JOAN MUELLER

AGNES OF PRAGUE AND THE RULE OF ST. CLARE

In the midst rising papal power, continual feuding between communes, and the unrest of a better-educated laity, a thirteenth-century women’s movement flow- ered.1 The movement was powered by what Clare of would call ‘the one thing necessary’,2 – the refusal to accept property with its accompanying privi- leges. The movement stood in opposition to the rising money economy3 that was embraced by rising communes, bankers, merchants, monastics, and the Roman church. While others, even religious persons, were plotting for money, land, and prestige, the early Order of Poor Ladies formulated a sophisticated eschatology founded upon beatitudinal poverty.4 Having seen first hand the consequences of poverty on monasteries of women left without sufficient means, Pope Gregory IX was determined to establish feminine monasticism on firm economic foundations.5 He had seen women in poor monasteries whose poverty left them without discipline, without the means to better themselves spirituality, and without adequate

1 On thirteenth-century women’s movements see H. Grundmann, Religious Movements in the Middle Ages. The Historical Links between Heresy, the Mendicant Orders, and the Women’s Reli- gious Movement in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Century, with the Historical Foundations of Ger- man Mysticism (trans. Steven Rowan), Notre Dame 1995, 192-193. Originally published as Religiöse Bewegungen im Mittelalter (Darmstadt 1935, 1961). 2 See Clare’s Second Letter to Agnes of Prague, 10. The Latin text and English translation of Clare’s letters can be found in Joan Mueller, Clare’s Letters to Agnes: Texts and Sources, St. (NY) 2001. 3 Lester Little, Religious Poverty and the Profit Economy in Medieval Europe, Ithaca (NY) 1978. 4 See, for example, First Letter to Agnes of Prague, 25. Clare states: ‘For, I am sure that you know that the kingdom of heaven is promised and given by the Lord only to the poor’. Clare is of course referring to the beatitude ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven’ (Mt 5:3). 5 Roberto Rusconi states the problem clearly: ‘the cardinal was trying to group the Ordo pauperum dominarum de Valle Spoleti sive Tuscia into a single monastic order – whether these were com- munities within the Damianite sphere of influence, or whether they were pre-existing commu- nities of women penitents with no ties at all to the Franciscan movement, or whether they were new foundations that identified themselves with this ordo’ (‘L’espansione del francescanesimo femminile nel secolo XIII’, in: Movimento religioso femminile e francescanesimo nel secolo XIII: Atti del VII Convegno Internazionale, October 11-13, 1979, Assisi 1980, 278. 156 JOAN MUELLER resources to provide for their basic needs. Some were forced out of their monas- teries because of hunger. Others, left without wealth and the protectors and protections that accompanied medieval wealth, were prone to rape, pillage, and defection. While Gregory IX could eloquently mouth the spiritual jargon of the poverty movement, he was unprepared for the opposition he would court from women whose very religious vocation depended upon this spirituality. While many monasteries were happy to exchange discipline such as a strict cloister for guaranteed income and protection, other women resisted papal efforts. One of these women was the Franciscan women, . In Clare’s Process of Canonization, Sr. Filippa, testified: At the end of her life, calling all of her sisters, she [Clare] very attentively entrusted the Privilege of Poverty to them. She greatly desired to have the Rule of the Order confirmed with the papal bull, so that one day she could place the papal seal to her lips, and then die on the next day. It happened just as she desired. She learned that a friar had come with letters stamped with the papal seal. Although she was near death, she reverently took the letters and pressed the papal seal to her mouth to kiss it. The following day, Lady Clare, truly pure with- out stain, without the darkness of sin, passed from this life to the brilliance of eternal light to the Lord.6 Certainly this is a deeply touching episode. We see in this scene Clare’s associa- tion between the Privilege of Poverty – the privilege not to be forced to receive possessions – and the Rule, as well as her great love for her sisters. Clare seemed to refuse to die until she knew that her sisters possessed this Rule. Although Clare is willing to negotiate with ecclesiastical authorities regarding many of the details of her religious life, she refused to negotiate concerning the Privilege of Poverty. The Privilege of Poverty was so closely identified with Clare’s understanding of the Franciscan vocation, which was the following of the Poor Christ, that no one, not even the Pope himself, nor the conciliar authority of the official church could persuade her to mitigate her form of life.7

