Clare of Assisi and the Poor Sisters in the Thirteenth Century

Chapter 4 The Papacy and New Women’s Religious Orders

Chapter 4 The Papacy and New Women’s Religious Orders The first decades of the thirteenth century mark a decisive moment in the evolution of forms of religious life and even for the very definition and consolidation of the concept of “religious Order” in the sense that we still give the term.1 This idea was already noted by Grundmann, who for this reason, in his well-known volume on the religious movements of the Middle Ages, gave special emphasis to the pontificate of Innocent and those immediately after it. In this he was the first to give a thorough consideration of the attitude of the pontiffs of the first half of the 1200s to what he called “the women’s religious movement.”2 Grundmann’s methodological choice3 helped to overcome the historiographical approach followed by quite credible specialists and scholars such as Oliger,4 Lazzeri,5 Father Gratien,6 Scheeben,7 Koudelka,8 and Vicaire,9 to name but a few. They examined many valuable sources with competence and, more importantly, published them. However, they remained in some sense prisoners of the conviction that the saintly founders of the mendicant Orders, specifically Dominic and Francis, played a very great role in the origins of those groups that in the course of the 1200s would become new expressions of religious life for women.10 There are also essays available that study the history of women’s monasticism in the middle centuries of the Middle Ages. Among these we should note: the work of Jean Leclercq, 156 CLARE OF ASSISI AND THE POOR SISTERS fruit of a presentation given at the Assisi Meeting in 1979;11 Edith Pàsztor in the prestigious volume, Dall’eremo al cenobio,12 as well as in the proceedings of the meeting held at Città di Castello on the occasion of the eighth centenary of the birth of Francis;13 Kaspar Elm;14 or again, with particular attention to juridical aspects this time, the volume of de Fontette.15 Within the framework of historiography focused on forms of religious life developed by women, we should also note that the so-called “women’s Franciscanism” has received greater attention , thanks especially to the presentations made at the meetings organized by the Società internazionale di studi francescani, notably the one held in 1979, in which, among others, those of Raoul Manselli16 and Roberto Rusconi17 stand out. The latter study in particular – later taken up and amplified for Italian regions by Anna Benvenuti18 – offered an innovative approach. By using careful periodization, marked by precise institutional changes, it broke through the narrow limits of a “women’s Franciscanism” seen as the exclusive result of the activities of exponents of the Order of Friars Minor or by sociae of Clare indefatigably committed to the reform or foundation of monasteries, and cautioned against a reconstruction of the origins modelled on institutional outcomes. The interpretative approach proposed by Rusconi has encouraged a broad rethinking, not only of matters concerning the institutional placement of the monasticism linked to Clare of Assisi, but also of the relations among Clare, her community, and the Roman Church.19 With no pretext of thoroughly addressing such a vast problem , the following exposition will give particular study to pontifical documentation. This, in fact, represents a privileged observation point, since it was precisely the popes, in tandem with the college of cardinals or some of its members,20 who promoted the most important initiatives aimed at giving birth to new experiments in religious life for women. 157 THE PAPACY AND THE NEW WOMEN RELIGIOUS ORDERS Until the End of the 12th Century First of all we should recall that until the end of the twelfth century there really is no such thing as women’s religious Orders : that means that the religious life for women was organized in strict dependence on individual men’s monasteries or congregations (as in the case of the Cluniacs21 and the monasteries that depended on communities that were reformed starting in the eleventh century) or was under the responsibility of the bishop, something that signalled the adoption of locally approved norms.22 In the course of the twelfth century there were attempts to respond in a novel way to the need for a framework for women’s religious life. We need only think of the founding of double monasteries at Fontevraud and Prémontré,23 or those based on the initiative of Gilbert...