CHAPTER ONE

CLARE AND THE POOR SISTERS OF SAN DAMIANO

One of the most striking indications that there were competing forms of female Franciscanism comes from the late 1230s. Agnes of Prague, sister of the king of Bohemia and founder of a religious community in her native city, had written to Pope Gregory IX seeking permission for the house to adopt the Form of Life which Francis had given to Clare and the sisters at San Damiano.1 First, in the bull De Conditoris omnium, the pope had praised Francis to Agnes as the founder of three orders—the Order of Lesser Brothers, of the Cloistered Sisters, and of Penitents. According to the pope, together they represented an earthly perfection that refl ected the Trinity.2 However, two days later, he refused Agnes’ request and dismissed Francis’ Form of Life as baby food. His second bull, Angelis gaudium, explained that it had been suitable for the early years of Clare’s community, just as a child would drink milk as an infant. But as the community matured, the sisters needed more solid food, which his own rule for the Order of San Damiano had provided. Clare’s community once had special permission to follow Francis’ earlier form of life for the sisters, he continued, but the women no longer did so, for they too had adopted his rule. Agnes should do likewise, as it would bring unity to the women’s order and demonstrate her obedience to the pope.3 Agnes of Prague likely would have been surprised by the claim that Clare’s community no longer followed Francis’ Form of Life. In 1234 she had written to the sisters in Assisi for guidance as to how her com- munity should follow San Damiano’s customs, presumably beginning the correspondence between the two houses. Clare certainly responded enthusiastically to Agnes’ letter, demonstrating her unswerving commit- ment to the manner of life she had established at San Damiano with

1 For Agnes’ biography see Mueller, The Privilege of Poverty, which discusses her role as Clare’s “soul mate;” also Alfonso Marini, Agnese di Boemia (: Istituto Storico dei Cappuccini, 1991). 2 BF I, 241–242. This bull dates from 9 May 1238. 3 BF I, 242. 20 chapter one

Francis. Her fi rst three letters, written between 1234–1238, simultane- ously encouraged Agnes’ own love of evangelical poverty as an orga- nizing principle for the house, while also offering specifi c guidance to their customs. She explained the sisters’ fasting customs, for example.4 Clare also assured Agnes that she should give preference to the advice of Brother Elias, who had been one of Francis’ fi rst companions, over anyone else who was trying to infl uence the sisters’ formation.5 Perhaps he or one of the other brothers who carried messages between the female houses wrote out the Umbrian sisters’ customs for Agnes since Gregory refers to receiving such a document along with her appeal.6 The pope’s refusal to grant her request may indicate his growing frustration with Clare’s efforts to extend San Damiano’s way of life to other communities. This chapter discusses the development of competing models of female Franciscan life. Therefore, it is not strictly a biography of Clare and her community, or a study of the institutionalization of the Fran- ciscan Second Order. Rather, it asks to what extent we can identify Clare as the leader—both practically and spiritually—of a religious movement centered on a commitment to evangelical poverty. As noted in the introduction, there is a divide between the European historians of Franciscan institutions, who have identifi ed Clare’s concerns as focusing primarily on her own community of San Damiano, and some Anglophone scholars, who have described a more activist Clare. For example, Joan Mueller’s recent study begins with the idea of Clare as leader of a movement and ends with the intriguing idea that at the end of her life, Clare was not only encouraging Agnes of Prague in her own struggles with the papacy, but also calling on her to take over as leader of the female poverty movement.7 Certainly, even as credit

4 Cf. LAg 3: 29–41. 5 LAg 2: 15–17. 6 BF I, 242. “. . . in quadam schedula per dilectum fi lium priorem hospitalis Sancti Francisci Pragensis, virum ubique, discretum et providum, destinati humili supplicatione deposcens, ut praesentatam nobis per eumdem sub sigillo tuo formam et quibusdam capitulis quae in Ordinis Beati Damiani regula continentur confi rmari auctoritate apostolica curaremus.” The Ordinis Beati Damiani regula refers to the monastic constitu- tion authored by the pope, see below. 7 Mueller, Privilege of Poverty, pp. 1 and 121. For a European perspective, in addi- tion to the works by Alberzoni, Benvenuti, and Rusconi (among others cited below), see the recent conference proceedings from and , Clara Claris Praeclara and Giancarlo Andenna, Mirko Breitenstein, and Gert Melville, ed. Charisma und religiöse Gemeinschaften im Mittel Alter. Akten des 3.Internationalem Kongresses des “Italianische-