WEST RANGE
At Cluny II, as on the Plan of St. Gall, the cellar (cellarium)
forms the principal building of the west range. It is 70 feet
long and 60 feet wide. Next to it lies a long and narrow
room which the Farfa text designates "aelemosynarum."
This room is 10 feet wide and 60 feet long; its name suggests
that it served as an area in which the almoner administered
to the needs of transient paupers. An inscription on the
Plan of St. Gall indicates that a room of similar shape and
nearly the same dimensions (15 feet by 47½ feet) performed
the triple function of serving as "an exit and entrance to
the cloister," as a Parlor "where the monks could converse
with guests" and as "the place where the feet [of the
visiting pilgrims] were washed" (exitus & introitus ante
claustrū ad colloquendum cum hospitibus & ad mandatū faci-
endū).[61]
A passage in chapter 46 of book II of the Customs
of Farfa reveals that it was in connection with the ritual of
the mandatum that the visiting paupers received their customary
ration of wine and bread (justitiam vini et libram
panis);[62]
and in a complete description of this ritual
found in the first book of these customs, explains that
the place where the paupers' feet are washed, is "in the
cloister to the side of the church" (
in claustro juxta eccles-
iam)
[63]
which indicates that the
eleemosynarium at Cluny was
located in the same relative position as the Parlor on the
Plan of St. Gall, and also served some of the same
functions.
[64]
A parlor or auditorium is not mentioned in the Farfa
text, but appears in the two passages of the Ordo Cluniacensis,
written around 1086. In one of these the claustral
prior is admonished to "go through the whole cloister
beginning at the door of the auditorium, carefully checking
that the eleemosynarium is closed and locked" (Claustrum
incipiens ad ostium auditorii, sollicite observans quatenus
Eleemosynaria sit clausa et obserata).[65]
In the other, the
door of the eleemosynarium is mentioned next to "that other
door through which those who come from outside enter
the cloister" (ad ostium . . . Elemosynariae, et ad illud, per
quod de foris venientium est ingressus in claustrum.[66]
Both
passages suggest that auditorium and eleemosynarium were
two different areas. Architecturally this could have been
accomplished in two ways: either by relegating the function
of the parlor to a separate space, or by dividing the
oblong eleemosynarium internally into two areas accessible
by separate doors, one used as parlor, or auditorium, for
the reception of guests, the other for the washing of the
feet and the distribution of alms. In the former case one
would have to assume a separate room immediately to the
north of the eleemosynarium, perhaps in the court around
the galilee where Conant indicates a room for the Porter.
