page_title: Plan of Saint Gall
section_title: The abbot's house
hierarchical_section_title: Plan of Saint Gall / Architectural design and structures / The abbot's house
caption_attribution_description: English: Plan of Saint Gall Abbot's house
context_page_description: The Plan of Saint Gall is a medieval architectural drawing of a monastic compound dating from 820–830 AD. It depicts an entire Benedictine monastic compound, including churches, houses, stables, kitchens, workshops, brewery, infirmary, and a special house for bloodletting. According to calculations based on the manuscript's tituli the complex was meant to house about 110 monks, 115 lay visitors, and 150 craftmen and agricultural workers. The Plan was never actually built, and was so named because it is dedicated to Gozbert abbot of Saint Gall. The planned church was intended to keep the relics of Saint Gall. The plan was kept at the famous medieval monastery library of the Abbey of St. Gall – Stiftsbibliothek Sankt Gallen – where it remains to this day.
  It is the only surviving major architectural drawing from the roughly 700-year period between the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the 13th century. It is considered a national treasure of Switzerland and remains a significant object of interest among modern scholars, architects, artists and draftsmen for its uniqueness, its beauty, and the insights it provides into medieval culture.
context_section_description: The abbot's intermediary position between the clerical and lay worlds is seen in the position of his accommodation on the Plan. The abbot's quarters are located at the other side of the abbey church from the monk's cloister, to the north-east, aligning itself with the secular elite guest houses where the royalty, the emperor and the emperor's court would lodge. The abbot's house also looks over the infirmary and novitiate to the east, the outer school and the house for elite guests to the west.
  The abbot's house faces outwards, its porticoes opening to the outside world, in opposition with the monk's cloister porticoes which open to an enclosed green space. However, in order to comply with an ascetic way of life and to the Benedictine Rule, the abbot shares his bedroom and privy with seven other monks, and his servant quarters are set apart.
  Finally, the abbot's residence has a privileged entry to the east-end of the basilica through a private passageway – ad eclesiam ingressus – signalling his spiritual status as head of the monastery.
caption: Abbot's House. Plan of Sain Gall. See private passageway to Basilica (right of image).
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