Abbaye de Saint Gall

“ The fame of the new teacher spread far beyond the limits of Bangor, and the nobles of the land deemed themselves happy to be able to leave their sons to be educated by a man as well skilled in profane science as in Christian perfection. Gall, born in Ireland in 545, became one of his pupils. Columbanus and Gall taught and learned in a blessed abode. Three thousand monks were united in the monastery of Bangor, under Abbot Comgall, in common prayer, the practice of virtue, and a virtuous life. ”

“ The older or central portion of the town retains the air of a small rural capital, but the newer quarters present the aspect of a modern commercial centre. At either extremity considerable suburbs merge in the neighbouring towns of Tablat and of Straubenzell. Its chief building is the abbey church of the celebrated old monastery. This has been a cathedral church since 1846. In its present form it was constructed in 1756–1765. The famous library is housed in the former palace of the abbot, and is one of the most renowned in Europe by reason of its rich treasures of early MSS. and printed books. ”

“ We have no existing examples of the earlier monasteries of the Benedictine order. They have all yielded to the ravages of time and the violence of man. But we have fortunately preserved to us an elaborate plan of the great Swiss monastery of St Gall, erected about A.D. 820, which puts us in possession of the whole arrangements of a monastery of the first class towards the early part of the 9th century. ”

“ Physically it is probably the highest town in Europe, its street-level being very nearly 2,200 feet above that of the sea. Its libraries and museums are rich storehouses of mediæval treasures. The architect raves over its monastic buildings; the scholar and palæographer gloat over its books and MSS. In the libraries of St. Gall are some of the masterpieces of Irish Saxon, and Carolingian art, and its great Benedictine abbey under Grimald from 841, i.e. during the later Carolingian period, possessed one of the most active scriptoria in Europe. ”

“ Irish saint Cellach whose name has been latinised Gallus or Gall. St. Gall was a student of the monastery of Bangor (in Co. Down, Ireland) and the friend and pupil of Columban whom he accompanied to the Continent. When St. Gall died in 645 A.D. the fame of his music school had spread far and near. [429] In the year 870 A.D. Moengal, another Irishman, was appointed headmaster of the Music School of St. Gall and under his rule it became “the wonder and delight of Europe.” [430] Moengal laboured for ten years on behalf of the school. ”

“ BONIFACE.—The most active missionaries in the seventh and eighth centuries were, from the British islands. At first they were from Ireland and Scotland. Columban, who died in 615, and his pupil Gallus, labored, not without success, among the Alemanni. Gallus established himself as a hermit near Lake Constance. He founded the Abbey of St. Gall. The Saxon missionaries from England were still more effective. The most eminent of these was Winfrid, who received from Rome the name of Bonifacius (680-755) . He converted the Hessians, and founded monasteries, among them the great monastery of Fulda. ”

“ Gall, and there elected Kilian, who had so skilfully managed the affair. The new abbot went immediately to Rohrschach, and on Good Friday he there proclaimed his own election and the death of his predecessor. Zurich and Glaris declared they would not recognise him, unless he could prove by the Holy Scriptures that a monkish life was in conformity with the Gospel. "We are ready to protect the house of God," said they; "and it is for this reason we [389] require that it be consecrated anew to the Lord. But we do not forget that it is our duty also to protect the people. ”

“ It is in the bosom of a free people that the free Church of Christ should raise its head." At the same time the ministers of St. Gall published forty-two theses, in which they asserted that convents were not "houses of God, but houses of the devil." [1099] The abbot, supported by Lucerne and Schwytz, which with Zurich and Glaris exercised sovereign power in St. Gall, replied that he would not dispute about rights which he held from kings and emperors. The two natives of the Tockenburg, Zwingle and Kilian, were thus struggling around St. ”

“ Gall shed a bright lustre on Swabian lands during its best period, from 800 to 1050 a.d. This famous religious-house was a centre of art and high culture, and was a blessing to the whole country. We can but allude to some of its famous monks, such as the Notkers, Ekkehard, Rabbert, and so forth; many famous as poets, musicians, savants, historians, and teachers of the very highest rank. In the noted school attached to the monastery there resided and were educated some three hundred sons of the German and Helvetic [Pg 242] nobility. ”

“ Gall, St., an Irish monk who, about 585, accompanied St. Columban to France in his missionary labours, banished from which he went to Switzerland, and founded a monastery on the Lake of Constance, which bore his name; d. about 646.
Galland, Antoine, French Orientalist, born in Picardy, professor of Arabic in the College of France; was the first to translate the “Arabian Nights” into any European tongue (1646-1715) .
Gallas, an Ethiopian race occupying the S. and E. of Abyssinia, energetic, intelligent, and warlike; follow mostly pastoral occupations ”

“ His father was named Georgius and his mother Leocadia, a descendant of Vectius Epagatus who, as the history of Eusebius relates, was a martyr at Lyons. They belonged among the leading senators so that no family could be found in the Gauls better born or nobler. And although Gall’s father wished to ask for a certain senator’s daughter for him, he took a single attendant and went to the monastery at Cournon, six miles from Clermont, and besought the abbot to consent to give him the tonsure. ”

“ Gall led a happy and peaceful life without soldiers or police. The only bayonet that governed them was the breviary of the monk; and the only sword was the crosier of the abbot. We must also remember that Gall and his followers, axe in hand, hewed down the forest, or with the spade freed the earth from thorns, thistles, and roots. He must therefore be considered as the founder and originator of the agricultural and social glories of Switzerland; for by the law of nature and of intelligence the glories of the effect must redound to the honor of the cause. ”

