall to divide it so that one part would serve as
refectory, the other as cellar. This building was of precisely the same material and
the same dimensions as the dormitory . . . then he caused to be erected a third
exceptional structure which they called `the larger building'. It turned toward the
east, with one end touching the dormitory, the other adjoining the refectory. He
ordered a supply room to be installed in it, and a warming room, as well as several
other rooms. But because of his premature death this work remained in part
unfinished.

"These three most beautiful buildings are laid out in this manner: the dormitory is
situated with one end turned toward the north, the other toward the south, with its
south end attached to the basilica of St. Peter. The refectory likewise is aligned in
these two directions, and on the south side it almost touches the apse of the basilica
of St. Peter. Then that larger building is placed just as we have said above . . . . The
church of St. Peter lies to the south and faces east . . . ."

The chronicler finished his account by telling us that Ansegis "ordered graceful porches
to be built in front of the dormitory, refectory, and larger house," and that he
added midway along the cloister walk "in front of the dormitory a house for charters"
and "in front of the refectory a building in which to preserve a quantity of books."
On the use of the cloister wing that runs along the flank of the church as a place for
daily chapter meetings, see I, 249ff.

Ansegis's construction of the claustral range
of Fontanella, begun in 823, precedes
Gozbert's reconstruction of the monastery of
St. Gall by only a few years. Like St.
Gall, Fontanella conforms with the claustral
scheme emerging from Aachen in 816-817:
its ranges enclose an open court adjacent to
one flank of the church.

The topography of Fontanella did not allow
Ansegis to place the new cloister on the
south side of the church (as did Gozbert at
St. Gall, in conformity with the Aachen
scheme; cf. below, 327ff) because the old
church of St. Wandrille already stood
against the southern slope of a valley too
steep to permit further construction. But
there was ample space for building on the
flat valley floor north of the church.

In Ansegis's time the Roman supply road
from Rouen ran east of the abbey, and the
unchanneled Seine often flooded the low
valley meadows. These limitations of topography
caused Ansegis to adopt a most unorthodox
order for his claustral buildings—
cellar and refectory to the east; close to
supply routes; dormitory to the west. A
further difference is that in the Aachen
scheme all claustral structures were double-storied
whereas at Fontanella they were not;
hence their inordinate length.

Ansegis's cloister strikingly illustrates the
Carolingian search for a new order in which
a Roman passion for symmetry and monumentality
prevails over loose, casual
assembly of parts. It is furthermore a
testimony to the triumph of Benedictine
monachism over other less ordered forms of
monastic observance, and the role the Benedictine
ideals played in lending new eminence
and vigor to the quest for cultural unity
that pervaded the whole of Carolingian life.

monks were bedded. Perhaps this solarium had the form
of a large transeptal porch with heavily fenestrated gables.

Protohistoric houses of similar design

I mentioned before that this particular layout was a very
ancient one. Longhouses of comparable design were excavated
by Doppelfeld in a Migration Period settlement on
the Bärhorst, near Nauen, Germany;[621] by Bänfer, Stieren,
and Klein in a Migration Period settlement at Westick,
near Kamen, Westphalia;[622] and by Winkelmann, at Warendorf,
near Münster,[623] in a settlement datable by its pottery
to A.D. 650-800 (fig. 478) This building type spread from
the Continent to England, where it is attested by a
Saxon longhall of the ninth century, excavated in 1960-62
by Philip Rahtz in Cheddar, Somerset (fig. 479)[624] and
numerous buildings of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries
when it became a favorite layout for monastic barns in
the counties of Wiltshire, Gloucester, and Somerset. Figures
480 and 481 are typical examples. The first is a broadside
view of the fourteenth-century barn at Pilton, Somerset,
a dependency of the abbey of Glastonbury; and, the
second, a plan of the fifteenth-century barn of Tisbury,
Wiltshire, one of the outlying granges of the abbesses of
Shaftsbury.[625]

Reconstruction

In our reconstruction of the House for Horses and Oxen
and Their Keepers (fig. 482A-G), we have emphasized the
function of the domus bubulcorum & equas seruantium as
the living, dining, and cooking area of the herdsmen (and
perhaps an even larger segment of the monastery's serfs
and laymen) by giving to this portion of the building the
form of a large transeptal hall, whose ridge intersects the
ridge of the stables. We have interpreted the bedrooms of
the oxherds and grooms as aisles, attached to the flank of
the stables; the stables themselves, as internally undivided
spaces whose roofs are carried by a continuous set of
coupled rafters of uniform scantling. There are other

[ILLUSTRATION]

478.B AN INTERPRETATION BASED ON THE GESTA ABBATUM FONTANELLENSIUM et alii BY THE AUTHORS

possibilities, equally acceptable. In the large transeptal hall
we have introduced four posts, which are not shown on
the Plan; we have assumed them because it appeared
unlikely to us that in a service building of this type the
roof would have rested on beams spanning nearly 40 feet.

V.17.4

HOUSE FOR COWS AND COWHERDS

LAYOUT AND DESIGN

Directly west of the House for Horses and Oxen, within
the fences of a large rectangular yard containing four other
livestock buildings, is the House for the Cows and Cowherds
(fig. 483). Its title makes it irrevocably clear that the
animals that find shelter in this structure perform the dual
role of serving as dairy and breeding stock. The house is
entered broadside by a door leading directly into the "hall
of the herdsmen" (domus armentariorum), which is provided
with the customary central fireplace. Ranged on three sides
around this space, in the shape of the letter U, are the stables
for the dairy cows (stabula); the extremities of this stable

[ILLUSTRATION]

479. CHEDDAR, SOMERSET, ENGLAND. LONG HALL OF THE SAXON PALACE. 9TH CENTURY

[after Rahtz, 1962-63, 58, fig. 20]

The house, slightly boat-shaped (most markedly so on the west side) was 78 feet long externally, and 20 feet wide across the middle. Its walls
consisted of closely spaced posts, 9 inches square, set against the outer edge of a continuous trench, and in certain places doubled by a row of
inner posts of lighter scantling sloping inward. The entrances were in the middle of the long walls, with a minor one toward the north end of the
east side. A spread of burnt clay in the southern half of the house close to the center may indicate the location of the hearth.

arrangement are boarded off to form two small cubicles or
"bedrooms for the servants" (cubilia seruantiū).

Both Keller and Willis[627] interpreted the area designated
as domus armentariorum as an "open court" and the square
in its center as "a small house perhaps inhabited by the
overseer." There would be no need to refer to this superannuated
interpretation had it not been rescuscitated lately
in Alan Sorrell's recently published reconstruction of the

houses of the Plan of St. Gall (fig. 283). Domus, as has been
sufficiently stressed in earlier parts of this study, can only
have referred to a covered portion of ground. It is the
author's favorite term for "hall" or "living room" and
cannot under any circumstances be interpreted as "courtyard."
The square in the center, which is common to all
the guest and service buildings on the Plan, is clearly
identified in some of them as "fireplace" and in others as
"louver."[629]

The House for the Cows and Cowherds is 87½ feet long
and 50 feet wide, but whether this is the length of the
original scheme is somewhat doubtful, since in this corner
of the Plan the parchment contracts, and it is possible that
the copyist found himself compelled to reduce the length
of the building in order to adjust to this condition.

The central hall of the cowherds measures 22½ feet by
52½ feet; its aisle and lean-to's have a width of 17½ feet.
The traditional way of housing a dairy herd was to tie the
cows in pairs in stalls 5 feet long and 7 feet wide.[630] The
aisle and lean-to's of the House for the Cows and Cowherds
are wide enough for the animals to be tied up in two rows,
one facing the outer walls (their customary protohistoric
position) and another one facing the inner wall partitions.
If stalled in this manner, the House for the Cows could
have accommodated a total of seventy cows. If they were
tied in a single row against the outer walls only, this figure
would have to be reduced to forty.

