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:
Haec sub se teneat fr̄m̄ qui tegmina curat[417]
Let him take charge of these things who takes
care of the brothers' apparel.
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"
(
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:
twelve matricularii [odd jobbers selected from among the poor] and
thirty laymen. Of those: six at the first workshop, viz., three
shoemakers, two saddlers, one fuller. At the second workshop:
seventeen [Adalhard's arithmetic is wrong, the total of the individual
workmen listed for the second workshop is eighteen not seventeen],
viz., one at the supply room, six blacksmiths, two goldsmiths, two
shoemakers, two shieldmakers, one parchment maker, one polisher,
three carpenters. At the third workshop: three, viz., two porters at
the cellar and the dispensary, one at the infirmary. Two helpers,
viz., one at the place where the wood is stored in the bakehouse,
one at the middle gate, four carpenters, four masons, two physicians,
two at the vassals' lodge.[428]
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
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.
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
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]
