Clare of Assisi

This article is about the Italian saint. For the ﬁlm, see Saint Clara (ﬁlm). For the unincorporated community, see St. Clara, West Virginia.

Saint Clare of Assisi (sometimes spelled Clair, Claire, etc.) (July 16, 1194 – August 11, 1253), born Chiara Offreduccio, is an Italian saint and one of the first fol- lowers of Saint Francis of Assisi. She founded the Order of Poor Ladies, a monastic religious order for women in the Franciscan tradition, and wrote their Rule of Life— the first monastic rule known to have been written by a woman. Following her death, the order she founded was renamed in her honor as the Order of Saint Clare, com- monly referred to today as the Poor Clares. Fresco of Saint Clare and sisters of her order, church of San Damiano, Assisi 1 Biography

stayed home. That night she ran away to follow Fran- cis. Francis cut her hair and dressed her in a black tunic and a thick black veil. Clare was placed in the convent of the Benedictine nuns near Bastia from where her father made several unsuccessful attempts to abduct her, still wanting her to get married. Clare, joined by her sis- ter Agnes, soon moved in a place close to the church of San Damiano, which Francis had rebuilt. Other women joined them and San Damiano became known for its radical austere lifestyle. The women were at first known as the “Poor Ladies”. San Damiano became the centre of Clare’s new religious order, which was known in her lifetime as the “Order of San Damiano”. San Damiano was long thought to be Saint Clare miraculously intervenes to save a child from a wolf, in this panel by Giovanni di Paolo, 1455. the first house of this order, however, recent scholarship strongly suggests that San Damiano actually joined an ex- St. Clare was born in Assisi, the eldest daughter of isting network of women’s religious houses organized by Favorino Sciffi, Count of Sasso-Rosso and his wife Hugolino (who later became Pope Gregory IX). Hugolino wanted San Damiano as part of the order he founded be- Ortolana. Ortolana was a very devout woman who [2] had undertaken pilgrimages to Rome, Santiago de Com- cause of the prestige of Clare’s monastery. San Dami- postela and the Holy Land. Later on in her life, Or- ano emerged as the most important house in the order, tolana entered Clare’s monastery, together with Agnes and Clare became its undisputed leader. By 1263, just ten and Beatrix, Clare’s sisters.[1] years after Clare’s death, the order had become known as the Order of Saint Clare. As a child, Clare was devoted to prayer. When she turned 12 years old her parents wanted her to marry a young and Unlike the Franciscan friars, whose members moved wealthy man, but she preferred to wait until she was 18. around the country to preach, Saint Clare’s sisters lived However, at the age of 18 she heard Francis’s preachings in enclosure, since an itinerant life was hardly conceiv- able at the time for women. Their life consisted of manual which would subsequently change her life. Francis told [3] her that she was chosen by God. Soon after, on Palm labour and prayer. Sunday, when people went to collect palm branches, she For a short period the order was directed by Francis

1 2 3 LEGACY

himself.[4] Then in 1216, Clare accepted the role of that year Clare’s remains were transferred to the newly abbess of San Damiano. As abbess, Clare had more au- completed basilica where they were buried beneath the thority to lead the order than when she was the prioress, high altar. In further recognition of the saint, Pope Ur- who had to follow the orders of a priest heading the ban IV officially changed the name of the Order of Poor community.[5] Clare defended her order from the at- Ladies to the Order of Saint Clare in 1263. tempts of prelates to impose a rule on them that more Some 600 years later in 1872, Saint Clare’s remains were closely resembled the Rule of Saint Benedict than Fran- transferred to a newly constructed shrine in the crypt of cis’ stricter vows. Clare sought to imitate Francis’ virtues the Basilica of Saint Clare where they can still be seen and way of life so much so that she was sometimes titled today. alter Franciscus, another Francis.[6] She also played a sig- nificant role in encouraging and aiding Francis, whom she saw as a spiritual father figure, and she took care of him during his illnesses at the end of his life, until his death 3 Legacy in 1226. After Francis’s death, Clare continued to promote the growth of her order, writing letters to abbesses in other parts of Europe and thwarting every attempt by each suc- cessive pope to impose a rule on her order which watered down the radical commitment to corporate poverty she had originally embraced. She did this despite enduring a long period of poor health until her death. Clare’s Fran- ciscan theology of joyous poverty in imitation of Christ is evident in the rule she wrote for her community and in her four letters to Agnes of Prague.