[ILLUSTRATION]

480. PILTON, SOMERSET, ENGLAND. BARN OF GLASTONBURY GRANGE. 15TH CENTURY

[Photo: Quentin Lloyd]

Long barns with one or several transeptal porches are very common in the Midlands and southwest of England. They are rarely less than 100
feet long, often come close to 200 feet; and one example, the barn of the Benedictine abbey grange of Abbotsbury, Dorset, attained the astonishing
length of 267 feet. The building type has never been systematically studied. For individual examples see Andrews, 1900, passim; Horn and
Charles, 1966, Horn and Born, 1969, and Charles and Horn, 1973. F. W. B. Charles and Jane Charles recently measured this barn for us. It
is 108 feet 6 inches long, 44 feet wide, and 17 feet high from floor to wall head.

MILK AND CHEESE:
PRIMARY ITEMS IN THE MONKS' DIET

The primary purpose of this herd of dairy cows was to
provide milk and cheese for the table of the monks. Butter
does not seem to have been an important item in the monastic
diet. The records of the monastery of St. Gall list altogether
not more than one pint of butter.[631] From the same
records we learn that in the territory of St. Gall cheese
came in two sizes: a large round cheese (caseus alpinus) of
the same diameter, more or less, as a Swiss cheese of
today, usually cut into four parts (qui secantur in IV partes),
occasionally into six or eight; and a "hand cheese," which
was cut into two parts only (qui secantur in duas partes).
Cheese was one of the most common articles of tithing
contributed by the outlying farms, especially those in the
mountains which specialized in cattle raising; and the
annual revenue at St. Gall from its possessions in the
territory of Appenzell alone was over 2,000 cheeses.[632]

MEDIEVAL PARALLELS

The external appearance of the House for the Cows and
Cowherds must have been very similar to that of the
Gardener's House (figs. 426-427), except that it was considerably
larger, as one would expect it to be in view of its
different function. It is the standard house of the Plan,
minus one aisle on one of its long sides, which makes the
main room of the house directly accessible from the exterior,
a distinct advantage in buildings where great numbers
of the larger breeds of animals, and especially horned
cattle, are sheltered, because this arrangement reduces the
number of doors through which the cattle must be taken as
they enter and leave their stalls (figs. 483, 486). This house
type must have been very common in the Middle Ages. The
earliest literary evidence for its existence, so far as I can
judge, occurs in a dossier of twelfth-century lease agreements
that record the manorial holdings of the Dean and
Chapter of St. Paul's in London.[633] On a manor located in

[ILLUSTRATION]

481. TISBURY, WILTSHIRE, ENGLAND. PLAN, GRANGE BARN. 15TH CENTURY

[Redrawn after Dufty, 1947, 168, fig. 2]

The barn at Place Farm was part of a grange once owned by the abbesses of Shaftsbury. Its external dimensions are 196 feet long by 38 feet
wide. It is lengthwise divided into 13 bays by roof trusses with arch-braced collar beams meticulously aligned with the buttresses of the masonry
walls. Two transeptal porches in the middle of the barn are original. The masonry of the jambs of the other four entrances is modern; these
openings were probably not part of the original structure. The roof is thatched.

the parish of Wickham, Essex, there is a barn which in
these lease agreements is described as follows:

The barn of Wickham is just a little over half as large as
the House for the Cows and Cowherds on the Plan of
St. Gall, but its layout is identical. It is noteworthy that
the twelfth-century writer in describing this barn makes a
clear distinction between the aisle (ala) which is attached
to one of the two long sides of the barn and the two leanto's
(culatium) which are attached to the narrow ends of the
building. In English this distinction is not always maintained.
Culatium (from culus = pars cujusvis rei posterior[635] )
is a highly descriptive term for that section of the barn which
lies under the hipped part of the roof at the short end of
the building. The writer also makes a clear distinction
between the principal space of the barn, which he refers to
simply as "barn" (orreum), and all the peripheral spaces.
The dimensions listed for all the constituent parts of the
building make it clear that the center space was higher
than the surrounding spaces and that it had a double-pitched
roof (fig. 485A-D). This is strong evidence for
the correctness of our reconstruction of the House for the
Cows and Cowherds (fig. 486A-E) and all the other buildings
on the Plan which are laid out in a similar manner.

[ILLUSTRATION]

PLAN OF ST. GALL. HOUSE FOR HORSES, OXEN, AND THEIR KEEPERS. AUTHORS' INTERPRETATION [1:192]

482.B

482.A LONGITUDINAL SECTION

PLAN

The only difference between the medieval long houses with transeptal porches shown in figs. 477-481 and the House for Horses and Oxen (fig.
474) is that the latter is furnished with aisles serving as quarters for the oxherds and horse grooms. Traditionally this building type is single-spaced
and in this form either used as a dwelling, or for the storage of harvest. Aisles were incorporated in the House for Horses and Oxen
because it was intended to accommodate both men and beasts.

The total length of this building on the Plan is 145 feet; the living space measures 35 by 37½ feet and the stables each are 52½ feet long,
suggesting that the roof-supporting trusses were placed at 11½ foot intervals.

[ILLUSTRATION]

PLAN OF ST. GALL. HOUSE FOR HORSES AND OXEN AND THEIR KEEPERS

482.D WEST ELEVATION

482.C EAST ELEVATION

SCALE 1/16 INCH EQUALS ONE FOOT [1:192] FOR GRAPHIC SCALE SEE PRECEDING PAGE

AUTHORS' INTERPRETATION

Our reconstruction of this house as a transeptal space the ridge of which intersects the main ridge at right angles and at the same height, is
made in consideration of the fact that the transept extends across the entire width of the structure, bisecting the aisles in which the herdsmen
were to sleep. We are also visually emphasizing the great importance of this transept which may have been intended to serve as dining area for
all of the monastery's herdsmen (cf. above, p. 278).

[ILLUSTRATION]

PLAN OF ST. GALL. HOUSE FOR HORSES AND OXEN AND THEIR KEEPERS

NORTH ELEVATION is similar but of opposite hand to
the SOUTH ELEVATION

482.F TRANSVERSE SECTION B-B

482.E SOUTH ELEVATION

482.G TRANSVERSE SECTION C-C

AUTHORS' INTERPRETATION

We saw no functional need to raise the roof over the aisles, where the oxherds and horse grooms were to be quartered, above tie-beam level of the
stables. In this same manner bedrooms are treated in all the other guest and service buildings of the Plan. To extend the main roof across the
entire width of the building would have been considerably more costly and in construction functionally superfluous—unless one can assume that
the full width of the building at floor level was needed as loft above the tie-beam level for storage of straw and hay.

[ILLUSTRATION]

PLAN OF ST. GALL. HOUSE FOR COWS AND COWHERDS

483.X SITE PLAN

Virtually all of the houses for monastic livestock lie in a large rectangular yard that extends from the entrance Road to the southern edge of the
monastery site. They consist of the House for Sheep and Shepherds (No. 35); the House for the Goats and Goatherds (No. 36); the House for
the Cows and Cowherds (No. 37); the House for the Swine and Swineherds (No. 39); and the House for Broodmares and Foals and their
Keepers (No. 40). The House for Horses and Oxen and their Keepers (No. 33 and fig. 474) lies outside this yard, but adjacent.

The layout of the House for Cows and Cowherds is identical with that of the House for Broodmares and Foals and their Keepers as well as
with that of the Gardener's House (fig. 426). In each of these structures, the common living room with its traditional open fire place is
surrounded with subsidiary outer spaces on three sides only (variant 3B; see above, p. 85, fig. 33). The entrance is in the middle of the long
wall where the aisle is missing. As in the House for Distinguished Guests (figs. 396-399), in order to gain access to the stables animals have to
be taken through the common living room. For a 12th century structure of the same design see p. 281 and figs. 485. A-D.