THE PRIVILEGE OF POVERTY

Needing the spiritual clout of Clare of Assisi for his own project of uniting the women of central and northern Italy under his own constitutions, Gregory IX

6 Process 3:32. The Umbrian text for Clare’s Process of Canonization is found in Enrico Menestò & Stefano Brufani (Eds.), Fontes Franciscani, Assisi 1995, 2455-2507. 7 Process 2:22; 3:14. AGNES OF PRAGUE AND THE RULE OF ST. CLARE 157 gave Clare her Privilege of Poverty8 in the September 17, 1228 letter, Sicut manifestum est.9 Gregory IX quotes Clare’s request in the first part of his letter: you propose to have no possessions whatsoever, in every instance clinging to the footsteps of him, who was made poor for our sakes and is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. The lack of goods from this propositum does not frighten you, for the left hand of your Heavenly Spouse is under your head to uphold the weaknesses of your body that you have submitted to the law of the soul through your well- ordered love. Accordingly, he who feeds the birds of the sky and clothes the lilies of the field will not fail you in matters of food and clothing until, passing among you, he serves himself to you in eternity when indeed his right arm will more blissfully embrace you in the greatness of his vision. What Gregory IX gives Clare in his letter, however, is a bit different than what Clare had asked. Gregory IX had seen the Franciscan fervor of the friars in regard to their choice of poverty greatly diminish since the death of Francis.10 He knows that, without Clare’s guidance and strength, the Monastery of San Damiano will also move toward a more humane, and tolerable form of poverty. Gregory IX, therefore, changes Clare’s request from ‘you propose to have no possessions whatsoever’, to ‘you cannot be compelled by anyone to receive pos- sessions’.11 This reworking of Clare’s request is an important one. It is the fervor of Clare’s sisters, not the laws of Rome that will insure fidelity to the Privilege of Poverty. Gregory is working from the practical consideration that the equilib- rium of human nature is not found in extreme poverty, but in a balanced and adequately funded existence. When Clare and her sisters realize this, they will not need to go through the embarrassment of asking the Pope to rescind the Privilege of Poverty. Their privilege gives them nothing other than the choice not to receive possessions. Clare, however, will persist until death in her insistence upon poverty as the very root of her vocation. This concept of religious poverty was a reaction to a church that was becoming increasingly wealthy and powerful. It was built on a popular concept of religious perfection culturally situated at the climax of the

8 See W. Maleczek, ‘Das Privilegium Paupertatis Innocenz’ III. Und das Testament der Klara von Assisi. Überlegungen zur Frage ihrer Echtheit’, in: Collectanea Franciscana 65 (1995), 5-82. 9 Joannis Sbaraleæ, Bullarium Franciscanum I, Rome 1983, 771. 10 For discussion concerning the institutionalization of the friars, see Théophile Desbonnets, De l’intuition à l’institution: Les franciscains, Paris 1983. 11 ‘Therefore, just as you have asked, we confirm you propositum of most high poverty with apostolic favor, granting to you by the authority of the present document that you cannot be compelled by anyone to receive possessions’ (Bullarium Franciscanum I, 771). 158 JOAN MUELLER vita apostolica of the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries. Religious perfection was understood by those in this movement not only as the practice of virginity and the pooling of common resources, but also as the imitatio Christi pauperis. Clare specifically and vehemently rejects the imposition of a Benedictine prac- tice of poverty, insisting that the very foundation of the Franciscan way of life is to follow the Poor Christ without propertied endowments. Any agreement to relinquish this form of life would undermine the very nature of Clare’s life of perfection. Clare, who usually tends to evoke spirit rather than prescription in her Rule, precisely outlines in great clarity her concept of poverty for her sisters. She has learned from watching how the brothers have disregarded and eluded the desires expressed by Francis in his Testament that one must be clear as to the prescriptions regarding poverty.12 One can see, therefore, how Clare’s Rule and the Privilege of Poverty are inseparably connected. By placing the prescriptions of the Privilege of Poverty at the center of her Rule, Clare did all she could to avoid the legal ambivalence that the friars suffered after the death of Francis in regard to the life of poverty that is, of course, central to the Franciscan vocation. Clare knew that the very character and religious foundation of her charism are at stake. And just as I, together with my sisters, have always been solicitous to safeguard the holy poverty that we promised to the Lord God and to Blessed Francis, in the same way, the abbesses who succeed me in office and all the sisters are bound to observe it inviolably until the end: that is, by not receiving or having possession or ownership either by themselves or through an intermediary or even anything that might reasonably be called property, except as much land as necessity requires for the integrity and proper seclusion of the monastery, and this land may not be cultivated except as a garden in accordance with the needs of the sis- ters.13 Anyone who has had any experience in religious life and who has dealt with legalities within the Roman church understands that rules, constitutions, and special privileges are not easily won. This was no less true during the 13th cen- tury when canonist popes took pride in the perfecting of their craft. Clare’s emotion at the sight of the papal seal on her Rule is deep, and is rooted in years of suffering, setbacks, and prudent maneuvering. She was not alone in her maneuvering.

