Rule and Functioning
St. John adopted the Rule of St. Benedict but added greatly to its austerity and penitential character. His idea was to unite the ascetic advantages of the eremitic life to a life in community, while avoiding the dangers of the former.
Severe scourging was inflicted for any breach of rule, silence was perpetual, poverty most severely enforced. The rule of enclosure was so strict that the monks might not go out even on an errand of mercy.
The main point of divergence lay in the prohibition of the manual work, which is prescribed by St. Benedict. St. John's choir monks were to be pure contemplatives and to this end he introduced the system of lay-brothers who were to attend to the secular business. He was among the first to systematize this institution, and it is probable that it was largely popularized by the Vallumbrosans. The term conversi (lay brothers) occurs for the first time in Abbot Andrew of Strumi's Life of St. John, written at the beginning of the twelfth century.
The Vallumbrosans do not, strictly speaking, form a separate order, but a Benedictine congregation, though they are not united to the confederated congregations of the Black Monks. The oldest extant manuscript of the customs of Vallombrosa shows a close relationship with those of Cluny. The Vallumbrosans should be regarded only as Benedictines who followed the customs observed at that time by the Black Benedictines throughout Europe. "Horror of simony was a special bond between them and Cluny, and it was only special circumstances which caused them later to be looked upon as a peculiar institute within the Benedictine order" (Albers, op. cit. infra).
The habit, originally grey, then tawny coloured, is now that of the Black Monks.
The abbots were originally elected for life but are now elected at the general chapter, held every four years. The Abbot of Vallombrosa, the superior of the whole order, had formerly a seat in the Florentine Senate and bore the additional title of Count of Monte Verde and Gualdo.
The shield of the order shows the founder's arm in a tawny-coloured cowl grasping a golden crutch-shaped crozier on a blue ground.
The services rendered by the order have been mostly in the field of asceticism. Besides the Vallumbrosan saints alluded to in other parts of this article there may also be mentioned: St. Veridiana, anchoress (1208–42); Giovanni Dalle Celle (feast, 10 March); the lay brother Melior (1 August). By the middle of the seventeenth century the order had supplied twelve cardinals and more than 30 bishops. F. E. Hugford (1696–1771, brother of the painter Ignazio Hugford), is well known as one of the chief promoters of the art of scagliola (imitation of marble in plaster). Abbot-General Tamburini's works on canon law are well known. Galileo was for a time a novice at Vallombrosa and received part of his education there.
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