Saint John Gualbert

Abbot, Founder of Vallombrosa
(c. 995–1073)

Saint John Gualbert was born around 995 into a noble Florentine family. The formative moment of his life came when, on a Good Friday, he encountered the murderer of his brother in a narrow pass where he could not avoid him. John had his sword drawn and was about to take his revenge, as the custom of blood feuds demanded, when the murderer fell to his knees and begged for mercy in the name of Jesus Christ crucified. John, moved by the memory of the day and by a sudden grace, sheathed his sword and embraced his enemy. He then went to the nearby monastery of San Miniato, where, kneeling before a crucifix, he saw the figure of Christ bow its head toward him in acknowledgment of his act of forgiveness.

This experience transformed him utterly. He resolved on the spot to give up the life of a nobleman and become a monk. He received the habit at San Miniato, but when the abbot there was offered a bishopric and seemed inclined to accept it through simony, John left in disgust, unable to remain under a superior he considered corrupt. He wandered for a time among various monasteries, seeking a community where the Rule of Saint Benedict was kept in its original purity.

He eventually settled in a forest valley called Vallombrosa near Florence, where he gathered disciples and founded a new monastery characterised by extreme austerity and strict common life. He organised his community so that the monks were freed from agricultural labour and could devote themselves entirely to prayer, assigning the manual work to lay brothers. This innovation, the use of lay brothers in a monastic community, became an important feature of later Western monasticism.

John was a vigorous opponent of simony, the buying and selling of church offices, which was one of the great corruptions of the eleventh-century Church. His community became a centre of the reform movement, and he trained preachers who denounced simony throughout Tuscany. He died on July 12, 1073, and was canonised by Pope Celestine III in 1193. His feast is observed on July 12th.