Santa Maria di Vallombrosa. Patrimonio e vita economica di un grande monastero medievale by Francesco Salvestrini (review)

BOOK REVIEWS105 Addenda and Corrigenda follow the essays, thus bringing notes and bibliography up to 1998. A detailed index, including citations of manuscripts examined , then concludes the work. This feature makes it valuable for scholars who wish to compile manuscript lists for their own researches. The price of Papal Reform and Canon Law in the IV and 12"' Centuries ($9995) will make the work prohibitively expensive for many readers. The collection is, however, immensely valuable, not only for the specialist but for any scholar working in the period. Its overview essays such as "History and Tradition " also make it useful for teaching purposes. It belongs in any university library supporting programs in medieval history, historical theology, or law. Bruce C Brasington West Texas A&M University Canyon, Texas Santa Maria di Vallombrosa. Patrimonio e vita económica di un grande monastero médiévale. By Francesco Salvestrini. [Biblioteca Storica Toscana a cura della Deputazione di Storia Patria per la Toscana, 33] (Florence : Leo S. Olschki Editore. 1998. Pp. xiv, 347. Lire 59000 paperback.) It was once said that the abbot of Santa Maria di Vallombrosa could journey down the Arno from his isolated abbey to Florence without leaving his monastery's property. Salvestrini has thoroughly studied the formation and administration of this vast patrimony from the foundation of the monastery to the fifteenth century. In this exemplary piece of economic history, he studies the administrative styles of the monks, how their holdings compared to those of other religious houses and more especially the laity. The book is a collection of tightly focused studies of the formation of the patrimony, the style of administration , the organization of production, and, finally, a short, but fascinating study of the Vallombrone's woodlands. In the eleventh and early twelfth century, the monks were part of the religious reform circle and found support from the Countess Matilda, the Guidi counts, and other rural aristocrats. Later in the late twelfth and thirteenth century, significant gifts came from newly arrived residents of Florence, not the older urban aristocrats. The popularity of the monks was clearly related to the position of the monks in the religious world of the upper Arno Valley, but, unfortunately, Salvestrini's tight focus on economic matters has left unanswered the question of why the laity supported the monks. The most interesting and informative chapters of the book are those that highlight the organization of the monastery's lands. Vallombrone did maintain some demesne lands, almost exclusively woods and meadows. They seem to have done no direct farming with laborers or lay brothers (conversi). Their arable lands were most often let as complete farms (poderi) to local farmers or as simple "pieces of land"—which were often leased to the monastery's own 106BOOK REVIIWS conversi. In this respect, Salvestrini finds that the monks followed the same economic strategies as lay landlords. Both tended in the late fourteenth and fifteenth century to let more and more of their farms by sharecropping contracts. In the past, scholars have spent almost too much time on the nature and extension of such contracts. Salvestrini, however, follows a more recent trend among Italian historians and looks at the entire environment of the monks and their farmers. Thus he notes the significant role that grazing, timber farming, and the sale of chestnuts played in the economic life of the monks and their tenants. Perhaps 43% of the lands surrounding the monastery were wooded. Tenants gathered firewood, burned charcoal, and gathered chestnuts from some portion of this land while the monks harvested lumber of varying grades from much of the rest of the area. The picture that emerges from this careful study is of a complex economic system very much connected to the social and economic life of the upper Arno Valley. In spite of the fruitful observations that: fill this book, the reader is left a bit flat. The monks themselves and their connections to this complex world are largely absent. The author suggests that many were Florentine,but we never get numbers. We learn little about when or where they would have been seen. This seems to be an economic administration without administrators. There is a short chapter on the...