SAINT GALLThe construction and expansion of many mon-
asteries also characterized the Carolingian period. A unique docu-
ment, the ideal plan (FIG. 16-19) for a Benedictine monastery (see
“Medieval Monasteries and Benedictine Rule,” above) at Saint Gall in
Switzerland, provides precious information about the design of Car-
olingian monastic communities. Haito, the abbot of Reichenau and
bishop of Basel, commissioned the drawing and sent it to the abbot of
Saint Gall around 819 as a guide for the rebuilding of the Saint Gall
monastery. The design’s fundamental purpose was to separate the
monks from the laity (nonclergy) who also inhabited the community.
Variations of the scheme may be seen in later monasteries all across
western Europe. Near the center, dominating everything, was the
church with its cloister,a colonnaded courtyard not unlike the Early
Christian atrium (FIG. 11-9) but situated to the side of the church420 Chapter 16 EARLY MEDIEVAL EUROPEM
onastic foundations appeared in western Europe beginning
in Early Christian times. The monks who established mon-
asteries also made the rules that governed them. The most signifi-
cant of these monks was Benedict of Nursia (Saint Benedict), who
founded the Benedictine order in 529. By the ninth century, the
“Rule” Benedict wrote (Regula Sancti Benedicti) had become stan-
dard for all European monastic establishments, in part because
Charlemagne had encouraged its adoption throughout the Frankish
territories.
Saint Benedict believed the corruption of the clergy that ac-
companied the increasing worldliness of the Christian Church had
is roots in the lack of firm organization and regulation. As he saw it,
idleness and selfishness had led to neglect of the commandments of
God and of the Church. The cure for this was communal association
in an abbey under the absolute rule of an abbot the monks elected
(or an abbess the nuns chose), who would see to it that the monks
spent each hour of the day in useful
work and in sacred reading. The empha-
sis on work and study and not on medi-
tation and austerity is of great historical
significance. Since antiquity, manual la-
bor had been considered disgraceful, the
business of the lowborn or of slaves.
Benedict raised it to the dignity of reli-
gion. The core idea of what many people
today call the “work ethic” found early
expression here as an essential feature of
spiritual life. By thus exalting the virtue
of manual labor, Benedict not only res-
cued it from its age-old association with
slavery but also recognized it as the way
to self-sufficiency for the entire religious
community.
Whereas some of Saint Benedict’s followers emphasized spiri-
tual “work” over manual labor, others, most notably the Cistercians
(see “Bernard of Clairvaux,” Chapter 17, page 420), put his teachings
about the value of physical work into practice. These monks reached
into their surroundings and helped reduce the vast areas of daunting
wilderness of early medieval Europe. They cleared dense forest
teeming with wolves, bear, and wild boar; drained swamps and culti-
vated wastelands; and built roads, bridges, and dams as well as
monastic churches and their associated living and service quarters.
The ideal monastery (FIG. 16-19) provided all the facilities nec-
essary for the conduct of daily life—a mill, bakery, infirmary, veg-
etable garden, and even a brewery—so that the monks felt no need
to wander outside its protective walls. These religious communities
were centrally important to the revival of learning. The clergy, who
were also often scribes and scholars, had a monopoly on the skills of
reading and writing in an age of almost universal illiteracy. The
monastic libraries and scriptoria (FIG. 16-11), where the monks read,
copied, illuminated, and bound books with ornamented covers, be-
came centers of study. Monasteries were almost the sole repositories
of what remained of the literary culture of the Greco-Roman world
and early Christianity. Saint Benedict’s requirements of manual
labor and sacred reading came to include writing and copying
books, studying music for chanting the day’s offices, and—of great
significance—teaching. The monasteries were the schools of the
early Middle Ages as well as self-sufficient communities and produc-
tion centers.Medieval Monasteries and Benedictine Rule
RELIGION AND MYTHOLOGY
16-19Schematic plan
for a monastery at Saint
Gall, Switzerland, ca. 819.
Red ink on parchment,
2 4 3 81 – 8 . Stiftsbib-
liothek, Saint Gall.
The purpose of this
plan for an ideal, self-
sufficient Benedictine
monastery was to sepa-
rate the monks from the
laity. Near the center
stands the church with
its cloister, an earthly
paradise reserved for
the monks. 1 in.