All’Umanesimo non si deve solo un nuovo interesse filologico verso i classici latini e greci, ma anche una rinnovata attenzione nei confronti della Bibbia. Tra quanti meditarono sul testo biblico e lo posero a fondamento del proprio agire si deve annoverare Ambrogio Traversari (1386–1439), monaco camaldolese e umanista. Attraverso l’esame di una sua lettera, indirizzata ai religiosi del proprio ordine a nome del pontefice Eugenio IV poco dopo essere stato elevato alla carica di abate generale, si metterà in luce come il Traversari, nell’esortarli alla vita monastica, fondi il suo operare tanto sulla letteratura patristica, quanto soprattutto sul ricorso alla Bibbia, rispetto alla quale tralascia l’allegoria medievale per essere invece attento a trarre dal dettato biblico un esempio morale per i propri confratelli.

This article analyses the Life of St. Deicolus of Lure, a monastery in the Alsace region of east France, written by the cleric Theodoric in the 970s or 980s. It argues that the text contains a notable amount of information on the existence, methodology, and limitations of an ill-understood aspect of monastic integration around the year 1000. Relying on an analysis of the narrative's second prologue as well as scattered comments elsewhere in the text, it reconstructs three phenomena. The first is attempts to (re-)establish a Luxeuil-centered imagined community of institutions with a shared Columbanian legacy through the creation and circulation of hagiographic narratives. A second is the co-creation across institutional boundaries of texts and manuscripts that were designed to facilitate these integration attempts. And the third phenomenon is the limits of this integration effort, which did not tempt those involved to propose the establishment of a distinct ‘neo-Columbanian’ observance. As such, the Life represents an attempt to reconcile the legacy of Columbanus and his real or alleged followers as celebrated at late tenth-century Luxeuil and Lure with a contemporary understanding of reformed Benedictine identity.

In the eleventh and twelfth centuries Byzantium saw the rise of an influential monastic reform movement, which found its expression in rules and saints' lives. In these texts the question of worldly possessions was repeatedly broached. The authors challenged the hitherto common practice of allowing monks some private property and insisted that in their monasteries nobody should own money or other goods. Yet when it came to communal property the situation was starkly different. Most reformers accepted the traditional view that monasteries should be endowed with land in order to meet the material needs of the communities, and if anything were even more acquisitive than their forebears. There was, however, a small group of monastic founders, which challenged this consensus. They insisted that their monasteries should not accept donations of land because such behaviour went against Christ's demand not to take thought for the morrow and displayed a lack of trust in divine providence. This article presents the surviving evidence and seeks to explain how communities without landed property ensured their survival.