Agnes of Prague and the Rule of St. Clare

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 Assisi 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. Bonaventure (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 monasteries 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, Clare of Assisi. 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 without 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 possessions’.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 practice 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.

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