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Ireland and the Making of Britain
of its greatest activity both schools were presided over by
the Irish scholar, Moengal.
It is to be noted that in this ancient pictorial descrip-
tion of the monastery of St. Gall, which was probably
as near an approach to an Irish monastery as then existed
on the Continent, the entire establishment resembles a
town composed of isolated houses with streets running
between them. The chief building was the basilica and
on two sides of its semicircular atrium two Irish round
towers lifted themselves into the air, with altars to the
archangels Michael and Gabriel, and conical roofs and
ornamental finials. In the basilica itself altars dedicated
to St. Columbanus and St. Benedict were placed side by
side, and a digest of the rules of both was observed by
the coenobites. The novices' school is shown as a replica
of the monastery, complete in all parts, near the church
and the infirmary of the monks, while the secular school
was separated from the cloisters and was near the street
and the guest hall. Close to the church were the library
and scriptorium, the calefactory with dormitory over
abbot's house, and refectory.
4.
ORGANIZING THE CITY AND CHRISTIAN SOCIETY
But, as has been observed, the Irish monastery was a
city in itself, often with a population of many thousands,
not merely cultivating all the studies, but practising all
the arts and industries. Here at St. Gall we find provision
for all these things. There are kitchen, doctor's house,
house for bloodletting, bakehouse, brewhouse, mills and
factories with accommodation for all the mechanical arts.
Then there are the outer departments with workshops,
threshing floor, kiln, stables, cowsheds, goatsheds, pigsties,
sheepfold, servants' and workmen's sleeping quarters,
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