UvA-DARE (Digital Academic Repository) Means, motives and opportunities: The architecture of monasteries during the reign of Louis the Pious (814-840) Rulkens, A.J.R. Publication date 2013 Link to publication Citation for published version (APA): Rulkens, A. J. R. (2013). Means, motives and opportunities: The architecture of monasteries during the reign of Louis the Pious (814-840). General rights It is not permitted to download or to forward/distribute the text or part of it without the consent of the author(s) and/or copyright holder(s), other than for strictly personal, individual use, unless the work is under an open content license (like Creative Commons). Disclaimer/Complaints regulations If you believe that digital publication of certain material infringes any of your rights or (privacy) interests, please let the Library know, stating your reasons. In case of a legitimate complaint, the Library will make the material inaccessible and/or remove it from the website. Please Ask the Library: https://uba.uva.nl/en/contact, or a letter to: Library of the University of Amsterdam, Secretariat, Singel 425, 1012 WP Amsterdam, The Netherlands. You will be contacted as soon as possible. UvA-DARE is a service provided by the library of the University of Amsterdam (https://dare.uva.nl) Download date:09 Oct 2021 chapter 2 Plan vs. reality I 2.1 INTRODUCTION 1 This chapter focuses on two communities located respectively in and near Lake Constance or the ‘Bodensee’: Reichenau and St. Gall. The development of both Alamannian monasteries went hand in hand, from their (second) foundation in 2 the early eighth century to their flowering in the early ninth. From the start, they had much in common: their close connection with the bishops of Constance, the tradition of ‘Iro-Frankish’ monasticism from which they were founded, and later the Rule of Benedict and their shared position as ‘Reichskloster’.1 Furthermore, the 3 contacts between the two were manifold: only ca. forty kilometres apart, it was easy to exchange books and ideas and enter into a confraternity. Moreover, their abbots and socially, politically and intellectually most gifted monks moved in the same circles. 4 Three complexes of buildings will be highlighted in this chapter. The first merely existed on parchment: the famous Plan of St. Gall. This drawing represent- ing a monastery was executed on the island monastery of Reichenau and sent to the abbot of St. Gall who, after receiving it, constructed a new abbey church. The C actual abbey church of St. Gall is the second building scrutinized here. Lastly, the architecture of the monastery of Reichenau, the environment in which the creator of the Plan lived, will be studied. Within this triad, the Plan functions as the con- nection between the two monastic complexes that existed in reality. B In this chapter, unlike in the previous one concerned with two individual patrons of architecture, not the individual but the communities in their entirety and the environment they inhabited stand at the centre of attention. The material and visual evidence from these three cases has much to offer with regard to the ar- S chitecture of early medieval monasticism. It shows that despite the similarities be- tween the communities and their proximity to each other, subtle differences could 1 See a.o. Prinz, “Frühes Mönchtum”; Maurer, Die Konstanzer Bischöfe. Although the concept of Iro-Frankish or Columbanan monasticism has been problematised lately, it is undeniable that Pirmin A and Gall brought with them certain traditions that have put a stamp on monasticism in Alamannia. 113 lead to very different architectural solutions. These case-stud- ies, especially Reichenau, also make clear that monastic com- plexes grew and evolved more or less organically over time, instead of being planned completely when building first com- menced. As will become clear, we must also see the Plan as a stage in the process of design and development, rather than as a end-product. A wealth of information is available about the early medie- val history of Reichenau and St. Gall, not in the last place be- cause of the large number of extant manuscripts and, recently, their excellent digital accessibility. Scholars have made grate- ful use of this material, which has led to an extensive bibli- ography on both monasteries, focusing amongst others on aspects such as liturgy and liturgical commemoration, literary Fig. 2.1 Plan of St. Gall production in Latin and the vernacular, manuscript production, schooling and the verso. Horn & Born, The study of the Bible. There were certainly many connections and parallels between Plan of St. Gall 1, p. xxviii. these realms and that of architecture, yet I feel it is justified to leave these matters aside for now. They have been and are still sufficiently studied, generally without regard for the built environment in which the manuscripts came about and were used, whereas the architectural remains from Reichenau and St. Gall have not. This is unfortunate since the architecture have so much to offer, especially when com- bined with other types of sources. 