12 For a history of the mitigations concerning the poverty of the brothers see Malcolm D. Lam- bert, Franciscan Poverty: The Doctrine of the Absolute Poverty of Christ and the Apostles in the Franciscan Order 1210-1323, St. Bonaventure (NY) 1998. 13 The Rule of St. Clare 6:10-15. The Latin text of the Rule of St. Clare is found in Fontes Fran- ciscani, 2291-2307. AGNES OF PRAGUE AND THE RULE OF ST. CLARE 159

AGNES OF PRAGUE

Not long before her death, Clare wrote a letter to the sister who had been an important part of the struggle: Agnes of Prague.14 Living far off in the King- dom of Bohemia, Clare had never met Agnes personally, but her solidarity with this sister was such that she refers to Agnes as the ‘other half of her soul and the repository of the special love of her deepest heart’.15 Agnes of Prague, daughter of Otakar Premysl I, had refused, after the exam- ple of Clare of Assisi, to endow her monastery in Prague.16 After a series of let- ters between the papacy, Agnes, Clare, and the royal Premyslid family, Gregory IX submitted, under political pressure,17 to Agnes’s requests. As a result, Agnes, just as Clare, received from Gregory IX the Privilege of Poverty. The difficulties that Clare and Agnes endured in order to live Franciscan poverty should not be simplified as men in Rome refusing to heed the desires of helpless nuns. This simplification would be erroneous on two fronts. On the one side, Gregory IX was known for his care of nuns, his respect for the Franciscan Order, and his personal acquaintance with St. Francis and Clare themselves. On the other side, Clare and Agnes proved to be formidable foes of papal legislation that did not rightly express the reality of their Franciscan voca- tion. Clare used her spiritual clout and Agnes her political clout in concert in order to make Clare’s deathbed Rule a reality. Agnes of Prague had first learned of Clare from stories told by Franciscan fri- ars in Prague. After freeing herself from a series of political betrothals, Agnes convinced her brother, Wenceslaus I, to permit her to become a Franciscan. She spent her royal dowry building a monastery for sisters and a convent for the

14 The following are helpful sources for the life of Agnes of Prague: Jaroslav Polc, Agnes von Böh- men 1211-1282: Königstochter – Äbtissin – Heilige, München 1989; Alfonso Marini, Agnese di Boemia, Rome 1991; Jaroslav Nemec, Agnese di Boemia: La Vita, Il Culto, La ‘Legenda’, Padova 1987. For background information in English see Peter Demetz, Prague in Black and Gold: Scenes from the Life of a European City, New York 1997, 48-52; Petr Pitha, ‘Agnes of Prague – A New Bohemian Saint’, in: Franziskanische Studien 72 (1990), 325-340; and Poor Clare Colettine Community, Aneska: Princess of the House of Premysl, Wales 1996. 15 Fourth Letter to Agnes of Prague, 1. 16 The Legend of St. Agnes of Prague states that when Agnes wished to become a religious ‘she called the Friars Minor toward whom, by divine instinct, she felt a greater attraction than toward any other religious, asking to be instructed by them concerning the nature of the Rule of St. Clare, who was then living enclosed with the other holy virgins near the city of Assisi in the Convent of San Damiano’. The critical edition of The Legend of St. Agnes of Prague is by Kapistrán Vyskocil, Legenda Blahoslavené Anezky a ctyri listy Sv. Kláry, Prague 1932, 90-93. 17 These letters are discussed in Joan Mueller, ‘Poverty Legislation and Mutual Relations in the Early Franciscan Movement’, in: Collectanea Franciscana 71 (2001), 389-419. 160 JOAN MUELLER friars who attended to their needs. She also built a hospital for the sick, poor, and dying in Prague. Agnes’s efforts toward obtaining a specifically Franciscan Rule seems to begin in 1238, four years after her entrance into the Order. After much struggle and even after convincing her brother to write the Pope a letter that contained a subtle political threat to undermine papal power if Agnes’s request wasn’t heeded, Agnes obtained her Privilege of Poverty on April 15, 1238.18 In order to join the Franciscan Order, candidates needed to follow the prescription of selling everything that they had and giving it to the poor. Agnes, as a princess of Bohemia, had a substantial royal dowry. She used this dowry to build a hospital for the sick and poor in Prague and also a monastery. She carefully separated these two institutions by endowing the hospital, but by leaving the monastery unendowed. The royal Premyslid family obviously understood the parameters of Agnes’s vocation, as they too endowed the hospital, but not the monastery. The monastery was founded on the Franciscan ideal of living without property and its accompanying privileges.

