University of Virginia Library

PREFACE: VOLUME III

Abbo's epic, The Siege of Paris, written in the monastery of St. Germain-des-Prés between A.D. 888-896, is the most
blatant example of Carolingian literature and writing of what Ernst Robert Curtius termed "numerical composition"—
a principle according to which an abstract number symbolism is superimposed upon a literary exposition regardless of
whether or not it fits the content. Abbo committed himself in advance to three books, but since two were sufficient to
repel the invaders of Paris, he gave the third book exclusively to didactic grammatical commonplaces. Numerical composition,

in its broader ramifications, is closely related to those other conceptual innovations which in architecture and site
organization produced the square schematism of the Plan of St. Gall.

Although as historians of the Carolingian period we are fully aware of the symbolic implications of ternary division, it
was not a desire to impose a predetermined order of numbers on the raw material of this book that induced us to issue it
in three volumes. The third volume soon emerged as a physical necessity as the work progressed. It does not have the
internal unity and coherence of the two preceding tomes, and like Abbo's third book of The Siege of Paris performs in
relation to them a clearly supportive function. In content, this last volume consists on one hand of matter that relates
directly to the substance of volumes I and II, but is too complex or subordinate to be taken into the main body of text;
and on the other hand of contributions strictly supplementary in nature, pertinent, to be sure, to the problems raised by
the Plan, but not an organic part of the Plan.

Directly related to the Plan itself is the Catalogue of Inscriptions which takes up the bulk of this third volume, and
such indispensable accessories to the whole of the work as the Bibliography and the Indexes. The early recognition of the
need for a three-volume format to serve adequately the scope of this project also influenced our decision to place the
Bibliography and all Indexes for the entire work at the end of Volume III. The encyclopedic concerns and intimate relationship
of the first two volumes, and the nature of the third, as well as the plan to issue the books not sequentially but
simultaneously, made this solution a logical one.

The Catalogue of Inscriptions (Appendix I) is a complete and systematic compilation of the explanatory titles of the
Plan with photographic details shown side-by-side with transliterations in modern print and English translations of all
of this textual matter. To publish the inscriptions in this manner was not part of our original scheme; only after it had
become clear that a full-scale facsimile reproduction of the Plan could not be included in this book, did we find it desirable
to make a place where the explanatory titles of the Plan could be studied as a homogeneous body of texts. They are of
more than passing interest: not only because of the richness and historical importance of their architectural vocabulary,
the meaning and controversial nature of many of the technical terms they contain—but also for the sheer graphical beauty
of the script in which they are rendered, the masterful way in which they are positioned within the drawing, inscribed or
juxtaposed, tightly and pointedly related to the area or object whose purpose and function they define, yet never obtrusive
and nowhere ever entering into conflict with the drawing itself, the primary message. As our work progressed we became
more and more convinced (without losing sight of the highly intuitive and wholly unscholarly nature of this supposition)
that the scribe and the delineator of the Plan were one and the same person. The ductus of his written line seemed to us
to exhibit the same distinctive combination of sensitivity and boldness that characterizes the line in which the buildings
were drawn.

Clearly supplementary in nature, on the other hand, is the subject matter taken up in Appendices II and III of this
volume. Appendix II consists of a translation by Charles W. Jones of the so-called statutes of Abbot Adalhard of Corbie
(Consuetudines Corbeienses), that masterpiece of managerial logistics, written for the monastery of Corbie by one of the
most illustrious abbots of the period and cousin and schoolmate of Charlemagne. Appendix III is a brief but fascinating
essay by A. Hunter Dupree, "On the Significance of the Plan of St. Gall for the History of Measurement." Apologias
for these two contributions will be found in explanatory statements preceding them.

Preparing the Bibliography and working up the Indexes were the last two serious tasks in this project. While engaged
in this labor we could not help but marvel (as other writers must have done before us under similar circumstances) how
much there was still to be done after the work on the book itself was completed. It was at this stage of the production of
the book, that Ernest Born as its designer, and Lorna Price, its editor, entered the most intensive phase of their travail.

Now that all is done, and these last lines are being written at the conclusion of the book, the conclusion of the project
—in looking back upon the rigor and richness of life which the subject has imposed upon us, keeping us under its spell for
close to twenty years, I can only repeat what I said earlier: I regret that it all went so fast! I envy those who will take up
and continue the work on this masterpiece of architectural planning worked out by men who had dedicated themselves
to the task of bringing about a better life on earth by placing themselves in the service of God.

For Ernest Born and me the time has come to take leave of the Plan of St. Gall and to turn to another pressing task.