[ILLUSTRATION]

484. UTRECHT PSALTER (CA. 830). DEUTERONOMY, XXXII: 1-4

UTRECHT UNIVERSITY LIBRARY, CODEX 32, fol. 86r (detail)

[Courtesy of Utrecht University Library]

The illusionistic Late Antique style was practiced with superb assurance by the illuminator of the lost manuscript after which the Utrecht
Psalter was modeled. Scenes of agricultural life such as this one of a herd of cattle and a man churning butter are of a richness of perception
surpassing any other Carolingian manuscript. This intensely classical style disappeared from the medieval scene almost as rapidly as it was
adopted, giving way to more abstract concepts of painting. It took close to 500 years of gradual reconquest of reality by art for rural scenes
again to be as accurately depicted as in this unique Carolingian manuscript. The marginal scenes of the Luttrell Psalter (figs 467, 475, and
476) are among the high-water marks in this development that, at certain stages, was stimulated by availability of copies of the Utrecht
Psalter that were made in England in the 10th and 11th centuries.

The lease agreements of St. Paul's date from 1114 to
1155.[636] Obviously, they establish only a terminus ante quam,
telling nothing about the age of the barns. Some of them
may have been of relatively recent date, others may have
been centuries old.

V.17.5

HOUSE FOR BROOD MARES, FOALS
AND THEIR KEEPERS

LAYOUT AND DESIGN

The House of Foaling Mares (fig. 487) is identical in plan
to that for Cows and Cowherds. In all likelihood it was
meant to be the same size. The narrowing of the parchment
at the southwestern corner of the Plan, where this building
is located, probably forced the copyist to contract the plan
for this house. The room that contains the hearth is designated
"the horsemen's living room" (domus equaritiae:
"the hall of the stables where horses are bred"[637] ); aisles
and lean-to's that accommodate the horses are designated
"stables" (stabula); the cubicles at their end, as "bedrooms
for the attendants" (cubit custodum).

MATING AND BREEDING

Columella, in his book On Agriculture, states that stallions
and mares of common stock may be mated at any time
during the year, but he advises that the nobler breeds be
mated about the time of the spring equinox so that the
mares, who foal in the twelfth month, may be able to

[ILLUSTRATION]

WICKHAM ST. PAUL'S, ESSEX. BARN 2 OF THE DEAN AND CHAPTER OF ST. PAUL'S, LONDON

485.D.3

485.D.2

485.D.1

485.B

485.C

485.A

Descriptions in 11th-century leases of agricultural buildings maintained by the
Dean and Chapter of St. Paul's on outlying estates (The Domesday of St. Paul's
of the year MCCXII . . . W. H. Hale, ed., London, 1858, 122-39) are so accurate
that the structures can be laid out on the drafting board. Since no 11th- and 12thcentury
barns survive, this material forms a unique link between proto- and early
medieval Wohnstallhäuser (above, pp. 45ff) and the earliest surviving medieval
barns (above, pp. 88ff). The example here shown belongs to what we earlier defined
as Variant 3B of the St. Gall house (fig. 333). For reconstruction of two others
(Variant 4), see Horn, 1958, 12, figs. 24 and 25.

PLAN, SECTIONS, AND AXONOMETRIC DRAWINGS SHOWING SKELETAL FRAMING AND EXTERNAL ENVELOPE

rear their young when the pasture is rich and grassy. He
points out that pregnant mares need special care and
generous fodder and ought to be kept in a place that is
both roomy and warm.[638] Modern breeding manuals prescribe
that maternity stalls be 12 feet by 12 feet.[639] If these
were the dimensions of the stalls used in the House for
Foaling Mares and Foals, it would have been able to
provide shelter for eleven mares and their offspring at any
given time. The hay, straw, and grain required for these
animals were usually stored overhead under the slope of the
aisle roof and were fed into the mangers through openings
in the floors of these lofts.

V.17.6

HOUSE FOR GOATS AND GOATHERDS

LAYOUT AND DESIGN

The House for Goats and Goatherds (fig. 489) lies near the
House for Cows and Cowherds. Its layout is that of
the standard house of the Plan. In the hexameter explaining
its function, the word domus appears in the sole context
of the Plan where it means the entire building. The
living room bears no inscription. It is reached through a
vestibule that divides the eastern aisle into two separate
chambers used as "bedrooms of the herdsmen" (cubilia
pastorum). The lean-to's and the western aisle of the house
are designated as "stable" (stabula). The building is 57½
feet long and 45 feet wide. The living room measures 37½
feet by 25 feet.

Columella recommends that not more than 100 head of
goats be kept in one enclosure. He advises the goatherd to
sweep out the stable every day and not allow any ordure or
moisture to remain or any mud to form. The she-goats
should be covered in the autumn, sometime before December,
so that the kids may be born when spring is
approaching and the shrubs are budding.[640] He devotes a
whole chapter to the making of goat cheese.[641]

MANAGEMENT OF SIZE OF HERD

The House for the Goats and Goatherds could easily
have sheltered one hundred goats. It was probably used
primarily for the purpose of milking and breeding the
goats. Shortly after the young were born in the spring, and
had gathered sufficient strength, they were no doubt taken
out to pasture by the goatherds, a breed of men who,
Columella stipulates, should be "keen, hardy, and bold . . .
the sort of men who can make their way without difficulty
over rocks and deserts and through briers . . . men who do
not follow the herd like the keepers of other breeds of
cattle, but precede it."[642] The rooms in the eastern aisle of
the House for the Goats and Goatherds on the Plan are
large enough to accommodate, besides the permanent goatherds,
a considerable number of extra hands who during
the warmer months of the year took care of the herds that
were out to pasture.

MILK PRODUCTION

Modern farming manuals state that two reasonably well-bred
goats will supply an average household with all the
milk it requires and most of the butter, each goat being
able to produce 250 gallons of milk or 100 pounds of
butter per year.[643] If the House for the Goats and Goatherds
sheltered one hundred goats at a time, these animals must
have contributed considerably to the monastery's daily
supply of cheese.

In layout, design, and dimensions, the House for the
Goats and Goatherds is identical with the House for
Visiting Servants (figs. 402-403), which relieves us of its
reconstruction. The same holds true for the two remaining
buildings of this tract, which we shall discuss presently.

V.17.7

HOUSE FOR SWINE AND SWINEHERDS

LAYOUT AND DESIGN

The House for Swine and Swineherds (fig. 491) lies west of
the House for the Goats and north of the House for Foaling
Mares. Its center room, which has a fireplace, is designated
"the hall of the swineherds" (domus porcariorum). The east
aisle contains a vestibule and the "bedrooms of the herdsmen"
(cubil pastorum). The west aisle and the lean-to's are
not designated. There can be no doubt, however, about their
function. In all the other houses, this area was reserved for
the animals.

A FARROWING PEN

The House for Swine and Swineherds, as its explanatory
title states, was primarily a farrowing pen. It was the place
where the sows were kept during the winter—those sows,
that is, who would produce the litters to make up the
subsequent year's herds. All other pigs were slaughtered
in December.[645] The number of pigs that could be housed
together is determined by available trough space. Feed

[ILLUSTRATION]

PLAN OF ST. GALL. HOUSE FOR THE COWS AND COWHERDS

486.B EAST ELEVATION

486.A PLAN

AUTHORS' INTERPRETATION

In reconstructing this building we were in principle guided by the same criteria that governed reconstruction of the House of the Gardener and
his Crew (figs. 427. A-F), but because this house is the larger by over twice the area of the former structure, we decided to furnish it with a
hipped roof on the supposition that it would be needed for greater wind resistance.

As for all structures housing both men and animals on the Plan, it was necessary to lead animals to their stalls directly through the common
living area used by the herders, whose sleeping quarters in the aisles may have been divided from the stalls by little more than a partition.

[ILLUSTRATION]

486.D TRANSVERSE SECTION B-B

486.C LONGITUDINAL SECTION A-A

486.E NORTH ELEVATION

The habit and custom of housing beasts in close contact with man was of centuries' long standing in Northern Europe. Even in the sophisticated
House for Distinguished Guests (Building 11; cf. fig. 396, p. 146), 9th-century social amenities did not yet preclude the arrangement whereby
the visitors' horses were led through the common living and dining area to their stalls.