2.2 THE PLAN OF ST. GALL AS SOURCE OF KNOWLEDGE ABOUT MONASTIC LIFE The so-called Plan of St. Gall, still kept in the ‘Stiftsbibliothek’ at the site of the for- mer monastery, is a rectangular piece of parchment of about 112 x 77 cm, consist- 114 I 1 2 3 4 C B S Fig. 2.2 Plan of St. Gall, schematic rendering. Carolingian culture at eichenauR and St. Gall, http://www.stgallplan.org. A 115 ing of five pieces of parchment made of calf-skin, which were sewn together in several stages and inscribed with two types of red as well as some black ink (figs. 2.1-2.7).2 The ink drawings have been preceded by designs carved into the parch- ment by rule and compass and are accompanied by explicatory lines of text, mostly in prose.3 On the top right of the parchment a letter from its sender, addressing its recipient, was written. The back of the parchment was later used for (part of) another text.4 The Plan depicts a monastic settlement that has been carefully spread out on the parch- Fig. 2.3 Plan of St. Gall, ment, taking up almost all of the available space.5 The largest and visually most schematic rendering of its assembly. striking (due to their central position as well as the large amount of detail and Horn & Born, thus ink) are depictions of the abbey church and cloister with surrounding build- The Plan of St. Gall 1, ings. Grouped around this central block are, roughly clockwise from the top, the p. 34. graveyard, the vegetable garden, quarters for poultry, workshops for craftsmen and buildings that helped provide the necessities of life such as the bakery and brew- ery, a hospice, quarters for oxen, horses, cows, brood mares and foals, goats, swine and sheep, a house for guests, a school, the abbot’s house, physician’s quarters and separate quarters for novices and the sick. Most buildings are accompanied by ac- commodation for care-takers, workmen or servants, privies and several by separate 2 A reconstruction of the order in which the pieces of parchment were inscribed and sewn together can be found on http://www.stgallplan.org/stgall_flash/stgall.html. Jacobsen,Klosterplan , pp. 35-78; Bischoff, “Die Entstehung des Klosterplanes”, p. 73: calf-skin was apparently preferred over sheep- skin in Reichenau. 3 The various stages of preparatory work only became clear after Stachura’s up-close research on the material aspects of the Plan. Stachura, “Der Plan von St. Gallen-Ein Original?”. 4 A twelfth-centuryLife of St. Martin. Duft, “Einfluß der Martinsvita auf dem St. Galler Klosterplan”, in: Schweizer Beiträge zur allgemeinen Geschichte 9 (1951), pp. 252-256. 5 I will from now on use ‘Plan’ (capital P) as a shorthand for the plan of St. Gall. 116 I kitchens and breweries. Five captions, inscribed in the drawing of the abbey church, address the 1 scale of the Plan. They all concern the dimensions of the abbey church and are unfortunately impossible to combine with the proportions of the church as it is drawn. There are also numerous captions (over 300) identifying the various build- ings and their components.6 Judging from the size of the church as well as from the 2 number and variety of outbuildings, the Plan depicts a great monastery. This also becomes apparent from the variety of functions accommodated within its walls. Some parts of the complex have been drawn in much more detail than others. Perhaps this is partly due to the building materials intended to be used. The 3 cloister and residence of the abbot for example show arcades, which are most like- ly to be constructed in stone, as was the abbey church. Yet in general, the Plan does not resemble the blueprints for buildings that we are used to nowadays. Walls, for example, are indicated only by singles lines and there is no indication of the in- 4 tended height of buildings. Unfortunately, not one other early medieval floor plan has been passed down to us and this lack of material for comparison is a major ob- stacle in interpreting the Plan.7 We have practically no knowledge of the kinds of designs used on Carolingian building sites and it is unclear if a Carolingian builder C would ever provide or was provided with anything more detailed than this. One of the most striking aspects of the plan is the amount of detail it shows. Attention is paid not only to lofty details such as the altars in the church or the number of steps leading up to the choir, but also to more mundane things B such as bathing facilities, heating systems, the types of vegetables in the garden etc.