THE INTERVENTION OF GREGORY IX

Gregory IX was nervous about the Roman church accepting responsibility for a monastery of royal and noble women that was not founded upon a firm and sustainable endowment. On May 18, 1235 in the bull Cum relicta seculi,19 Gre- gory IX overturned Agnes’s careful planning by conceding the hospital with all its revenues to the monastery. Seeing that the foundations of her Franciscan vocation were being completely undermined, Agnes wrote to Clare for advice. In her response, Clare appealed to the words and authority of Francis himself and encouraged Agnes to remain stead- fast to her Franciscan vocation even under papal pressure. Clare advised Agnes: What you hold, may you continue to hold, what you do, may you keep doing and not stop, but with swift pace, nimble step, and feet that do not stumble so that even your walking does not raise any dust, go forward tranquilly, joyfully, briskly, and cautiously along the path of happiness, trusting in no one and agreeing with no one

18 Bullarium Franciscanum I, 236-237. 19 Bullarium Franciscanum I, 156. AGNES OF PRAGUE AND THE RULE OF ST. CLARE 161

insofar as he might want to dissuade you from pursuing your founding purpose or might place a stumbling block in your way, preventing you, in that perfection with which the Spirit of the Lord has called you, from fulfilling your vows to the Most High.20 Furthermore, Agnes is to follow Francis’s successor, Brother Elias, in order to determine the course of her own obedience. Clare continued her advice: ‘Now concerning this, so that you may walk more tranquilly along the way of the Lord’s commands, follow the advice of our venerable father, our Brother Elias, Minister General. Prefer his advice to the advice of others and consider it more precious to you than any gift’.21 Clare does not stop here. If the directions of Brother Elias and Gregory IX differ, it is clear that Agnes owes her obedience to Brother Elias: ‘Indeed, if someone tells you something else or suggests anything to you that may hinder your perfection and that seems contrary to your divine voction, even though you must respect him, still, do not follow his advice; instead, poor virgin, embrace the Poor Christ’.22 The ‘no one’ that Clare is referring to is certainly Gregory IX.23 Clare sug- gests that Agnes resist a papal order, but she does not suggest this lightly. Rather, Clare still considers herself under the authority of the one to whom she first promised obedience, Francis, and his successor, Brother Elias. Unlike the brothers, Clare treasures the last will and testament given to her by St. Francis and considers it binding. She will place this last will that Francis wrote for the sisters shortly before his death at the very center of her Rule. I, little brother Francis, wish to follow the life and poverty of our Most High Lord Jesus Christ and of his Holy Mother and to persevere in this until the end; And I ask and counsel you, my ladies, to live always in this most holy life and poverty. Keep most careful watch that you never depart from this by reason of the teaching or advice of anyone.24

KING WENCESLAUS I

Not only did Agnes appeal to Brother Elias, but she also appealed to her brother, King Wenceslaus I. On February 5, 1237, Wenceslaus wrote to

20 Second Letter to Agnes of Prague, 11-14. 21 Second Letter to Agnes of Prague, 15. 22 Second Letter to Agnes of Prague, 17-18. 23 For an analysis of the Latin text on this point see Mueller, Clare’s Letters to Agnes, 69, note 29. 24 Rule of St. Clare 6:7-9. 162 JOAN MUELLER

