Rule of the Friars Minor, 1209-2009: Historical Perspective, Lived Realities

Clare and the Defense of Franciscan Identity

ClAre AnD the Defense of frAnCisCAn iDentity1 Jean françoiS goDet-calogeraS We all know the romantic story of the conversion of Clare of Assisi . Until recently most of the literature, as well as the cinema, would make it look like she was attracted to and seduced by Francis, who then locked her into a monastery. Clare is presented as simply a chapter in Francis’s life, at best, his female shadow. And again until recently, it was quite difficult to discern what the Friars Minor and the Poor Clares might have had in common. the eArly DoCuments on frAnCis AnD his brotherhooD From the writings of Thomas of Celano to the Actus and the Fioretti, there is little in the early Franciscan documents about Clare and her sisters. The data In his Life of Blessed Francis, written soon after Francis’s canonization (1228), Thomas of Celano wrote a dithyrambic laudation of the San Damiano community in which Clare is named and almost por1 The Latin text of the sources is taken from Fontes franciscani, E. Menestò and S. Brufani, eds. (Assisi: Edizioni Porziuncola, 1995). The English translations are our own. The abbreviations are taken from Francis of Assisi: Early Documents, 3 vol. (New York: New City Press, 1999-2001) [= FA:ED] and Clare of Assisi: Early Documents (New York: New City Press, 2006) [= CA:ED]. Jean François Godet-Calogeras 82 trayed like a saint, while she is still alive and not even thirty years old: “Lady Clare … when this lady was converted to God through the counsel of the holy man, she lived for the good of many and as an example to countless others.”2 But Thomas’s description of Clare’s community3 seems to reflect more the Constitutions of Cardinal Hugolino, by then Pope Gregory IX, who commissioned the Vita beati Francisci.4 Toward the end of his Vita, Thomas described how, on its way from the Portiuncula to Assisi, Francis’s funeral cortege made a stop at San Damiano, “the place where he first planted the religion and the Order of the consecrated virgins and Poor Ladies”; Clare is again named in dithyrambic way: “The Lady Clare, who was truly brilliant by the holiness of her merits.”5 Writing a shorter life of Francis in the early 1230s, Julian of Speyer echoed Thomas of Celano’s words: “Clare, the first plant of that religion.”6 The Anonymous of Perugia (1241) mentions that the brothers “established, in every city they could, reclusive monasteries for doing penance.”7 But Clare herself is not mentioned. Going back to the time Francis was involved in the restoration of the church of San Damiano, the Legend of the Three Companions stated : while working there with other people, he called out to neighbors and passers-by in a loud voice, filled with joy, saying in French: ‘Come and help me in the work of the church of San 2 1C 18: Domina Clara … cum post initiationem ordinis Fratrum dicta domina sancti viri monitis ad Deum conversa fuisset, multis exstitit ad profectum et innumeris ad exemplum . 3 1C 19-20. Cf. CA:ED, 397-400. 4 1C 20: Et haec ad praesens de virginibus Deo dicatis et devotissimis ancillis Christi dicta sufficiant, cum ipsarum vita mirifica et institutio gloriosa quam a domino papa Gregorio, tunc temporis Ostiensi episcopo, susceperunt, proprium opus requirat et otium. 5 1C 116: locum in quo religionem et ordinem sacrarum virginum et Dominarum pauperum ipse primo plantavit…. Et ecce domina Clara, quae vere meritorum sanctitate clara erat…. 6 LJS 72: Et ecce pia mater illarum, prima scilicet illius religionis planta, re Clara et nomine…. Cf. FA:ED I, 417. 7 AP 41: Ad hoc ordinaverunt per singulas civitates quibus potuerunt monasteria reclusa ad paenitentiam faciendam. Clare and the Defense of Franciscan Identity 83 Damiano which will become a monastery of ladies through whose fame and life our heavenly Father will be glorified through the universal church.’8 Again, the name of Clare is not mentioned, but the author specifies, like Thomas of Celano before, that the confirmation of San Damiano was due to Hugolino/Gregory IX (†1241) and the Apostolic See.9 The Legend of the Three Companions also repeats the assertion of the Anonymous of Perugia, that the Brothers established monasteries of women: “many virgins and widows in cities and towns, struck by their preaching, on their advice secluded themselves in monasteries established for doing...