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Carolingian Monastic Reform and The Plan of St. Gall: Part II - The Plan

© George R. Hoelzeman

The synods mentioned in the previous article, and the reform movement itself produced one of the most important architectural documents of the Middle Ages: the Plan of St. Gall. This unusual document is remarkable for many reasons. First, at 33"x44" it is the largest surviving manuscript of the period. Such a large parchment was difficult to fabricate (it required five pieces of parchment) and would not normally have survived because of difficulties in storage. However, in the twelfth century a monk copied the Life of St. Martin on the unused back of the Plan, then creatively folded the sheet into a manageable book. Second, the Plan has remained at St. Gall throughout its history, except for a brief period when it was evacuated to Reichenau in anticipation of the Magyar attack of 926. Third, and perhaps most interesting, the plan is a tracing1. How many other monastic foundations received similar copies of this Plan, and to what extent legends were modified for local use, will likely remain one of history's secrets2.

At least two, possibly three, hands are discernable in the Plan. The principle scribe, using a deep-brown ink, recorded 265 of the 340 legends in Carolingian minuscule. The second scribe used a pale-brown ink. This second scribe recorded (among other things) the titles of the altars in the monastery church and made additions to the legend on the Abbot's House3. The lines of the buildings themselves are rendered with a brilliant vermillion ink. That these lines were drawn by a skilled draftsman is clear from the fact that they were done without the aid of drafting tools4.

The architectural heart of the plan is the monastic church. It is a double apsed, cruciform structure with two paradises, separate towers, separate entrances for honored guests and commoners, and oddly arranged benches for the monastic choir. The church is described as being 200 feet long, but this dimension is no longer considered accurate. It contains approximately nineteen altars, a prominent ambo, and a baptismal font. An east crypt and apse houses the relics of St. Gall.

Perhaps the most notorious problem with the plan of the church is its dimensions5. A legend, spread along the longitudinal axis of the church plan, declares that "From East to West the length is 200 feet."6 Other dimensions are the width of the nave (40 feet), the aisles (20 feet), between the columns (12 ft) and between the piers of the western Paradise (10 feet). The contradictions in these measurements become immediately apparent if the dimensions indicated are applied to the structure as drawn. If the nave is forty feet, then the length, if drawn to scale, would be 300 feet. Several theories have been proposed to reconcile these variances.

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