Gregory IX siding with his sister and demonstrating royal support for Agnes’s Franciscan vocation. He assures Gregory of his devotion and suggests that his devotion might be even more prompt if Gregory IX heeds the request of his sis- ter.25 Both Agnes and Wenceslaus were well aware that the Pope could not politically afford a breach, however slight, with the Kingdom of Bohemia. In the end, Gregory rescinded, accepted Agnes’s monastery under Roman patronage, and established Agnes’s monastery according to Agnes’s original intention.26 On April 15, 1238, Gregory IX issued the Privilege of Poverty for Agnes’s monastery.27 If, however, Agnes felt delighted with this victory, the letters that accompa- nied this privilege suggest that Gregory IX was not at all pleased with the way that Agnes went about acquiring it. In the May 5, 1238 bull, Pia meditatione pensantes,28 Gregory radically changed the fasting practices of the monastery making it almost impossible for the begging brothers to provide for the sisters as the Privilege of Poverty required.29 Gregory IX did not stop there. On May 9, 1238 in the letter De conditoris omnium30 he wrote Agnes what seems to be a very personal letter, instructing her concerning how, one might say, the canonical game is played. After praising Agnes for her gifts of prayer and virtue, he exhorted her not be anxious about further establishing her Franciscan identity, but rather to focus on what was essential to her vocation: contemplative prayer, virtue, and ceaseless praise in the company of the angels and saints. This, however, was exactly the critical point. Gregory IX understood femi- nine religious life as a canonical, juridical reality to be legislated and organized. His concept was highly spiritualized, placing its emphasis on contemplation, virtue, and eschatological prayer. Gregory IX, and Innocent IV who would fol- low in Gregory’s footsteps, had real issues such as problems with Emperor Frederick II, crusades, wayward Italian communes, etc., to deal with. It was important to papal policy that women religious be economically stable,

25 Wenceslaus’s letter is found in Codex diplomaticus et epistolaris regni Bohemiae III, 182-183. 26 Bullarium Franciscanum I, 237-238. The missing formulae are supplied using Codex diplo- maticus et epistolaris III, 144-147. 27 Bullarium Franciscanum I, 236-237. 28 Bullarium Franciscanum I, 240-241. 29 In 1238, Agnes of Prague asked Clare to inform her concerning the fasting practices that Francis gave the sisters at San Damiano. Clare responded to Agnes’s question in Third Letter to Agnes of Prague, 29-37. For an analysis of Clare’s description of fasting practices see Gerard Pieter Freeman, ‘Klarissenfasten im 13. Jahrhundert’, in: Archivum Franciscanum Historicum 87 (1994), 217-85. See also my analysis in Clare’s Letters to Agnes, 221-232. 30 Bullarium Franciscanum I, 241-242. AGNES OF PRAGUE AND THE RULE OF ST. CLARE 163 disciplined, and orthodox. It was hoped that women could be organized in a way that would require a minimum of juridical paperwork. For this purpose, Gregory IX and Innocent IV after him would write generic constitutions hoping to organize all beguine-like monasteries under the Rule of St. Benedict and under their own constitutions.

TOWARD A FRANCISCAN RULE

The letters that accompanied Agnes’s coveted Privilege of Poverty are obviously intended to prepare Agnes’s heart for outright correction and the denial of her request for a properly Franciscan Rule. In the May 11, 1238 letter, Angelis gaudium,31 Agnes is told to be obedient to decisions already made. The issue had history that proceeded Agnes’s entrance, and even Clare and the sisters of San Damiano themselves had moved beyond Francis’s primitive ideals. The Pope stated the point clearly: ‘Put aside every excuse and diligently observe the afore- said Rule, making sure, also, that it is observed by your sisters’. The May 11, 1238 issuance of Gregory’s Rule,32 which was most likely delivered with the above documents, no doubt placed a painful punto on the Pope’s obvious annoy- ance with Agnes’s insistence. Agnes wrote to Clare concerning her angst with the new fasting regulations, and was able to further negotiate with Gregory IX con- cerning this. There were three essential issues for Agnes. First, Agnes wanted the Privilege of Poverty; second, she wanted a claim to spiritual and temporal community with the Franciscan brothers; third, she wanted a specifically Franciscan iden- tity – a Franciscan Rule. The September 28, 1230 bull, Quo elongati, prohibited the Franciscan brothers from entering the cloister, living quarters, and the inner shops of monasteries of nuns without papal permission.33 Agnes was not happy about this situation, but strong papal policy coupled with support by the majority of Franciscan brothers could not be easily overturned. Agnes had to wait for ten years before acting again.

