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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]