The length of the center space of the House for Cows and Cowherds is 52½, feet, suggesting that its roof supporting posts were to be spaced at
10½-foot intervals, or within the normal range for bay division in a building of this kind.

[ILLUSTRATION]

PLAN OF ST. GALL. HOUSE FOR FOALING MARES AND THEIR KEEPERS

487.

487.X

Lying in the extreme southwest corner of the site, the layout of this structure in all of its basic dispositions is identical with that of the House
for Cows and Cowherds. Virtually without question it was intended to be the same size, but, falling at a point on the tracing where the
parchment corner tapers, the draftsman of the Plan was doubtless compelled to reduce the size of the building slightly in accommodation to the
limitations of his sheet.

All the larger breeds of livestock were quartered in separate facilities lying in close proximity to one another. Outlines on the Plan indicate
that they were separated by fences or other partitions from one another. During the winter, animals would be confined to their stalls; in spring
they could be taken to pasture through secondary exits in the peripheral wall enclosure (which are not shown on the Plan).

Horses and oxen kept in these facilities would be used as draft animals, the former perhaps for riding; the cattle for breeding and milking; the
mares exclusively for breeding. As regards the inclusion of a stud in a monastic community, the relationship of monastic with crown services and
economics is discussed in Volume I, Chapter IV, "The Monastic Polity."

[ILLUSTRATION]

488. UTRECHT PSALTER (CA. 830). PSALM LXXII (73)

UTRECHT UNIVERSITY LIBRARY, CODEX 32, fol. 41v (detail)

[Courtesy of the Utrecht University Library]

This detail is one of the most interesting examples of the method used by the illuminator of the original Late Antique manuscript (after which
the Utrecht Psalter was modeled) to convey general concepts in imagery taken from man's daily life. Verse 22 of the psalm, "So foolish was I
and ignorant; I was as a beast before thee", serves to embody the concept "beast" in the touching representation of a mare suckling her foal. In
this manner the illuminator transmitted to the Middle Ages a composition borrowed from one of the best periods of Roman painting. It has a
striking counterpart in a painting from Herculaneum (now in Naples, Museo Nazionale) showing a doe suckling Telephos (see L. Curtius, Die
Wandmalerei Pompejis, Leipzig, 1929 8, fig. 5).

pigs require an average of 12 inches of trough space; sows
and boars, 18 inches. The required sleeping and feeding
area is 6 square feet per pig. The minimum farrowing pen
is 5 feet square. There should also be a dung passage 3 to 4
feet wide.[646] If the area available for pigs in the House for
Swine and Swineherds on the Plan were to be divided into
farrowing pens 5 feet square, it would accommodate twenty-one
sows with litters (five under each lean-to; eleven in the
aisle). If the housing capacity were to be calculated on the
basis of the available square footage, without allowing
extra space for litters, the number of pigs could easily be
doubled.

MEAT FOR THE SERFS, AND FOR THE YOUNG
AND SICK MONKS

In the Middle Ages swine and sheep were the chief
animals raised for meat. Many monasteries maintained
large herds of both, often under the supervision of the
monks themselves. Swine and sheep were also favorite
items of tithing. In the deeds of the monastery of St. Gall,
published by Hermann Wartmann, sucklings, yearlings,
and fully fattened sows are often part of the regular deliveries
from villagers and other tenants. In calculating these
tithes, a distinction was made between the heavy winter
swine, which had been fattened on acorns and beechnuts
while out to pasture in the forest, and the leaner and
less desirable summer swine. In years when the weather

[ILLUSTRATION]

PLAN OF ST. GALL. HOUSE FOR GOATS AND GOATHERDS

489.

489.X SITE PLAN

The House for Goat and Goatherds (36) lies next to that for cattle and cowherds (37) and in the same row of buildings. Its layout is identical
with that of the House for Sheep and Shepherds (35) north of it, that for swine and their herdsmen (39) west of it, and the House for Servants
from Outlying Estates (38), whose reconstruction (below, p. 157, fig. 403. A-D) is applicable to all of these installations of the Plan.

These structures are straightforward examples of what in our previous discussion we have referred to as the "standard house" of the Plan of St.
Gall (i.e., Variant 4; see above, p. 85, fig. 334). Ranged side by side in two rows, with a sense of symmetry that clearly had a classical touch,
they appear to us almost as a village arranged by the ordering mind of an urban planner. For earlier and later examples of non-monastic
clusters of this type, see figures 259, 335, and 336.

[ILLUSTRATION]

490. UTRECHT PSALTER (CA. 830). PSALM XXII (23)

UTRECHT UNIVERSITY LIBRARY, CODEX 32, fol. 45r (detail)

[Courtesy of Utrecht University Library]

The five goats grazing on a hillside are part of a larger scene; it includes a herd of cattle and flock of sheep by the banks of a stream, to
illustrate verses 1 and 2 of the psalm: "The Lord is my shepherd . . . . "

The pen-and-ink depiction of these goats, two of which rise on their hind legs reaching as high as they can to crop the choice leaves, and
snapping at each other in their greed, is a display of posture and behavior so distinctively of goats that it places this scene among the outstanding
pictorial accomplishments of the Carolingian Renascence—a stunning revival in the scriptorium of Reims (816-835) of a type of pictorial
illusionism that even in Late Antiquity was practised only by artists of the greatest skill and accomplishment.

favored the fattening of swine, the tithe was exacted in
kind; in years when the growth was lean, the monks preferred
the corresponding value in currency or in sheep
(quando esca est porcum solido valentem I, et quando esca
non est arietum bonum).[647] A vital prerequisite for the raising
of herds of swine by the monastery itself was the possession
of forests, which might be placed under the care of "monastic
foresters" (forestarii). A guarded copse of wood, reserved
for the specific purpose of fattening swine (quaedam silvula
ob porcorum pastum custodiebatur), is mentioned in the
Life of St. Gall and was apparently the scene of a number
of miracles, all of which perhaps tends to stress the idea
that this branch of the monastery's agricultural economy
held no insignificant place.[648]

Although the meat from quadrupeds was a staple in the
diet of the monastery's serfs and workmen, for the monks
themselves it was allowed only in their early childhood and
in times of illness.[649] This rule appears to have been violated
with such frequency, however, that the monastery of St.
Gall itself, toward the end of the tenth century, drew upon
itself the anger and criticism of Abbot Ruodman (972-986)
of the neighboring monastery of Reichenau. Ruodman's
critical testimony before the Emperor Otto II resulted in a
number of imperial investigations into the conditions at

[ILLUSTRATION]

PLAN OF ST. GALL. HOUSE FOR SWINE AND SWINEHERDS

491.

491.X SITE PLAN

In medieval illustrated calendars, the slaughtering of swine at the onset of winter, when pasture in the nearby woods became impossible, was a
favorite subject for portrayal for the month of December. In a monastic community, only those sows and boars were wintered that would
produce the litter of animals to be raised in the subsequent year. Carcasses of the slaughtered pigs were intended to be hung in the Monks'
Larder; for a realistic description of how this was done, see I, 305-307, and Adalhard's directives in the Customs of Corbie, in the chapter
devoted to swine (translated, III, 118f.)

[ILLUSTRATION]

492. UTRECHT PSALTER (CA. 830). PSALM LXXIX (80)

UTRECHT, UNIVERSITY LIBRARY, CODEX 32, fol. 47r (detail)

[Courtesy of the Utrecht University Library]

The picture, drawn in the most delicate scatter of lines, depicts the powerful bulk of a large boar devouring the boughs of a spiraling vine. It is
an illustration to the lament of the Psalmist over his people having fallen in God's disfavor: "Thou hast brought a vine out of Egypt: thou
hast cast out the heathen and planted it" (verse 8); "The hills were covered with the shadow of it, and the boughs thereof were like the goodly
cedars" (verse 10); "Why hast thou then broken down her hedges so that all they which pass by the way do pluck her? The boar out of the
wood doth waste it, and the wild beast of the field doth devour it" (verses 12-13).

