VALLOMBROSAN BENEDICTINES. - Monks of the Benedictine Order who took their name from the Abbey of Vallombrosa, founded around 1036 in Tuscany by St. John Gualbert (v.), who initiated the new monastic Congregation and who trained the monks for the struggle for the freedom of the Church, the sanctification of the clergy and the restoration of observance in the cloisters and of good morals among the people.
The new institution spread rapidly in Tuscany, in the Romagne and in other provinces of northern Italy, in France, in Corsica, in Sardinia and in Sicily, so much so that by 1253 there were no fewer than 79 abbeys and 29 priories.
Near every monastery there was a hospice for travelers and pilgrims, and a place where the clerics sent from the various provinces were gathered to be prepared for the priesthood. The B. v. soon became the forerunners of Catholic activity in Tuscany in favor of the papacy, and of the struggle against heresy. St. John Gualbert introduced into Benedictine monasticism in Italy an innovation hitherto unknown: namely the distinction between monks and lay brothers, and he wanted a central government by which all the monasteries and abbeys of the Congregation came to find themselves under the government of a general moderator.
Commendams first and then the suppressions decreed by civil governments caused the Congregation to decline from its ancient splendor, just as for the same causes the entire Benedictine Order had declined. But, after the storm of the French Revolution, with the reflowering of the old trunk into new life, the B. v. too are in a promising recovery.
Contemporaneously with the male Congregation, St. John Gualbert also founded the Vallombrosan nuns, to whom he gave, besides the Rule of St. Benedict, constitutions of their own. The first monastery arose in 1066 or 67 opposite Vallombrosa, in a locality called Corte di Cavriglia, through the work of donna Berta, daughter of Lothair count of Burgundy, born in Florence ca. 1020. They lead a life of prayer and work according to the Benedictine ideal, and they also devote themselves to teaching. Their monasteries are autonomous under the jurisdiction of the local bishop, whereas before the Council of Trent they were under the jurisdiction of the abbot general or of the nearest abbot.
Bibliography11 works
Emiliano Lucchesi