The Plan of St. Gall a study of the architecture & economy of & life in a paradigmatic Carolingian monastery |
| II. |
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| V. 10. |
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| V.18.1. |
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PHILOSOPHICAL IMPLICATIONS |
| VI. |
| VI. 1. |
| VI.I.I. |
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| VI. 2. |
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 | The Plan of St. Gall |  |
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:
Lastly, in order that it may not omit any thanks due to it, nor leave
the catalogue of its services in any way imperfect, it carries away
all dirt and uncleanness and leaves all things clean behind it. Thus
after having accomplished industriously the purpose for which it
came, it returns with rapid current to the stream and renders to it
in the name of Clairvaux thanks for all the services that it has performed,
and replies to its salutation with worthy response.[689]
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,
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.
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
504.C OXFORD, NEW COLLEGE.
EXTERIOR VIEW FROM NEW COLLEGE LANE
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:
Near the Southgate and [extending from there] to the Northgate,
westward, let a house be built, 280 feet long and 25 feet wide. There
establish the stables for the horses, divided into stalls; and above
let there be a solarium where the servants eat and sleep; here tables
should be installed, 80 feet long and 4 feet wide.[691]
504.E DETAIL
504.D OXFORD, NEW COLLEGE
The roof belongs to the same period that produced
the magnificent carpentry of the 14thcentury
hall of Nurstead Court, Kent (fig.
346.A-D) and is similar to it.
The roof of New College privy is carried by
nine trusses, spaced at intervals slightly less
than 10 feet. Their elegant, sharply cambered
tie beams, chamfered underneath, are dovetailed
into the wall plates. King posts rising from mid
beam carry a center purlin surmounted crosswise
by a collar piece bracing the rafters midway.
Short vertical uprights steady the rafters at
their springing.
Outhouses with seating capacities comparable
to that of the necessarium of New College are
recorded in the most distant parts of medieval
Europe, in both monastic and secular life. A
monks' privy with two rows of seats (19 in all)
backing each other along the center axis of the
structure was built for the monastery of
Batalha, Portugal, shortly after 1388 (for
plans, see Lenoir, 1856, VII 6: 2, 366); in the
northernmost fringes of the world, Old Norse
sagas refer to royal "long houses" that could be
used simultaneously by 22 men (for sources see
Gudmundsson, 1899, 247).
TRANSVERSE SECTION
We close PART V with a charming and amusing verse, its presence in "a certain monastery, perhaps Tours" testifying another equally
humble and traditional use of such structures.
IN LATRINO[692]
Luxuriam ventris, lector, cognosce vorantis,Putrida qui sentis stercora nare tuo.
Ingluviem fugito ventris quapropter in ore:
Tempore sit certo sobria vita tibi.
—translation by Charles W. Jones
Here, friend, may you ponder ingluvial excess,
As your nostrils distend with the stink of the cess.
Now avoid crapulence and eschew overchewing
Lest at Judgment intemperance prove your undoing.
END OF PART V
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.
Migne, Patr. lat, CLXXXV, 1879, col. 571: "Postremo, ne quid ei
desit ad ullam gratiam, et ne ipsius quaquaversum imperfecta sint opera,
asportans immunditias, omnia post se munda relinquit. Et jam peracto
strenue propter quod venerat, rapida celeritate festinat ad fluvium, ut vice
Clarae-Vallis agens ei gratias pro universis beneficiis suis, salutationi ejus
resalutatione condigna respondeat; statimque refundens ei aquas quas nobis
transfuderat, sic de duobus efficit unum ut nullum appareat unionis vestigium;
et quem dicessu suo teneum et pigrum fecerat mistus ei morantem praecipitat."
For
an equally interesting and even earlier description of the same
water-ways, see I, 69.
Consuedutines Farfenses, ed. Bruno Albers in Cons. mon., I, 1900,
139: "A porta meridiana usque ad portam VIIItem trionalem contra occidentem
sit constructa domus longitudinis CCtu LXXXta pedes, latitudinis
XXti et V, et ibi constituantur stabule equorum per mansiunculas partitas,
et desuper sit solarium, ubi famuli aedant atque dormiant, et mensas habeant
ibi ordinatas longitudinis LXXXta pedes, latitudinis vero IIIIor."
| The Plan of St. Gall | |