St. Gall. Ekkehart, in his Casus sancti Galli, does not overlook
the opportunity to describe these investigations with
color and tendentious distortion.[650]

V.17.8

HOUSE FOR SHEEP AND SHEPHERDS

LAYOUT AND DESIGN

The House for Sheep and Shepherds (fig. 493) lies between
the Goat House and the road leading to the Church. Its
center room is labeled simply "the main room" (ipsa
domusm);[651] the chambers to the left and right of the entrance,
as "bedrooms of the shepherds" (cubilia opilionum); the
U-shaped area around the living room, as "sheepfold"
(caulae; see fig. 493).[652] The position of this house near
the Church may reflect the symbolic identification of the
Good Shepherd with Christ, and sheep with the faithful.

[ILLUSTRATION]

PLAN OF ST. GALL. HOUSE FOR SHEEP AND SHEPHERDS

493.

493.X SITE PLAN

Sheep and goats were the smaller livestock accommodated by facilities on the Plan of St. Gall; then, as now, they remain important as a kind
of all-purpose animal, their by-products of milk, wool or hair, and meat being prime resources in the life of any self-sustaining community.
In the partly or fully nomadic civilizations of the ancient Near East, power and social standing depended to a large extent on the number and
size of flocks an individual owned. The care and protection of these creatures called for men of brave, hardy disposition, exacting vigilance,
and unremitting devotion. The image of men so qualified who performed these important tasks impressed itself on the inhabitants of the two
great Near Eastern river valleys and their hinterlands with such force that it became an integral part of the concept of sovereignty associated
with ancient kings and gods who, in official imagery, were portrayed holding shepherds' staffs.

The concept was inherited by Christianity and brought close to every faithful soul through the famous parable (Luke 15: 4-7) in which the
Good Shepherd, in forgiving a repentant sinner, rejoicing carries the lost sheep back to the fold. The Church became the herd of God, the
sheep, believers. Later, bishops and abbots both adopted the shepherd's staff as ceremonial emblem of their leadership and guardianship within
the Church

[ILLUSTRATION]

494. UTRECHT PSALTER (CA. 830). PSALM L (51)

UTRECHT, UNIVERSITY LIBRARY, CODEX 32, fol. 29r (detail)

[Courtesy of the Utrecht University Library]

Nathan is portrayed beside a flock of sheep, goats, and cows. Portions not illustrated here show the parable of the ewe-lamb; and Nathan
upbraiding King David for having Uriah slain and taken Bathsheba his wife—events that occurred when Psalm L was written, and which are
described in II Samuel, xi-xiii.

MEAT, MILK, AND WOOL

Like goats, sheep were valued both for their meat and
as milk-producing animals. These values, plus that of their
skin for the making of parchment and their wool for blankets
and winter clothing, made them one of the most useful
species of animals to the monastic economy. As was true of
the other animals, the amount of cheese that could be
obtained from the monastery's own flocks was augmented
by deliveries from outlying pastures and possessions. The
monastery of Corbie maintained ten flocks of sheep, which
supplied the monastery with cheese in the summer, and
Adalhard of Corbie in his Administrative Directives sets
out in great detail the manner in which the sheep, as well
as all of the monastery's other livestock, should be tithed.[653]

A fully grown sheep requires a floor area of 4 to 6 feet
square.[654] The floor space available in the aisle and under the
lean-to's of the House for Sheep would have accommodated
a flock of seventy to one hundred sheep.

In Biblical times, wealth was equated with large flocks.
Images of sheep, shepherds, and flocks recur throughout
the joys and laments of the Psalms. Their symbolic values
of spiritual wealth were carried forward into monastic
recitations of these songs (see caption, fig. 261, I, 346) and
into the canon of illustrations deemed appropriate for
books such as the Utrecht Psalter.

[ILLUSTRATION]

495. PLAN OF ST. GALL

INDIVIDUAL PRIVIES DIRECTLY ATTACHED TO ROOMS
OR HOUSES OF LODGING

V. 18

SANITARY FACILITIES

V.18.1

CLEANLINESS AND GODLINESS

A word must be said about the contrivances which in both
medieval and modern Anglo Saxon literature are referred
to with the evasive designations "garderobe," "privy," or
"rere-dorter,"[655] and in the explanatory titles of the Plan
of St. Gall are varyingly designated as exitus, exitus necessarius,
necessariū, and requisitum naturae. On first inspection
the subject is somewhat bewildering, since in certain areas
of the Plan provisions for this facility are made with a
profuseness that exceeds any comparable modern standards
of hygiene, while in others they appear to be wholly
overlooked.

A more judicious examination discloses that the measure
of attention lavished on the privies by the designer of the
Plan of St. Gall is directly related to the rank or administrative
status that their beneficiaries hold in the monastic
polity. The subject has both social and philosophical implications
and throws some light upon the history of western
hygiene.

V.18.2

TWO BASIC TYPES OF PRIVIES

INDIVIDUAL PRIVIES

Individual privies directly attached to the house or an
apartment, containing either one or more toilet seats, are
at the disposition of visiting noblemen (fig. 495A) and those
monastic functionaries who, because of their specific responsibilities,
must live in separate quarters outside the
claustrum, viz., the Porter (fig. 495B), the master of the
Outer School (fig. 495B), the master of the novices,
(fig. 495C), the chief physician (fig. 495D). They are
also installed for small groups of regular monks who are
not part of the monastic community, such as the visiting
monks (fig. 495E), and those being segregated for health
reasons, such as the sick novices (fig. 495C) or the acutely
ill patients in the House of the Physicians (fig. 495D).

COMMUNAL PRIVIES

Apart from these private toilets directly attached to the
bedrooms of their respective users, there are others installed
in greater quantities in separate outhouses located
directly behind the buildings they serve. The largest
among these is the privy for the servants at the House for
Distinguished Guests (fig. 496A). It is 10 feet wide, 45
feet long, and contains eighteen toilet seats. Next in size
is the privy for the students of the Outer School, which

measures 10 feet by 37½ feet and is furnished with fifteen
seats (fig. 496B). Then follows in order of decreasing magnitude:
the privy of the House for Bloodletting, with seven
seats (fig. 496C); the privy of the Abbot's House, with six
seats (fig. 496D); and the privies of the Novitiate and the
Infirmary, each with six seats (fig. 496E). The Monks'
Privy (fig. 497) falls into a category by itself; like the other
collective privies of the Plan, it is a separate house, but it
does not have their narrow, elongated floor plan; instead, it
is almost square. It measures 30 feet by 40 feet, provides
for a total of nine seats (sedilia), a stand for a lantern
(lucerna), and three other facilities of oblong shape, whose
function remains unexplained.

DIFFERENT ORIGINS

The small individual privies of the distinguished guests
and the higher monastic officials (fig. 495, A-E) doubtlessly,
have their prototypes in the vernacular architecture of the
upper strata of Carolingian society. The longhouse for the
servants of the distinguished guests, the students of the
Outer School, and other smaller monastic groups (figs.
496, A-E), I would be inclined to derive from Roman and
medieval military architecture, although I cannot support
this hypothesis with any tangible archaeological evidence.
The square shape of the Monk's Privy is somewhat reminiscent
of that of the Roman public latrine, but may
actually not be in any ancestral relation to the latter, and
may owe its squarish shape to the desire to add to the single
row of toilet seats such other facilities as a urinal or troughs
with water for washing hands.

V.18.3

SANITARY FACILITIES OF THE PLAN
IN THE LIGHT OF ANCIENT
AND MODERN STANDARDS OF HYGIENE

The sanitary installations of the Plan of St. Gall raise the
interesting question of environmental hygiene in a planned
medieval community of men that can be placed into proper
historical perspective only if analyzed in comparison with
ancient and modern facilities of this type.

