Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 5.djvu/137

 or THE .MONASTKllY 01' ST. (lALL. 95 confessionary has its separate entrance in the middle of the t1iu;lit of steps wliieh lead ) to the ])resl)ytery. Tiiis is in fact a very common arrangement in the early churches. The confessionary of St. Peter at Rome, for example", was so cir- cumscrihed by a passage. Possibly also the crypt of the church of St. Gall extended under the apse. The high altar was dedicated to St. Mary and St. Gall, as the inscription shews. The sarcophagus of St. Gall marked in the plan would be, in accordance with the above explanation, really placed in the crypt below it. In the monastic chronicles it is well known that every removal or change of position, "translation," or "elevation," of the body of a saint Avas most carefully recorded, and usually the days upon which such translations occurred were observed as festivals. Now, as 1 have already stated, we possess a complete series of chronicles for the monastery of St. Gall, extending without interrupti(m to the lirst part of the thir- teenth century, besides the biographies of St. Gall and St. Othmar; and the earliest writer of these chronicles lived in the ninth century. Nevertheless the latest mention of the body of St. Gall is the history of his re-interment by Bishop Boso in 686, and no translation or disturbance is alluded to in the rebuilding of the basilica by Gozpertus. On the other hand, the second founder, Othmar, was translated four times, and each translation is carefully recorded. This abbot died at Stein, (A.D. 758,) and was translated to his own monastery, (A.l). 768,) and buried in a sarcopha- gus between the altar of St. John Baptist and the wall, on the right hand side of the aUarV 'J'he sarcophagus rose above the level of the pavement, and the body was deposited therein, and not beneath the surface of the ground. AVhen the basilica or church of St. Gall was taken down by Gozpertus, u[)on the occasion of the rebuilding, the Avails were prostrated by means of battering rams, and the workmen imagined the body of the saint to be safe beneath the ground, but in their opei-ations they shattered the tomb, and then discovered it to be above. They then translated him into the church of St. Peter, (A.l). 8:29,) behind the- altar, where he was suffered to remain for some years. He was then (A.D. sd-l) brought back to the church of St. Gall, and placed on the right hand of the altar of s Airliitcctural Hisloiy of C;iiitcrbury ' W:il. Strab. vit. Otlini.. cap. ix. cap. Cathedral, cliap. iii. xiii. ; Jsu de Mir., c. v. G. 281, 283, 288.