Women's Biography: Clare of Assisi
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There are letters written to and by Clare of Assisi.
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Born in 1193 or 1194, Clare of Assisi was the daughter of Offreduccio di Favarone and his wife, Ortolana. During her early years, Clare and her family took refuge in Perugia during a time of civil unrest in Assisi, but later returned to their home next to the Cathedral of San Rufino. After Francis returned to Assisi with oral approval from Pope Innocent III for his form of life, Clare heard Francis preach. Convinced by his message after a series of conversations, Clare escaped her family home and was tonsured at the hands of Francis in the small church of Saint Mary of the Angels.
After her tonsure, Francis and the brothers took Clare to San Paolo delle Abbadesse, a Benedictine monastery whose privileges included the threat of excommunication towards anyone who dared molest the inhabitants of the monastery. The seven knights of her family came to the monastery to threaten Clare, but Clare stood her ground showing them her shorn hair. Seeing that she could not be persuaded, and realizing that because of her hair she could not be wed to a nobleman, Clare's family disowned her. With her safety thus assured, Francis took Clare to the Monastery of Sant'Angelo di Panzo which was a smaller and simpler monastery and was nearer to San Damiano.
Clare's sister Catherine, who was renamed Agnes by St. Francis, joined Clare at Sant'Angelo. The wrath of the Offreduccio knights followed and, as a result of their physical abuse, Catherine nearly died in the struggle. Clare nursed Catherine back to health and the two settled shortly after in the Monastery of San Damiano just outside Assisi. Eventually, Clare's mother, Ortolana, her sister Beatrice, and her niece, Balbina, also joined the order, which grew quickly. A letter from Cardinal Rainaldus in 1228 is addressed to abbesses and communities in Assisi, ValleGloria, Perugia, Foligno, Florence, Lucca, Siena, Arezzo, Borgo, Acquaviva, Narni, Citt
del Castello, Todi, Santa Serafia de Cortona, Faenza, Milan, Padua, Trent, Verona, Orvieto, Gubbio, San Paolo dei Terni, San Paolo di Spoleto.
All her life, Clare struggled to obtain papal recognition for her Franciscan form of life. The popes, whose agenda at the time was to try to amalgamate and codify the diverse expressions of religious life for women, had little sympathy for Clare's novelty. Rather, they imposed on her and her sisters The Rule of Saint Benedict. Clare negotiated the Privilege of Poverty, which guaranteed that the sisters living within the Monastery of San Damiano would not be forced to accept possessions. Clare's refusal to accept endowments for her monastery along with the accompanying privileges that property entailed kept the sisters of San Damiano close to the experience of those who were poor and outcast in society. Agnes of Prague worked in tandem with Clare to negotiate not only for the Privilege of Poverty, but also for a Rule that would acknowledge the place of the Poor Ladies within the Franciscan movement. On August 9, 1253, Clare received papal approval of her Rule in which she placed poverty at the center. She died two days later on August 11, 1253(!1). She is the only person whose life is described as "perfect" in Dante's Comedy, Paradise 3.97-99: "perfetta vita e alto merto inciela/ donna più sù ... a la cui norma/ nel vostro mondo giù si veste e vela," "perfect life and high merit enheaven a lady higher up ... by whose rule one dresses and veils in your world below."