An Unencumbered Heart

Cover

Download PDF (190.8 KB)
 

Title Page, Copyright

Download PDF (68.2 KB)
 

Contents

Download PDF (80.1 KB)
pp. iii-

Introduction

Download PDF (69.7 KB)
pp. v-vii

A certain Lady Clare – Chiara – died in San Damiano near Assisi on 10 August 1253. She did not know that seven centuries later she would become the patron saint of television. In her era she did not know of television at all...

Structure of the Form of Life of Clare

Download PDF (109.9 KB)
pp. 1-9

History is made by all human beings, and yet it is usually written by only a few men. Franciscan history is no exception. The early Franciscan documents were written mostly by men, with just a few exceptions, and in those documents...

Clare of Assisi: Foundress of an Order?

Download PDF (194.4 KB)
pp. 11-29

On the vigil of the Feast of Saint Clare, one year during the early 1280s, Fra Bartholomeo da Gallicano went to the convent of Santa Chiara in Assisi to preach to the sisters. On his return to San Francesco, he started to think about the verse from the Song of...

Clare and Men

Download PDF (95.9 KB)
pp. 31-38

I have already had occasion to bring to light the femininity of Francis of Assisi and I will begin by summarizing my conclusions. Francis, as we shall see, plays on gender reversal to signify other, evangelical reversals. The question I would like to take up with you...

Privilege of Poverty of 1228: Rooted in the Canticle of Canticles

Download PDF (129.3 KB)
pp. 39-49

In his letter to the Poor Clares for the 750th anniversary of the death of Clare, Giacomo Bini, Minister General of the Franciscan Order, writes...

Medieval Epistolary Genre and the Letters to Agnes of Prague

Download PDF (241.4 KB)
pp. 51-77

To rediscover the tradition of prayer taught and modeled by Clare of Assisi, it is necessary to engage in a method of historical criticism that approaches absolutist historical evidence with skepticism and values data gleaned from a variety of sources...