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VI. 5

CONCLUSION

The paradigmatic arrangement embodied in the Plan of
St. Gall was altered by later Benedictines and Cistercians
responding to the interactions of new spiritual objectives
with practical adjustments to changing physical demands.
In the eleventh century, in the face of a rigorous reinterpretation
of the Benedictine Rule, the auditorium was added

to the ground floor in the east range, the result of an
increased concern for claustral silence. To avoid the implications
of privilege, the abbot was no longer permitted
separate quarters but more completely led a life in common
with the monks, sleeping in their dormitory. In the twelfth
century, the Cistercians introduced a large lay-brother
population into regular monastic life in order to maintain
a self-sustaining monastery without compromising religious
aims. This burden of population made necessary the remodeling
and extension of the west range with the consequent
alteration of the south range.

The establishment of a separate chapter house in the
east range provided a permanent meeting place protected
from inclement weather, a change apparently founded in
practical considerations. Yet the reason for its location as
near as possible to the church may have been hierarchical:
spiritual matters taken up in chapter-house meetings were
second in importance only to those taken up in the church.
However, the decision to open the inner cloister for more
efficient communication with the rest of the complex seems
to have been made for utilitarian reasons and paradoxically,
almost at the expense of the privacy it existed to assure for
spiritual ends.

Other alterations were the results of functional changes.
The separate novitiate seen on the Plan of St. Gall may
have been eliminated because the number of oblati diminished
towards the end of the eleventh century and the
novices could then be more easily included within the
cloister of the monks. The warming room was made smaller
as other officinae that took over functions it had once
served were added to the east range, limiting the space
available for it. And, at the same time, the size of the
warming room may have been reduced to adapt to heating
methods of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, methods
which in fact also influenced its relocation to the south
range of some monasteries.

Yet, when these changes were made, care was taken to
preserve the traditional monastic arrangement. In the
eleventh century the Cluniacs and autonomous Benedictines
subdivided the ground floor of the east range to provide
additional rooms within the established plan instead of
adding new buildings to the basic cloister square. In the
twelfth century the Cistercians, faced with the necessity of
combining two independent living units, again preserved
the four-sided cloister by compressing all the lay brothers'
living facilities into the west range of the cloister. When
this solution in turn crowded the south range, the Cistercians
turned the refectory ninety degrees in order to keep
the traditional sequence of officinae in the south range, yet
still retaining the interior cloister square framed by four
enclosing walls.

Although additions were made to each range of the
cloister, the essential function of each side remained that
seen on the Plan of St. Gall. The east range housed the
monk. In the south range his food was prepared and served.
The west range provided and stored his daily sustenance.
Upon the north, the church sheltered his cloister. Respect
for tradition is a characteristic feature of monastic life; as
with customs, the claustral arrangement was respected and
preserved. Once perfected, the arrangement became traditional
and was altered only within the larger understanding
encompassed by tradition.