31 Bullarium Franciscanum I, 242-244. 32 The Latin text for this letter, Cum omnis vera religio, is in Sacra Congregatio pro Causis Sanc- torum, Agnetis de Bohemia, Rome 1987, 114-122. 33 For a more complete study of the bull, Quo elongati, see Malcolm D. Lambert, Franciscan Poverty, St. Bonaventure (NY) 1998, 82-103; and Herbert Grundmann, ‘Die Bull Quo elon- gati Papst Gregors IX’, in: Archivum Franciscanum Historicum 54 (1961), 3-25. 164 JOAN MUELLER

POLITICAL PRESSURE

According to two letters written by Albert Böheim, a papal legate, between mid-Aug-Sept. 5, 1240,34 Gregory IX needed Agnes to persuade her brother, Wenceslaus I to ally himself with the Pope against Frederick II. If Gregory’s let- ter to Agnes arrived in Bohemia in October/November, and Agnes’s response reached Gregory between December/April, a May 31, 1241 letter concerning the Friars Minor who were assigned to the needs of the monastery would have been timely. Some explanation must be given for the sudden reversal of Gre- gory’s rigid papal policy concerning enclosure. Vestris piis supplicationibus35 gives the Franciscan brothers associated with Agnes’s monastery the same rights of entrance as other workmen and the chaplain. Innocent IV ascended to the papacy on June 28, 1243. Writing to place her- self under him as a spiritual daughter, Innocent responded favorably to Agnes in Ex regali progenie,36 in the summer of 1243. Upon receiving this favorable response, Agnes immediately wrote back to the new pontiff asking ‘that the two phrases that were written regarding “the virtue of obedience” and “the Rule of Benedict” be removed from that form and that we have those indulgences that were specially granted to the aforesaid monastery by Pope Gregory recorded in it’.37 Innocent IV denied Agnes’s request. He repeats the same reasons that Gre- gory IX had formulated in Angelis gaudium and in essence told Agnes not to bother him about these things again.38 By summer of 1244, Innocent IV had fled to Lyons, France, and was enjoying the protection of King Louis IX. Not happy with the papal response, and knowing that the papacy needed the political support of the king of Bohemia, Agnes wrote to Innocent again. Unmoved, Innocent IV reiterated his position in a August 21, 1244 letter.39 Soon after, however, Innocent had to revisit his entrenchment. On September 20, 1245, in the bull, Cum id quod,40 he again asks Agnes to influence the king of Bohemia on behalf of the papal agenda.

34 Codex diplomaticus et epistolaris III, 332 and 334, 337-338. 35 Bullarium Franciscanum I, 295. 36 This letter can be found in Agnetis de Bohemia, 161-162. 37 Bullarium Franciscanum I, 315-317. 38 Bullarium Franciscanum I, 315-317. 39 Bullarium Franciscanum I, 350. 40 Codex diplomaticus et epistolaris II, 162-163. AGNES OF PRAGUE AND THE RULE OF ST. CLARE 165

In return for Agnes’s cooperation, Innocent IV expanded the privileges of the brothers living next to Agnes’s monastery. Innocent’s letter is dated October 16, 1245.41 Innocent, Bishop, Servant of the servants of God, to his beloved sons the General and all the provincial ministers of the , greetings and apos- tolic blessing. Wishing with paternal concern to provide for the peace and salvation of our beloved daughters in Christ, the Enclosed Nuns of the Order of St. Damian, we order and mandate to your discretion by apostolic letter that you discharge the duty of visitation, correction, and reformation toward both head and members, through yourselves or other prudent and experienced brothers of your Order by our authority, whenever you think it fitting. Instruct these sisters in the disci- plined life of the monastic rule, comfort them with preaching God’s word, cele- brate the solemnities of the Mass, celebrate the various parts of the Divine Office, provide church sacraments and, when necessary due to serious illness or death, or due to the visitation or consecration of altars or nuns, or for other just and appro- priate reasons, you may enter their monastery with suitable companions, i.e. as many brothers of your Order as you consider fitting for the task. However, the brother priest and the visitor, who are there pro tempore, may bring with them one or two suitable brothers as a companion, to help with discharging those duties that belong to this office according to the contents that are known to be contained in their form of religious life, so that they also may go to the aforesaid monasteries on their special feast days and at the death of their nuns to celebrate the Divine Office for them and preach the Word of God to the people, who come to the monasteries on these days and at various other times. For other honorable and reasonable purposes also, we permit by the authority of the present docu- ment that you may deem it fitting for these brothers to go to the grilled doors and the parlors of their monasteries, or you may appoint brothers of your Order to do so.

