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V.4.2

SUPPORTING FRAME OF TIMBER
AND WALLS

The crucial constructional trait of the building tradition
to which the guest and service structures of the Plan of
St. Gall belong is that in this family of houses the roof
received its main support from two rows of freestanding
wooden posts, which divided the building lengthwise into
a nave and two accompanying aisles. The rafters of the
roof had their footing in a course of horizontal logs (plates)
which were held in place by a peripheral row of outer posts,
shorter and not as sturdy as the principal posts. The walls
had, in general, no load-bearing function, and were often
entirely independent from the outer posts. The predominant
material was wattlework, daubed with clay or animal
manure, but there is also clear evidence for vertical and
horizontal weatherboarding. We show as a typical example
of the former a reconstruction of House III of the ninth-century
fortified settlement of Husterknupp in the lower
reaches of the river Rhine (fig. 337),[183] and as an example of
the second, a reconstruction of a house of the Stellerburg
in Dithmarschen, Germany (fig. 338)[184] —both dating from
the ninth century. Walls built of earth or turves, as they were
sporadically encountered by van Giffen both in Iron Age
houses and in the early Middle Ages,[185] are possible, yet not
very likely, in the sophisticated context of a paradigmatic
Carolingian monastery. Log construction is rare, practically
nonexistent, in the time and the territories with which we

[ILLUSTRATION]

PLAN OF ST. GALL. HOUSE, VARIANT 2

331.

332. VARIANT 3A

When space required for such functions as sleeping or storage exceeds the capacity of one aisle, two aisles are added to the main space, usually on the longer sides.
Purest form: House of the Fowlkeeper and his Crew (fig. 231 and 446). Were this measure insufficient, peripheral spaces could be added on three sides. This permits for
two solutions depending on whether the entrance is placed into the middle of one of the short sides of the principal space (as in fig. 332) or in one of its long sides (as
in fig. 333).

are concerned.[186] If in our reconstruction of the guest and
service buildings of the Plan of St. Gall we have decided
on daubed wattlework in preference to other solutions, we
have done so not only because the excavations show it to
be the most common method of building walls in early
medieval and protohistoric times—(it might be recalled in
this context that the German word for wall, Wand, comes
from winden, "to wind" or "to braid")—but also because
it is still today in vast areas of central and western Europe
the preferred method of constructing infillings for the walls
of timber framed houses.

Since in the majority of the St. Gall houses the central
hearth is the only available source of heat for the entire
building, the peripheral spaces cannot have been completely
screened off from the central hall of the house. Like the
Bajuvarian standard house (fig. 289),[187] the St. Gall house
was still essentially a unitary structure. In some houses,
however, where there are special corner fireplaces installed
in peripheral rooms the separation could have been more
rigid.[188]

While the literary and archaeological parallels adduced
in the preceding chapter leave no doubt that the traditional
material used in the family of houses to which the guest and
service structures of the Plan of St. Gall belong was timber,
masonry construction cannot be entirely excluded. The
foundations from which the timbers rose, and in certain
cases even the walls or certain component parts of the walls,
may have been built in stone. This would have been
especially desirable for the sake of fire protection in houses
which, in addition to the central hearth, had corner fireplaces
in some of their peripheral rooms. The House for
Distinguished Guests and the House for Bloodletting with
four corner fireplaces each are first in line for such consideration
(see below, figs. 397 and 416). Other houses may
have been built in a mixed technique, such as the House of
the Physicians (fig. 410), where the safety of the rooms with
corner fireplaces may have called for masonry walls, while
the gable wall on the entrance side of the house could have
been timber-framed. We have reconstructed the House of
the Physicians in this manner in order to demonstrate this
possibility (figs. 413A-F). By no means, however, should
masonry walls be taken as a precondition for the presence
of corner fireplaces. Central and Northern Europe, as well
as England, are dotted even today with houses built entirely
of timber and yet equipped with wall and corner fireplaces
built in masonry. A striking historical example of this
combination is found in the February page of the Très
Riches Heures of the Duc de Berry (fig. 378). We demonstrate
this possibility in our reconstruction of the Gardener's
House (fig. 427). For the remainder, and this holds

[ILLUSTRATION]

333. HOUSE FOR BROOD MARES, FOALS AND THEIR KEEPERS
HOUSE FOR COWS AND COWHERDS

334. HOUSE () FOR SHEEPS & SHEPHERDS/COWS & COWHERDS/
SWINE & SWINEHERDS/SERVANTS OF EMPEROR OR NOBLES

The most complex and most accomplished of the guest and service buildings has its center space surrounded on all four sides by peripheral spaces (fig. 334). Whenever
this solution obtains, the center space serves as common living room, while the outer spaces are used for sleeping, stabling animals, or for storage. Prime examples:
Hospice for Pilgrims and Paupers (fig. 392), House for Distinguished Guests (fig. 396), Outer School (fig. 407) and the majority of the houses for livestock and their
keepers (fig. 489, 491, 493).

true especially for all the houses that shelter animals and
their keepers, there is no need to consider anything else but
timber. The Brevium exempla have taught us[189] that even
on the highest social level in the emperor's residencies on
his various estates, stone was the exceptional, timber the
commonly used, material.