“ After serving as priest in several Bavarian towns, he made his way in 1799 to Linz in Austria, where he was welcomed by Bishop Gall, and set to work first at Leonding and then at Waldneukirchen, becoming in 1806 pastor at Gallneukirchen. His pietistic movement won considerable way among the Catholic laity, and even attracted some fifty or sixty priests. The death of Gall and other powerful friends, however, exposed him to bitter enmity and persecution from about 1812, and he had to answer endless accusations in the consistorial courts. ”

“ He was deacon at the time....
3. Later when the blessed bishop Quintian passed from this world by God’s command, the holy Gall was living in Clermont, and the people of the city assembled at the house of the priest Inpetratus, Gall’s uncle on his mother’s side, lamenting at the bishop’s death and asking who should be appointed in his place. After long debate they returned each to his own house. On their [Pg 262] departure the holy Gall called one of the clerks and said, the holy spirit rushing into him: “What are these people muttering about? Why are they running to and fro? ”

“ Gall had waited for, to take measures against the monastery itself, but principally against its political rights. Meanwhile eleven of the monks, one month before, had pledged themselves under a solemn oath, even on compulsory removal from the cloister, to renounce none of the rights of the convent, but rather to uphold them in every possible manner. For six days, the death of the abbot was kept secret even in Roschach, and his food carried into him as though he were yet alive, whilst the monks assembled in Rapperschweil and there elected one of their number, Kilian German, in his stead. ”

“ Gall still contains a copy of a work ascribed to Anselm of Canterbury written by him in the fulfilment of a vow. He resembled the Venerable Bede in the universality of his knowledge, and, like Alcuin and Rabanus Maurus, he is one of the great teachers of his time. Always, during these darkening years, there appears to have been some ministering priest in the temple of education—some self-devoted, God-fearing man, who patiently kept the altar-fire burning, and spent his life, to the utmost verge, in climbing those altar-steps with fresh fuel for the flame. ”

“ The Saxon Emperors had hard battles to fight against these invaders, and there were few places in Germany where the peaceful pursuits of the monasteries and schools could be carried on without interruption. St. Gall is the one bright star in the approaching gloom of the next centuries. Not only was the Bible read, and translated, and commented upon in German at St. Gall, as formerly at Fulda, but Greek and Roman classics were copied and studied for educational purposes. ”

“ For the next three centuries this was one of the chief seats of learning and education in Europe. About 954 the monastery and its buildings were surrounded by walls as a protection against the Saracens, and this was the origin of the town. The temporal powers of the abbots vastly increased, while in the 13th century the town obtained divers privileges from the emperor and from the abbot, who about 1205 became a prince of the Empire. ”

“ Gall (230) , a NE. canton of Switzerland, on the Austrian frontier; its splendid lake and mountain scenery and mineral springs render many of its towns popular holiday resorts; the embroidery of cottons and other textiles is an important industry. St. Gall (28) , the capital, is situated on the Steinach, 53 m. E. of Zurich; is a town of great antiquity, and celebrated in past ages for its monastic schools; its magnificent mediæval cathedral has been restored; the old Benedictine monastery is used now for government purposes, but still contains its famous collection of MSS. ”

“ This continued to be the case throughout the Middle Ages; but, in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the sceptres and crowns deposited in the coffins were made of brass or tin, in order that thieves might not be tempted to steal them. Such was also the case with bishops and abbots, as is shown by Gregory of Tours, when he speaks of Saint Gall, the Bishop of Clermont, in Auvergne, of the Abbot Mars, of the hermits Marian, Leobard, and Lupicin, being buried in their robes of ceremony. They [456] were covered at their death with the most brilliant insignia of their dignity ”

“ The monks of St. Gall in time grew ambitious, and became imbued with a military disposition, and used to sally forth sword in hand to conquer (as narrated ante, p. 224) . Their wealth, from the donations of pilgrims, also turned their heads, and their military campaigns embroiled them with the authorities; and in the fifteenth century the inhabitants of the neighbouring town obtained the mastery, and soon afterwards the estates were secularised. The library is still exhibited as a famous collection of old manuscripts.
THE VENERABLE BEDE, MONK AND HISTORIAN (A.D. 735) . ”

“ Other portions of the monastic buildings are used as the offices of the cantonal authorities, and contain the extensive archives both of this monastery and of that of Pfafers. The ancient churches of St Magnus (Old Catholics) and of St Lawrence (Protestant) were restored in the 19th century. ”

“ From 1408 to 1798 it belonged to the abbot of St Gall, and then to the canton Säntis (named canton of St Gall in 1803) of the Helvetic Republic. It has always been a great commercial centre, though now superseded by Romanshorn as regards the corn trade. It has many industrial establishments, of which the chief is one for the manufacture of lace and muslin. Above the town is the old convent of Mariaberg, originally built in the 15th century as a refuge for the monks of St Gall against the turbulent citizens of that town, but now a seminary for teachers. ”

“ But the abbey was suppressed in 1805, though the library, filled with valuable manuscripts, still remains. From these ancient parchments P. Gall Morel, Librarian at Einsiedeln, has resuscitated many sequences and hymns formerly employed in their services.
The Sangallensian poets are not, however, very numerous. Hartmann was probably the earliest composer of a “sequence”—a style of sacred poem which we shall consider presently. Then came Notker Balbulus, who has the greater renown. Tutilo and Ratpert and Walafrid Strabo complete the list. St. Gall was for years a noted centre of learning. ”

“ The Irish monks had a peculiar preference for the apostolic number twelve in all their foundations. When Columbanus died, on December 21st, 615, the hour of his death was revealed to St. Gall, and from that time he began again to celebrate Mass.
Gall declined the bishopric of Constance, and had the mitre given to his disciple John; the monks of Luxeuil wished him to be their abbot, but this honor he likewise declined. After the man of God had thrown aside the burden of worldly affairs, he retired to his cloister, to devote himself more completely to a spiritual life. ”