2 Post death The wax ﬁgure of Saint Clare of Assisi at Basilica of Saint Clare, in Italy.

Pope Pius XII designated her as the patron saint of television in 1958, on the basis that when she was too ill to at- tend Mass, she had reportedly been able to see and hear it on the wall of her room.[7] The American Catholic television channel Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN) was founded by a Poor Clare nun, Mother Angelica. In art, Clare is often shown carrying a monstrance or pyx, in commemoration of the time when she warded away the soldiers of Frederick II at the gates of her convent by displaying the Blessed Sacrament and kneeling in prayer. Lake Saint Clair and the Saint Clair River in the Great Lakes region of North America were named in 1679 on her feast day, August 11. Mission Santa Clara, founded by Spanish missionaries in northern California in 1777, has given its name to the university, city, county, and Basilica of Saint Clare, Assisi. valley in which it sits. Southern California’s Santa Clara River is hundreds of miles to the south, and gave its name On August 9, 1253, the papal bull Solet annuere of Pope to the nearby city of Santa Clarita. Santa Clara Pueblo, Innocent IV conﬁrmed that Clare’s rule would serve as New Mexico celebrates its Santa Clara Feast Day annu- the governing rule for Clare’s Order of Poor Ladies. Two ally on August 12, as the feast was celebrated before the days later, on August 11, Clare died at the age of 59. Her 1969 calendar change. remains were interred at the chapel of San Giorgio while Clare was canonized three years after her death and her a church to hold her remains was being constructed. feast day was immediately inserted in the General Ro- On August 15, 1255, Pope Alexander IV canonized Clare man Calendar for celebration on August 12, the day fol- as Saint Clare of Assisi. Construction of the Basilica of lowing her death, as August 11 was already assigned to Saint Clare was completed in 1260, and on October 3 of Saints Tiburtius and Susanna, two 3rd-century Roman 3 martyrs. The celebration was ranked as a Double (as in • Musical Theatre about St. Francis and St. Clare of the Tridentine Calendar) or, in the terminology adopted Assisi in 1960, a Third-Class Feast (as in the General Roman • Calendar of 1960). The 1969 calendar revision removed Saint Clare of Assisi in Patron Saints Index the feast of Tiburtius and Susanna from the calendar, ﬁ- • Anorexia Sacra An opera using Clare’s texts on as- nally allowing the memorial of Saint Clare to be cele- ceticism and its connections with anorexia nervosa. brated on August 11, the day of her death. Her body is no longer claimed to be incorrupt, and her skeleton is dis- • Saint Clare at the Christian Iconography web site played in Assisi. • Caxton’s life of St. Clare

4 See also

• Saint Francis of Assisi

• List of Catholic saints

5 References

[1] Bartoli, p. 34–5; in the sources, there is no exact year when Ortolana entered the monastery, according to Bar- toli. The best source for the historical details of Clare’s life is the “Acts for the Process of her Canonization”, in The Lady: Clare of Assisi: Early Documents, ed. and trans. Regis J. Armstrong (New York: New City Press, 2006).

[2] Maria Pia Alberzoni, Clare of Assisi and the Poor Sisters in the Thirteenth Century (St. Bonaventure, NY: Franciscan Institute, 2004).

[3] Bartoli p. 92ﬀ

[4] Bartoli 95

[5] Bartoli p. 96

[6] Bartoli p. 171ﬀ

[7] Pope Pius XII (August 21, 1958). “LETTRE APOS- TOLIQUE PROCLAMANT Ste CLAIRE PATRONNE CÉLESTE DE LA TÉLÉVISION” (in French).

6 External links

• Apostolic Letter (French)of Pope Pius XII declaring St. Clare of Assisi as Patroness of Television (1957)

• The Life, Miracles and Death of St. Claire of Assisi, Saint and Virgin of the Catholic Church

• St. Clare’s Sr. Sec. School Agra Built On the Name Of St. Clare Of Assisi

• The pear-tree of St. Clare in the Convent of the Poor Clares of Perpetual Adoration in Bautzen

• St. Clare of Assisi 4 7 TEXT AND IMAGE SOURCES, CONTRIBUTORS, AND LICENSES

7 Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses

7.1 Text

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