THE PUBLIC ROMAN LATRINE

The public Roman latrine consisted of a large space,
usually square (fig. 499) but often trapezoidal or semicircular
(fig. 500A), or a combination of such shapes (fig.
500B). The seats were ranged along the walls all around
the periphery of the building, leaving everyone fully
exposed to the view of the others, with sufficient floor
space in between for people to congregate in amicable
conversation. Channels beneath the seats, flushed by running
water diverted from the aqueducts, drained into the
public sewer system. The seating capacity of these buildings
could attain substantial proportions. The gymnasium of the
city of Philippi had a latrine with fifty seats. In the market
of Miletus there was one with forty (fig. 499A-B); in the

[ILLUSTRATION]

497. PLAN OF ST. GALL

MONKS' PRIVY

Comparison with later monastic architecture (figs. 501-503 and 516-520)
suggests that the Monks' Privy was level with the Dormitory, a relationship we
misinterpreted in the Aachen model of the Plan in 1965, and have corrected
here. Waste was either to accumulate in a cesspool at ground level, later to be
used as fertilizer in the garden nearby; or, less likely, flushed away by a water
channel.

The Privy is 30 feet wide, 40 feet long (12 modules wide by 16 long) and has
9 toilet seats and 3 stands serving as urinals or washbasins. In these measurements,
multiples of 3, 4, and 10 may indicate the pervasiveness of the concept of
sacred numbers even in so humble a facility.

Agora of Athens, one with sixty-four.[656] The Romans seemingly
had settled this public need with the same flair with
which they engineered a world-wide system of roads, constructed
their aqueducts, and installed grandiose systems
for metropolitan sewage disposal—engineering feats so
great and new in concept that the Greek philosopher
Strabo (b. 63 B.C.) could remark that "if the Greeks had the
repute of aiming most happily in the founding of cities, in
that they aimed at beauty, strength of position, and the
availability of harbours and productive soil, the Romans
had the best foresight in . . . the construction of roads and
aqueducts, and of sewers that could wash out the filth of the
city into the Tiber."[657]

Yet as magnificent as all this appears on first sight, in
terms of effective environmental hygiene, it was far from
providing a satisfactory solution to the sewage disposal
needed in the larger Roman cities. Besides the public
latrines, only the houses of the patricians were linked to the
metropolitan water system. The inhabitants of the tenements,
where the remaining two million Romans lived, had
to carry their domestic ordure in pots to a sewage vat under
the stairwell, bring it to nearby cesspits (with which Rome
was riddled), or take recourse to the even more primitive
method of simply dumping their offal from the windows
into the street. Much of Rome wallowed in filth.[658]

RATIO OF TOILET SEATS TO NUMBER OF USERS

On the Plan of St. Gall

If one analyzes on the Plan of St. Gall the ratio between
the number of toilet seats provided for the disposal of
human waste and the number of potential users, one
arrives at the startling conclusion that the standards of
sanitary hygiene in a medieval monastery of the time of
Louis the Pious were far advanced not only over those of
any of their classical proto- or antitypes, but—with the
sole exception of modern de luxe hotels—even conspicuously
superior to common standards of modern sanitation.

The House for Distinguished Guests, as we saw, had
bedding facilities for eight noblemen and eighteen servants.
Since the bedrooms for the noblemen were equipped with
their own privies, the eighteen seats of the outhouse must
have been the reserve of the eighteen servants.[659] They were
set up at a ratio of 1:1. On the level of the court this appears
to have been the norm. The royal guesthouse of the
monastery of Cluny, a facility which was designed for the
accommodation of seventy guests, was furnished with the
same number of toilet seats.[660] The Outer School of the
Plan of St. Gall, designed for an occupancy of probably
twenty-four students, has an outhouse equipped with fifteen
seats (fig. 496B),[661] which yields a ratio of 1:1.6. The
House for Bloodletting, probably never occupied simultaneously
by more than twelve monks,[662] has seven seats (fig.
496C); it therefore had a probable ratio of 1:1.7. The
Abbot's House with a bedding capacity of eight[663] has six
toilet seats (fig. 496D), yielding a ratio of 1:1.3. And the
dormitories of the Novitiate and the Infirmary, each of
which appear to have been designed for an occupancy of
twelve persons,[664] are provided with an outhouse equipped
with six seats, corresponding to a ratio of 1:2.

In modern building codes

To place these figures into proper perspective from the
point of view of environmental sanitation, it may be pointed
out that the latest U.S. Army Field Manual 21-10 on
Military Sanitation prescribes eight toilet seats for every
100 men.[665] In World War II, it was ten seats for every
200 men.[666] The Uniform Housing Code of 1961 in section
H 505 recommends for hotels one toilet seat per ten
guests;[667] and the California Administrative Code, Title 17,
as of 1966 stipulates that in camps, toilets should be provided
at the ratio of one toilet seat per fifteen occupants of
the camp.[668] The luxury of modern hotels, where each

[ILLUSTRATION]

498. OSTIA. ROMAN PUBLIC LATRINE (4TH CENT. A.D.)

This latrine, part of a larger campaign, was built when the forum baths of Ostia were restored in the 4th century. It is among the best preserved
Roman latrines. Facilities of this type, preceded by a vestibule and entered, as here, by a revolving door were by preference built near the forum
or near baths. This latrine had seats of marble over a water-flushed channel.

In private Roman homes the privy was always next to or in the kitchen, making it possible for one drainage ditch to service both, and the bath
as well. Movable receptacles were often installed beneath chairs and placed in the street at night, the waste to be collected by the CONDUCTOR
FORICORUM. Amphoras serving as public urinals were posted by the fullers throughout the streets; their content was used in the process of
cleaning cloth.

bedroom is provided with a private bath and a private
toilet, is of relatively recent date. Even today in the majority
of smaller European hotels an entire floor is served by a
single privy at the end of the corridor. The ratio between
available seats and their potential occupants varies anywhere
between 1:10 to 1:30. In the light of these statistics,
the hygiene of the monastery shown on the Plan of St. Gall
must be proclaimed to be superior to that prevailing under
average conditions in most Western countries today. They
fall short only if measured against conditions prevalent in
the most elegant, modern hotels.

The most conservative arrangement on the Plan of St.
Gall is the privy of the regular monks, which is furnished
with nine toilets serving a total of seventy-seven monks,
thus yielding a ratio of 1:8.5. Yet even this is still considerably
more generous than the ratio of 1:12 stipulated today
in the sanitary code of the U.S. Army.

[ILLUSTRATION]

MILETOS, ASIA MINOR, WEST COAST NEAR SAMOS

499.B PERSPECTIVE, CUTAWAY

499.C TRANSVERSE SECTION

499.A PLAN

NORTH MARKET HALL. PUBLIC LATRINE (3rd-4th cent.)

The latrine seats were cut into marble slabs and were placed over a water channel. The
44 keyhole-shaped seats aligned with a slot in the vertical face of the bank of seats to
allow the user access for cleansing. An open channel cut into the slightly slanting marble
floor in front of and parallel to the seats carried water for cleansing the hands (after
von Gerkan, 1922, 18, figs., 20-21).

V.18.4

SUPERIOR STANDARDS OF SANITATION:
COLLECTIVE PLANNING AND
CHRISTIAN RETICENCE

THE MONASTERY: A PLANNED SOCIETY

The basic ecological reason for these comparatively high
standards of monastic sanitation are easy to define: in
contrast to the medieval or classical city, whose growth was
subject to pressures beyond the control of its inhabitants,
the monastery was a planned society. Its population was
stable, and in general not subject to unexpected fluctuations.[669]
The same care that was used in regulating the
spiritual life of the community, therefore, could also be
applied to the organization of its physical environment.

