Technology and Culture

Book Reviews The Plan ofSt. Gall: A Study of the Architecture and Economy of, and Life in a Paradigmatic Carolingian Monastery. By Walter Horn and Ernest Born. 3 vols. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979. Pp. xxviii+356 (vol. 1); xii+359 (vol. 2); xxxiv+267 (vol. 3); ca. 1,100 figures, illustrations. $325.00. Occasionally a new book overwhelms scholars with its scope and depth of learning: The Plan ofSt. Gall is one of those that will influence and shape research on a wide range of topics for decades. Further­ more, the publication of this massive work is an outstanding event both for its content and for the superb quality of its bookmaking. In an age which has accustomed itself to quick and sometimes shoddy scholarship, self-destructing paper, sloppy typography, and careless craftsmanship in the production of books, it is a joy to pick up these weighty tomes and browse or read intensely through a thousand pages of carefully researched and reasoned scholarship while enjoy­ ing the beauty of illustrations, layout, and typography of the volumes. Given these qualities, all of which deserve detailed comment, one cannot do justice to the book in a short review. For the readership of this journal I shall summarize briefly the book’s content and empha­ size those topics which are particularly relevant to the history of technology. The Plan of St. Gall is a 9th-century document which provides in graphic and verbal descriptions the physical layout and functions of a complete Benedictine abbey. As the title of their book suggests, Professors Horn and Born have used this document as the basis for systematic study of the physical conditions of monastic life in the Carolingian era. First they describe the genesis of the plan, using other contemporary documentary evidence and their own meticulous analyses of the parchment, drafting technique, and handwriting of the plan itself. From these analyses emerge the following conclusions: (1) the plan was made around 820 at the Abbey of Reichenau for Abbot Gozbert of St. Gall, under the direction of Bishop Haito of Basel, who was also Abbot of Reichenau; (2) the plan is a copy traced from a prototype, and some important characteristics of the plan result from its being a traced copy; (3) the prototype originated out of Carolingian legislation that provided systematic and uniform regula­ tion of the institutional and physical life of Benedictine monasticism; (4) the plan represents an ideal monastery, but it is not a utopian Permission to reprint a book review printed in this section may be obtained only from the author. 157 158 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE dream, for it was firmly based on current monastic experience and legislation; (5) the plan is a measured drawing which presents the buildings and furnishings of the abbey in functionally and spatially accurate scale; (6) the overall design as well as the smallest particulars of the plan were developed out of a modular design technique: larger components are fitted within a grid of modular squares with sides of 40 Carolingian feet; small details are based on modular squares with sides of 2'/2 Carolingian feet; the two modules are a function of each other (40 4- 16 = 2'A); (7) the plan was not a construction drawing for the building program undertaken by Abbot Gozbert or for other monastic building enterprises; it was a reference guide from which the layout of particular buildings and furnishings could be developed, perhaps in the form of working drawings for actual construction. Having established these points about the plan’s origin and pur­ pose, the authors then systematically analyze each building and its furnishings as projected on the plan. First under review are the buildings which served the monks themselves—church, cloister com­ plex, novitiate, infirmary, and abbot’s house. Volume 1 closes with a chapter on “Monastic Polity” which surveys the institutions that functioned within the physical setting depicted on the plan. Volume 2 is devoted to similarly detailed analyses of the guest and service buildings. It is this volume which perhaps will be of greatest interest to readers of this journal, for the plan carefully illustrates the technological complex which was the reality of...