Clare of Assisi and the Poor Sisters in the Thirteenth Century

Chapter 1 Clare and the Papacy

Chapter 1 Clare and the Papacy Clare’s Story Seen Through Her Relations with the Papacy Clare, the unworthy servant of Christ and the little plant of the most blessed Francis, promises obedience and reverence to the Lord Pope Innocent and his canonically elected successors, and to the Roman Church. Let the sisters be strictly bound to always have that Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church who has been delegated by the Lord Pope for the Friars Minor as Governor, Protector, and Corrector , that, always submissive and subject at the feet of that holy Church and steadfast in the Catholic faith, we may always observe the poverty and humility of our Lord Jesus Christ and of His most holy Mother and the Holy Gospel we have firmly promised. Amen.1 When, in the final years of her life, Clare of Assisi dedicated herself to drafting the rule for her own community and for those who might wish to follow its example,2 various reasons prompted her to place strong emphasis on the monastery of San Damiano’s vital dependence on the Apostolic See. 30 CLARE OF ASSISI AND THE POOR SISTERS Certainly the desire to follow closely the norms composed by Francis for the Lesser Brothers, solemnly approved by Honorius III in 1223,3 had considerable weight in her formulation of such expressions. However, at the same time we must not underestimate Clare’s desire to see her rule approved by the highest authorities of the Roman Church, first of all by Innocent IV – in his turn author of a rule for the monasteries of the Order of San Damiano – and, therefore, by the cardinal protector. Furthermore, in composing her own forma vitae, Clare certainly included directions and norms suggested by canonical experts of her day at the highest levels of the ecclesiastical hierarchy. Her relationship to the papacy is thus a theme of primary importance in Clare’s life and offers a privileged viewpoint for reconstructing the most significant phases of her history and that of the community of San Damiano. The author of the Legenda sanctae Clarae emphatically insists on the important roles of popes and high-ranking prelates of the Curia as counselors of the saint.4 We should not underestimate the reasons that may have caused her biographer to reinterpret the relationships between Clare and ecclesiastical authority, which were undoubtedly important not only for the history of the Assisi community, but also for the fate of what has been called “women’s Franciscanism.” Francis had been dead for about thirty years, during which time the papacy was actively involved in the situation of San Damiano and in developments in women’s religious life. Beginning from a careful examination of these circumstances, it is actually possible for us to retrace the long legal battle that especially marked the final years of Clare’s life, but which can already be noted in the early 1220s, at the very beginning of her disagreements and misunderstandings with Gregory IX. The scarce and sporadic documentation that has come down to us does not give us a detailed reconstruction of the relationships between Clare and the Roman Church’s highest authorities . However, in order to shed some new light on a problem that in many ways is still open, we can focus on some important moments signaled as such by both the acts of the process of canonization and documents of papal origin.5 31 CLARE AND THE PAPACY San Damiano and the Ordo Sancti Damiani Proceeding with our investigation, we must first establish what has been achieved by historiography, and on this basis orient our reinterpretation of the sources. We must also point out some distinctions that are essential for a proper understanding of the history of the community of San Damiano, on the one hand – with which Clare’s story is intimately involved – and, on the other hand, that of the Order of San Damiano. The latter was the special creation of Cardinal Hugolino of Ostia, and only later did it come to include the monastery of Assisi. Just as the last years of Francis’s life were marked by the difficulties related to his drafting legislation to be submitted to the Roman See for approval, a task in which the influence of the cardinal of Ostia must have been felt, so too Clare encountered a number of difficulties before receiving papal approval, the day before she died...