DIFFERENCE IN
UNDERLYING PHILOSOPHICAL CONCEPTS

There are other reasons, moreover, of a deeper and more
philosophical nature that made it necessary for this side
of life to be carefully ordered. The classical civilizations
of Greece and Rome, affirmative in their response to the
human organism and the pleasures derived from it, reacted
to the problem of evacuation of human waste with the
same naturalness with which they responded to the phenomenon
of eating or breathing. To the Christian mind,
taught to "chastise the body" and to "deny the desires of
the flesh,"[670] it was, by contrast, an indignity inflicted upon
man because his soul was condemned to reside in a body.
This different concept is as manifest in the terminology
used to define this physiological inevitability as it is in the
layout of the building devised for its accommodation. The
classical languages are clear, descriptive, and to the point
on this matter.[671] The monastic language, as one is not
surprised to find, is reticent but not prudish. St. Benedict
coined the evasive phrase ad necessaria naturae exire ("to
go out for the necessities of nature")[672] which becomes the
base for numerous insignificant variations subsequently
used, such as necessitas fratrum,[673] corporis necessaria,[674] corporea
necessitas naturae,[675] necessitas naturae;[676] or the variants
necessarium, exitus necessarius, or requisitum naturae used on
the Plan of St. Gall—a terminology designed to express the
inescapable condition of the function it denotes.

The needs to which he attends in the privy were not
only the lowest of all activities in which a monk was bound
to engage, but were also a source of mortal danger. The
light shown on the Plan of St. Gall as an obligatory piece of
equipment in the Monks' Privy is a precautionary measure
aimed at more than merely protecting the monks from
stumbling in a physical sense.[677] Besides his bed and his
bath, this was the only other place where, by no fault of his
own, he could not avoid bodily contact with himself. Like
the temptations of the dormitory and of the bathhouse, the
temptations of the privy could only be met with the most
stringent of directives for conditions and time of use—

especially strict in the case of the younger monks. We learn
more about these from Carolingian commentaries to the
Rule of St. Benedict than from the Rule itself.[678]

ARCHITECTURAL IMPLICATIONS

It is clear that this change in attitude would also have
its effect on the architectural layout of the monastic privy.
The amphitheater-style layout of the public Roman latrine
with its convivial sociability had no chance of survival in
this new environment. The prescribed and proper deportment
of the monk required that he draw his cowl over his
head, so as not to be recognized.[679] To expose himself
freely to the view of others, or be exposed to theirs, would
have been an act of blasphemy. This is unquestionably the
reason why the seats of the monastic privies of the Middle
Ages were stretched out in a single line in an elongated
structure that had more the character of a corridor than of
a room, and where any propensity toward social intercourse
was frustrated by the establishment of separating
cross partitions.

V.18.5

MEDIEVAL PARALLELS

MONKS' LATRINE IN THE MONASTERY OF CLUNY II

The longhouse became the preferred medieval form for
monastic latrines. The earliest prose description of this
type of building known to me is that of the monks' latrine
in the monastery of Cluny II. The author of the Consuetudines
Farfenses, writing around 1043, defines it as follows:

[ILLUSTRATION]

500. PIAZZA ARMERINA. PROVINCE OF ENNA,
SICILY

VILLA OF EMPEROR MAXIMIANUS, †310 A.D.

[Redrawn from Gentili & Bandinelli, 1956]

1:600

The villa, probably an imperial hunting lodge, consisted of clusters of rectangular and
curved-wall buildings laid out on shifting axes around a large galleried court containing
a fountain. Its most prominent architectural features are the emperor's audience hall
(BASILICA) at the eastern end of the court, his dining hall (TRICLINIUM) to the north,
and an elaborate cold and warm water bath (FRIGIDARIUM, TEPIDARIUM) at the
southeastern corner of the complex near its entrance. The residential quarters lay to the
south side of the court and audience hall.

The latrines were judiciously sited: a large one next to the baths, probably the first to
be used by returning hunters, and a smaller one near the living quarters, in a wedge-shaped
space between QUADRIPORTICUS and thermal installations. Their amphitheatrical
layout allowed users to attend to their needs in full view of everyone else—a
reflection of the unihibited affirmation with which the ancients responded to the body's
natural functions, and an attitude quite opposed to the reticent privacy and hierarchical
social segregation with which these facilities are treated in the repressing ambience of a
medieval monastery.

[ILLUSTRATION]

501. CLUNY II. MONKS' PRIVY (ODILO'S MONASTERY, 994-1049). PLAN

AFTER DESCRIPTION IN THE CONSUETUDINES FARFENSES

The location of the latrine at Cluny is ascertained by excavation of its foundations. It lay at right angles to the monks' dormitory at a distance
of about 1·50m from it, and was accessible through its southern gable wall by a connecting bridge at dormitory level. The dormitory itself
occupied the upper level of a long structure that bounded the claustral complex to the east. For more detail, see Conant's reconstruction of the
layout of Cluny II shown in fig. 515, and his description of Odilo's work in Conant, 1968, 59-67.

THE MONKS' LATRINE OF CHRISTCHURCH
MONASTERY AT CANTERBURY

An early graphical portrayal of such a latrine is the Norman
necessarium shown on the famous plan of the waterworks
of the monastery of Christchurch, Canterbury
(fig. 502), drawn around 1165 by Wibert or one of his
assistants.[681] The foundations and lower portions of the
walls of this privy survive (fig. 503). It was 145 feet long
and 25 feet wide (internal measurements) and in its original
form contained fifty-five toilet seats in a single room, at
intervals of 2 feet, 7 inches, measuring the seats on their
centers. The seats were supported by fifty-three transverse
arches which bridged a fosse flushed by running water.[682]

OTHER MONASTIC PRIVIES
AND WATER-FLUSHED CHANNELS FOR WASTE

The remains of many other structures of this kind, dating
from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, may be found
in other English monasteries, such as Kirkstall, Fountains,
Lewes Priory, Rievaulx, Roche, and Byland; an unusually
fine Continental specimen exists in the Abbey of Maubuisson.[683]

[ILLUSTRATION]

502. CHRISTCHURCH, CANTERBURY, ENGLAND, PLAN OF WATERWORKS (CA. 1165)

MONKS' PRIVY (DETAIL, ACTUAL SIZE)

[By courtesy of the Trustees of Trinity College Library, Cambridge University]

The plan, probably drawn by Wibert (d. 1167), who engineered the system, shows the privy lying at the southern side of the CURIA at right
angles to the Norman dormitory (DORMITORIUM). With an external length of 155 feet (more than double the length of the monks' privy at
Cluny), and a height of 35 feet, it was an imposing structure.

The artist took license in portraying the Christchurch privy as a detached building; remaining fragments of the masonry of dormitory and
privy show that in reality a portion of its western gable wall butted against the dormitory and was accessible from it through a connecting
vestibule (fig. 503.A).

The privy was water-flushed down its length by means of a drainage ditch that, on the drawing, is shown to run parallel to and outside the
structure; in actuality this channel passed beneath it (fig. 503. B, C) and emptied into the fosse of the city wall.

After the dissolution of the monasteries in England by Henry VIII, the privy was converted into a common hall for minor canons and officers
of the choir. So it remained with slight modifications until 1850, when it was taken down. Some of the masonry of the fosse and many of the
arches that supported the privy seats (fig. 503.C) are part of the surviving ruins and can still be seen.

The complete plan of the Christchurch waterworks is reproduced in Volume I of this work, pp. 70-71, and is part of a discussion of schematic
waterways as they might apply to Christchurch; the discussion includes a schematic speculation of watercourses that might be applicable to the
St. Gall site (I, 72, and 74, fig. 53).

[ILLUSTRATION]

503.A CANTERBURY, CHRISTCHURCH MONASTERY, MONKS' PRIVY. PLAN

[after Willis, 1868, fig. 12]

The designations are misleading. The "Third Dormitory" was not a hall for sleeping, but a latrine. The "Second Dormitory" may have served
as sleeping quarters for certain conventual officers, such as sacristan, chamberlain, cellerar, and superior.

