The Medieval Monastery: The Plan Of St. Gall

When one visualizes or designs a building, they usually make an effort to build it as well. However, the plan of St. Gall is a visualization of an entire neighborhood that was never built to date. The monastery plan of St. Gall is a document that uniquely captures an early medieval nature not only in its architecture but also in its life forms. This plan is one of the most remarkable visualizations of a building complex produced during the early ninth century. It provides direct insight into the organization of a medieval monastery as shown in Fig-1.
The plan of St. Gall provides an overall snapshot of an institution of about forty buildings occupied by about 110 monks, with an equal number of laypeople who served as support staff. The plan
According to Prof. Mark Jarzombek’s article, The Medieval Monastery: The Plan of St. Gall, “It is an ideal plan incorporating the monastic reforms promulgated at the synods held at Louis the Pious' palace in Aachen in 816 and 81. In the late 12th century, the blank backside of the plan was used for the inscription of the Life of St. Martin. The scribe eliminated the building in the northwest corner of the plan in order to complete his text. The purpose of this building was most likely to house the vassals and knights that escorted the emperor.” (Jarzombek, 2012)
This site comprises of three different sections: to the west, at the bottom of the plan, are the areas open to the lay population; the middle zone is utilized as a monastery proper; and to the east, at the top, are the garden, infirmary, orchard, and cemetery. A reception hall and dormitory for pilgrims was expected to be built to the left of the road that accesses the church entrance. To the north of the church, there were special buildings for the abbot and novices. St. Gall was a nave church, with no transept. Freestanding towers border the round entrance of the church. At the top of one tower was an altar to St. Michael, and on the other was an altar to St.
825, which doubtless influenced the planning of the abbey complex in St. Gall without representing an exact model for the St. Gall solution, dates from this time. In addition to the abbey on the Steinach, he was in charge of Weissenburg and a third monastery, a combination which certainly influenced for good the internal development of St. Gall. Again and again, they sought to improve the position of the abbey. The high cost of maintaining a princely household, the loss of properties, and the demands of royal officials led to the abbey’s ever more frequent involvement in economically disadvantageous situations. Moreover, the political development was unfavorable to monastic control. The new structures and the rise of the cities, towns, and new monasteries resulted in a progressive emancipation of vassals and the loss of rights. The state officials, embracing a growing number of individuals and groups of persons, achieved increasingly important functions and significance. And yet the possessions of the abbey in the late middle ages were still impressive. Through treaties (1457) and other developments the town of St. Gall was completely separated from the abbey at the end of the middle ages; its independence was thereby