CHAPTER FOUR

THE CLARISSES AND OBSERVANT REFORM

It has become a commonplace that was “rediscovered” in the fi fteenth century by the reformers who sought to return the Franciscan Order to its spiritual origins through devotion to its earlier ideals. As these last two chapters will show, Clare’s rediscovery through this process was more complex than usually has been recognized. Specifi cally, friction resulted from the different images of her and the different uses made of her by the and sisters respectively. Yet, these differences were not simply a result of gendered dichotomies, but varied with fraternal and sororal groups depending on the extent to which Clare’s image derived from the inspirational fi gure of the hagio- graphical legends or from the Clare of her own writings, particularly her Form of Life. By the beginning of the fi fteenth century the complex legacy of the sisters’ legislation had persisted for over a century and a half. While most convents in Italy were governed by the rule promulgated by Urban IV in 1263, local variations and compromises prevented the Order from maintaining a standard observance. (The Neapolitan communities sponsored by Sancia of Mallorca do not seem to have infl uenced other houses.) In the fi rst decades of the fi fteenth century, however, the Franciscan Order again confronted the collective problem of legislative unity for the sisters. Some Clarisses were seeking to profess Clare’s Form of Life, which was starting to become known as the Rule of Clare. Their rediscovery of what was referred to as the ‘fi rst rule’ was directly associated with the Franciscan Regular Observance, a reform movement that promoted rigorous adherence to the Later Rule, even as they accepted papal modifi cations (particularly concern- ing poverty).1 Observant friars pursued an active vocation: they were

1 The bibliography on the Regular Observance is extensive as is fi tting for its signifi - cant impact on the Franciscan Order. Since the focus of this book is the relationship between the Friars and Clarisses, discussion of the background to the reforms will occur more often in the notes than in the text. A starting point is Duncan Nimmo, Reform and Division as well as Mario Sensi’s important study of the relationship between the fi fteenth-century Regular Observance and the fourteenth-century reforms, see Le 124 chapter four apostolic preachers, papal legates, prosecutors of heresy, and in many other ways served the ecclesiastical hierarchy in its efforts to reform the Universal Church. The question of who the Clarisses de Observantia were and what defi ned their standard of observance was more problematic.2 Two texts, written nearly a century apart, illustrate the dialectical tension between the principles of Observant Reform and its practice within the Order of Saint Clare. On 12 May 1431 the newly elected Pope Eugenius IV issued the fi rst call for the universal reform of the Order of Saint Clare. His bull, Ad statum singulorum, complained that a state of dissolution existed in many Clarissan houses. Some sisters had relaxed their discipline so greatly, it claimed, that they had come to live indulgently. It also lamented that dissension and scandals arose daily in many communities. The bull accordingly commissioned the Franciscan Minister General, William of Casale, to reform the Clarisses by invigorating fraternal visitations, enforcing enclosure, and renewing monastic discipline. He was called upon to depose and replace unfi t . The bull also empowered him to transfer sisters and property to other houses, or even to reassign income from one community to another, in order to help achieve and stabilize reform.3 While acknowledging that these duties were a burden on the friars—now surely a rhetorical gesture—Ad statum singulorum contains no indication that this was an extraordinary assignment.4 Yet in spite of these prescriptions and the evident concern for the state of life in Clarissan houses, the overall tone of the papal bull is generic. There is no mention of the sisters’ rule or a standard with which they should comply, nor does it call on the Minister General to appoint friars from the reform party to address the situation in the convents. Instead

Osservanze Francescane nell’Italia Centrale (Secoli XIV–XV), Biblioteca Seraphico-Cappucina 30 (: Collegio San Lorenzo da Brindisi, 1985). 2 Anne Winston-Allen surveys the origins of the Observant movement and its impact on the women in Convent Chronicles: Women Writing about Women and Reform in the (University Park: Pennsylvania University Press, 2004), pp. 65–96 esp. While her focus is the German lands and Low Countries, she provides not only a good introduc- tion to the broader process, but also useful comparisons with the Italian context. 3 BF I ns, p. 16. 4 Contemporary legislation continued to require the Friars Minor to provide pastoral care to the women. Exiit qui seminat (BF III, pp. 404–416) issued by Pope Nicholas III in 1279 had become the authoritative statement on the friars’ pastoral duties. The 1430 Martinian Constitution cited it in the description of the pastoral duties toward the sisters. AM X, p. 185.