THE RULE OF ST. CLARE

On November 13, 1245, in Solet annuere,42 Innocent IV reissued Hugolino’s Rule for the Damianite monasteries. In his November 14, 1245 missive to the friars, Ordinem vestrum,43 Innocent IV amends Quo elongati giving permission

41 This letter can be found in Agnetis de Bohemia, 46-47. The English translation is the work of Paige McDonald of The Catholic University of America who translated hundreds of Latin texts in order to facilitate this research. 42 Bullarium Franciscanum I, 394-399. 43 Bullarium Franciscanum I, 400-402. 166 JOAN MUELLER for brothers who have a faculty from the Holy See to enter the monasteries of the nuns of the Order of Saint Damian. Agnes had successfully negotiated her Privilege of Poverty, fasting norms consistent with those of San Damiano, and allowances for the brothers to preach within the enclosure of her monastery. Even with all this, Agnes’s third desire remained unfulfilled – she still did not have a specifically Franciscan Rule. On August 6, 1247, Innocent IV circulated his own version of the Hugolin- ian Rule to all abbesses and nuns of the Order of Saint Damian.44 In this Rule, Innocent IV deletes the Rule of Benedict and confirms for the sisters their profession of the Rule of Blessed Francis. The mitigations prescribed in Quo elongati and Ordinem vestrum, and days later in the August 19, 1247 bull, Quanto studiosius divinae45 would significantly mitigate the friar’s commitment to poverty. Innocent’s Rule also proposed fasting customs gravely contrary to Clare’s third letter and permitted the holding of revenue and common posses- sions. While Innocent IV mouthed an affirmation of the Rule of Saint Francis in his new Rule, he contradicted the Privilege of Poverty. The letter that accompanied Innocent’s Rule, Quoties a Nobis46 of August 23, 1247, clearly declared that the pope wanted a unified profession for the Hugolinian monasteries and a nullification of all former dispensations. The outcry of the various monasteries of nuns with their hard won and treasured dispensations must have been great. By June 6, 1250, Innocent IV completely gave up the possibility of a unified profession. He ordered the Cardinal of Ostia to permit the sisters to live under either the Rule of Hugolino or his new Rule.47 Given that the uniformity of the Hugolinian federation was now officially broken, Agnes’s political clout was no longer needed. It was easier for Clare to use her proximity and her spiritual authority in working directly with Cardinal Raynaldus to compose a Rule appropriate for the Monastery of San Damiano and its associates. This she did with the happy ending that Sr. Filippa relates in Clare’s Process.

SUMMARY

Trying to establish women’s monasticism on firm foundations, Pope Gregory IX was eager to insure that monasteries of women were adequately endowed and juridically

44 Bullarium Franciscanum I, 476-483. 45 Bullarium Franciscanum I, 487-488. 46 Bullarium Franciscanum I, 488. 47 Bullarium Franciscanum Supp., 22-24. AGNES OF PRAGUE AND THE RULE OF ST. CLARE 167 established according to the prescriptions of canon thirteen of the Fourth Lateran Council. To do this, Gregory IX needed the spiritual clout of Clare of Assisi whose fame was published in ’s First Life of Saint Francis. Clare of Assisi, however, wished only to live the Privilege of Poverty – meaning that her monastery would be left without endowment from landed possessions. In 1234, the Bohemian princess, Agnes of Prague, joined the Franciscan Order wishing to form her monastery according to the primitive Franciscan ideal. Taking Clare’s side, Agnes used her politi- cal clout to influence the papacy and to negotiate a specifically Franciscan style of life for women that would eventually evolve into the Rule of Saint Clare.

Joan Mueller OSF, Ph.D. (1956, Plymouth, WI, USA) is Associate Professor of Systematic Theology and Christian Spirituality at Creighton University (Omaha). Address: Department of Theology, Creighton University, Omaha, NE 68178, United States of America (E-mail: [email protected])