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
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.
