RELATION OF MAIN ROOM TO PERIPHERAL
ROOMS
A second conspicuous typological trait that the St. Gall
house has in common with the northern all-purpose house
is that both have as their principal architectural component
a large rectangular center space, containing the hearth,
which serves as the common living, cooking, and dining
room. The more specialized functions, such as sleeping and
stabling of livestock, are relegated to the narrow spaces
ranged peripherally around it. Thus in the House for
Distinguished Guests (fig. 397) the center space is used as
the "dining hall" of the guests (domus hospitū ad prandendum),
the chambers on the two narrow sides of the house
as "heatable rooms with beds" (caminatae cum lectis), while
the rooms that are attached to the two long sides of the
center hall serve as servants' quarters (cubilia seruitorum)
and as "stables for the horses" (stabula cabballoarum). In
the Hospice for Pilgrims and Paupers (fig. 392) the center
space is designated for use as a "hall for the pilgrims and
paupers" (domus peregrinorum & pauperuėm), while the
outer rooms serve as quarters for the servants (seruientium
mansiones), as "supply room" (camera), and as "cellar"
(cellarium). In the House of the Physicians (fig. 410) the
center space is designated as the room of the physicians
(domus medicorum), while the peripheral rooms are described
as the ward for those who are critically ill (
cubiculum
ualde infirmorum), the quarters of the chief physician
(
mansio medici ipsius), and the pharmaceutical supply room
(
armarium pigmentorum). Again in the House for Servants of
Outlying Estates and for Servants Traveling with the
Emperor's Court (fig. 402), the House for the Fowlkeeper
and his crew (fig. 466), as well as all the buildings that
accommodate livestock and their attendants, except that for
the goats, viz., the sheep (fig. 493), the swine (fig. 491),
cows (fig. 483), foaling mares (fig. 487), and their keepers,
the hearth room in the center is designated as the room for
the servants (
dom' familiae); the common room (
domus
communis); the main room (
ipsa domum); the room for the
swineherds (
domus porcariorum), the room for the cowherds
(
domus armentariorum); and the room of the horse grooms
(
domus equaritiae), respectively—all in the sense of a
common living or gathering room. The outer spaces serve
as "sleeping quarters" for the attendant serfs, shepherds,
goathers, and swineherds (
cubilia custodientiū, cubilia
opilionum, cubilia pastorum) and of course as "stables" for the
various species of animals (
cauil, stabula).
In order to be taken to their stalls the animals had to
be led through the common center room of their keepers.
This holds true not only for buildings specifically devised
for the purpose of housing livestock but also for buildings
of such a highly residential nature as the House for Distinguished
Guests, where the horses, in order to reach
their stables, had to be guided through the common dining
room around the central fire-place, precisely as in the Iron
Age houses of Ezinge, Holland.
I draw special attention to House B of layer V of the
Ezinge Warf, which dates from third century B.C. (fig. 327),
because its shape and general proportions are very similar
to those of the St. Gall house. Its doors are in the long
sides facing each other across the house. The hearth is in
the middle of the center aisle. The animals stand in the
outer aisles, facing the walls—one of them so close to the
hearth that its tail could have fanned the fire. The traffic
pattern is the same: people as well as animals enter the
central hall by crossing one of the aisles and then move to
peripheral spaces reserved for feeding, retreat, or sleep.