In all of these establishments the rere-dorters were
cleansed by running water diverted from a natural stream
at some point above the monastery and returned to it with
the waste further down the valley. There is no doubt in
my mind that the majority of the privies shown on the
Plan of St. Gall were cleansed in this manner, although
the author of the Plan refrained from delineating the course
of such a water system. What he had in mind can be
elicited from the fact that the majority of his privies are
sited in such a manner that they could be flushed in
succession by a drainage channel connecting them in a
straight course.[684]

VARIATION IN ARRANGEMENT OF SEATS

An interesting, and possibly common, variation of the
longhouse represented by the rere-dorter of the monastery
of Christchurch in Canterbury (figs. 502-503) was created
by moving the row of toilet seats away from the wall into
the center axis of the building and making each alternate
seat accessible from the opposite side. We have the good
fortune of being able to visualize the furnishings of such a
privy down to its minutest detail because of the survival,
in the Collection of Drawings of the British Museum, of a
set of meticulously measured drawings made by J. G.
Buckler in 1868, before the interior of the longhouse of
New College, Oxford, was gutted to make room for more
modern installations.[685] Although this type does not appear
on the Plan of St. Gall, the furnishings as such may well
reflect a very old tradition. In the annals of New College
the rere-dorter of New College, varyingly referred to as
domicilium necessarium and as "longhouse," was part of the
quadrangle complex built by Bishop Wykeham from 1380
to 1386. It is 16 feet, 2 inches wide and 82 feet long (clear
inner measurements; the external dimensions are 22 feet,
9 inches by 89 feet, 4 inches) and was built two stories
high with walls 3 feet thick. The lower story originally had
no openings and served as a cesspool, which was periodically
cleaned.[686] The upper story, approached by an external
stair, was lit by narrow slit windows with a wide internal
splay. In the axis of the room throughout its entire length

[ILLUSTRATION]

CANTERBURY, CHRISTCHURCH MONASTERY. MONKS' PRIVY

503.B TRANSVERSE SECTION

[after Willis, 1868, fig. 13]

503.C ARCHES SUPPORTING PRIVY SEATS

[after Willis, 1868, fig. 14]

A longitudinal wall separated the lower part of the privy into two portions of unequal width. The southern part, 14 feet wide, was filled with
earth and paved at the top. The northern part, 7 feet wide, formed a fosse bridged over by thin masonry arches, and carried wooden seats and
seat partitions.

there were wooden seats, boxed in by wall partitions at the
rear and to the side, making the seats accessible from
opposite sides in alternate sequence. Figure 504A-D shows
the plan, sections, and exterior view of this structure and a
detailed view of one of the original seats.

The rere-dorters of the monks and lay brothers of Kirkstall
Abbey, Yorkshire, as well as the Monks' privy of the
Abbey of Maubuisson (Seine-et-Oise), had this same axial
arrangement of seats (and there were unquestionably many
others), but unlike the longhouse of New College, Oxford,
these buildings were flushed by running water.[687]

DISPOSAL OF WASTE BY WATER:
AN URBAN, NOT A RURAL PRACTICE

Disposing of human waste by using water power is an idea
monks inherited from the Romans. It was an urban, not a
rural, invention. In a purely agricultural society the nitrogenous
content of this matter was far too valuable a substance
for replenishing the soil to be discarded in a stream.
The monks whose background was rural could not help
being impressed by the skillful engineering that went into
these water systems and lent to a primordial problem of
nature a touch of inventive elegance. Now and then, in
medieval sources, one runs into a passage that seems to

[ILLUSTRATION]

504.A OXFORD UNIVERSITY, NEW COLLEGE

COLLEGE PRIVY BUILT BY BISHOP WYCKHAM BETWEEN 1380 AND 1386

PLAN OF THE UPPER FLOOR. DRAWINGS BY J. G. BUCKLER [504. A, B, C, D, E]

LONDON, BRITISH MUSEUM COLLECTION OF DRAWINGS, ADD. MS. 36437. BY COURTESY OF THE TRUSTEES OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM

reflect this concept, such as the remark in the Gesta Abbatum
Lobbensium which lists the following among the accomplishments
of Abbot Levinus (twelfth century):

PHILOSOPHICAL IMPLICATIONS

In other sources one finds undertones of a feeling that
the currents of water so skillfully channeled through the
monastic workshops cleansed the monastery in a deeper
sense than the purely physical; the impressive, and in
parts truly poetic, thirteenth-century description of the
waterways of the monastery of Clairvaux, after a minute
account of all the services that the water rendered to the
various offices and workshops, terminates with:

One of the puzzling aspects of the Plan of St. Gall is
the fact that although its author is scrupulously precise in
the specifications of the privies that answer the needs of
the monks and their noble visitors, the question of privies
is not even raised on the level of the serfs, the workmen,

[ILLUSTRATION]

504.B OXFORD, NEW COLLEGE. LONGITUDINAL SECTION

A strikingly functional and no less sophisticated solution to the problem of monastic sanitation was applied in medieval university life (where
students, while not cloistered, were in minor orders). The carpentry was superb; seats facing opposite sides in alternating sequence offered a
maximum of privacy and comfort without violating the traditional monastic regulation that even while engaged in the most humble of human
pursuits, none may enjoy the privilege of total seclusion.

and the paupers. The absence of privies (or even the
provision of space for such) is most strongly felt in the
case of the Great Collective Workshop and the Hospice for
Pilgrims and Paupers.[690] This is not an oversight, in my
opinion, but a case of social discrimination. From a certain
level downward the designer of the scheme left the solution
of the individual privy to the ingenuity of the builder. In
the case of those structures housing both humans and
animals this poses no problem, as the sanitation of the
human occupants is subject to the same order of cleanliness
that governs good animal husbandry and can be met with
the greatest of ease by an infinite variety of ingenious
improvisations. But in the case of the Great Collective
Workshop and the Hospice for Pilgrims and Paupers, the
absence of privies—or even of the provision of space for

[ILLUSTRATION]

504.C OXFORD, NEW COLLEGE.

EXTERIOR VIEW FROM NEW COLLEGE LANE

them—is more disquieting. The designer simply chose not
to express himself on this issue.

The Consuetudines Farfenses furnishes us with an interesting
literary parallel for this discriminatory planning procedure.
The same text that tells us with firm precision that
the number of toilet seats in the House for Distinguished
Guests should be equal to the number of visitors who can
be bedded in this structure, wastes not a single word on
the subject of privies of the large building—280 feet long
and 25 feet wide—which contains on the ground floor the
stables for the horses of the royal party and on the upper
floor the eating and sleeping quarters of the lower ranking
members of the emperor's train:

[ILLUSTRATION]

504.E DETAIL

END OF PART V

[ILLUSTRATION]

505. ST. GALL. VIEW OF THE CITY FROM THE WEST, IN 1545

HEINRICH VOGTHERR. WOOD ENGRAVING (29.6 × 42cm)

The rendering shows the town and its surroundings from an imagined perspective in the air. Not yet separated, abbey and town are enclosed by a common masonry wall
elaborated by towers, houses, and two main gates. A glimpse of the Bodensee (Lake Constance) orients the view to the northeast.

Dominating the countryside are meadows cleared for bleaching linen, a local industry. The view is crowded with dwellings, farms and outbuildings, an inn, a fort,
barracks and parade ground, an exercise and training yard. The main access road appears smooth and well paved approaching the city's crenellated gate; down the
other, rougher road a carter gallops three span of horses hitched to a drey, laden perhaps with baled linen. A group of buildings amid trees (center, right) suggesting
modest dwellings is situated outside the city walls. By mid-16th century, St. Gall clearly consisted of URBS and SUBURBS, a dichotomy that attested the arrival
of modern times.

The four largest meodows are bisected by the Irabach; its water-course, now underground, formed a natural boundary between town and monastery in the early Middle
Ages. Two mills locate the cascade of the Steinach; its course deflects sharply westward, broken by the escarpment of the monastery site (cf. fig. 514, p. 331.) The
abbey church lies slightly south of the east-west axis of this rise of land, its staggered roofs indicating various steps of construction. Similar views from different angles
(figs. 507, 509.X) confirm the veracity of the rendering.

Photo: Courtesy of Zentralbibliothek, Zürich, Department of Prints and Drawings.
Each of the two extant prints of this subject is somewhat damaged; this image is
made from a photographic composite of them, in order to obtain the best possible
reconstruction.