Clare of Assisi, "Shining in Name, More Shining in Life"

St. Clare of Assisi (died 11 August 1253)

Chiara Offreduccio was born in Assisi on 11 July 1194, the daughter of a wealthy count, Offreduccio di Favarone, and his wife, Ortolana.

Simone Martini's fourteenth-century
fresco of Clare of Assisi,
Basilica of San Francesco, Assisi

Although there is no reliable information about her childhood, traditional accounts, such as the one found in the Catholic Encyclopedia, stress the miraculous signs her mother received before her birth (the baby would be "a bright light of God in the world"), her childhood piety, her extreme penitential acts, even as a child, and her "distaste for the world." 

Whatever she was like as a child, Clare must have received some form of education, because she is literate--as a woman, she writes letters and composes devotional literature. 

What we know of her life begins when she was eighteen and heard Francis of Assisi preach during a Lenten service at the church of San Giorgio. She arranged to meet him secretly after the service and asked for his help so that she could, like Francis and his followers, live a life "after the manner of the Holy Gospel."

She attended church the next day, Palm Sunday. That evening, 20 March 1212, she secretly left her father's home "by the door used to take a corpse on its way to burial" (at least according to legend), accompanied by her aunt and another companion, and made her way to the chapel of the Portiuncula, where Francis was then living with his small community. 

Francis immediately consecrated her, exchanging her luxurious clothing for a rough tunic tied with a cord and cutting her hair. Then, since a woman could not exactly live the public and itinerant "apostolic life" of Francis and his male followers, he took Clare to the Benedictine convent of San Paolo delle Abbadesse.

Although her father tried to force her to return home, she resisted, and she was disowned by her family. But still not finding the rigorous penitential life she was searching for--the kind of poverty to which Francis was devoted--she left the Benedictine convent and joined the Franciscan community of Sant'Angelo di Panzo, where she was joined by her fourteen-year-old sister Caterina, whom Francis renamed Agnes. 

The result was more conflict with "her infuriated relatives," but by the end of 1212 Clare and her sister were resettled in a small building for them next to the church of San Damiano, the first of the churches Francis had rebuilt after his conversion. She was eventually joined, after her father's death, by her mother, Ortolana, her other sister, Beatrice, and a niece, Balbina.

Fresco of Clare of Assisi and her sisters,
Church of San Damiano, Assisi

Like Clare, Francis seems originally to have imagined that "the Poor Ladies of San Damiano" would live the same mendicant life as his friars, and, like them, devote themselves to caring for the sick and the poor. By 1215 he had provided them with a brief formula vita, or way of life. 

But in 1219, Rome issued the first of a series of Rules for Clare and her sisters, each based on the Rule of St. Benedict and each subsequent Rule insisting on enclosure for the women. Aside from the issue of enclosure, these papal rules imposed on the women took away their Franciscan dedication to absolute poverty and insisted that they would have to accept endowments. Clare objected and resisted.

The conflict persisted even after Francis's death in 1226. But on 17 September 1228, Clare and her sisters were finally granted the Privilegium paupertatis, the "privilege of poverty." Pope Gregory IX announced his decision to Clare "and the other handmaids of Christ dwelling together at the church of San Damiano":

It is evident that the desire of consecrating yourselves to God alone has led you to abandon every wish for temporal things. Wherefore, after having sold all your goods and having distributed them among the poor, you propose to have absolutely no possessions, in order to follow in all things the example of Him Who became poor and Who is the way, the truth, and the life. Neither does the want of necessary things deter you from such a proposal, for the left arm of your Celestial Spouse is beneath your head to sustain the infirmity of your body, which, according to the order of charity, you have subjected to the law of the spirit. Finally, He who feeds the birds of the air and who gives the lilies of the field their raiment and their nourishment, will not leave you in want of clothing or of food until He shall come Himself to minister to you in eternity when, namely, the right hand of His consolations shall embrace you in the plenitude of the Beatific Vision. Since, therefore, you have asked for it, we confirm by Apostolic favour your resolution of the loftiest poverty and by the authority of these present letters grant that you may not be constrained by anyone to receive possessions. To no one, therefore, be it allowed to infringe upon this page of our concession or to oppose it with rash temerity. But if anyone shall presume to attempt this, be it known to him that he shall incur the wrath of Almighty God and his Blessed Apostles, Peter and Paul. Given at Perugia on the fifteenth of the Kalends of October in the second year of our Pontificate.

In negotiating this "privilege of poverty," Clare of Assisi worked with a woman we have met before, Agnes of Bohemia. 

By the time of Clare's death in 1253, there were fifty sisters living at S. Damiano and over twenty more monasteries of the Poor Ladies. On 9 August 1253, Pope Urban IV issued the Solet annuere, a papal bull confirmed that the rule Clare had composed for her community would be the governing rule for the order. 

Two days later, on 11 August, Clare died at the age of 59. On 15 August 1255 Clare of Assisi was canonized by Pope Alexander VI. In 1263, Pope Urban IV officially changed the name of the Poor Ladies of San Damiano to the Order of St. Clare.

For the Rule composed by Clare of Assisi, click here.

Clare's letters, including those sent to Agnes of Bohemia, are available at the Epistolae: Medieval Women's Latin Letters website.

Basilica di Santa Chiara,
Assisi

Elizabeth of Hungary: The Miracle of the Roses

Elizabeth of Hungary (canonized 27 May 1235)

Born on 7 July 1207, Elizabeth of Hungary became a saint in a family of saints--her maternal aunt was canonized as St. Hedwig of Silesia, her cousin was St. Agnes of Bohemia, her great-niece was St. Isabel of Portugal, and her husband Louis IV of Thuringia was venerated as a saint, although he was never canonized. 

A late fifteenth-century altar illustration
of Elizabeth of Hungary caring
for the poor and sick

The daughter of King Andrew II of Hungary and Gertrude of Merania, Elizabeth was married in 1221, at the age of fourteen, to Louis IV, landgrave of Thuringia (a landgrave was a title of nobility in Germany). Although the young woman was already devoted to a life of charity, she was highly influenced by the the ideals of the Franciscans, who arrived in Thuringia in 1223.

In 1226, while her husband was attending the imperial diet of the Holy Roman emperor Frederick II, Elizabeth managed the affairs of state in his absence. She continued her charitable work, which included the construction of a hospital for the poor near the castle of Wartburg. 

Louis died in Italy in September of 1227, on his way to the Holy Land, as part of the Sixth Crusade (led by Frederick), leaving Elizabeth a widow just months after she turned twenty.

After her husband's death, Elizabeth devoted herself to a holy life, probably as a third-order Franciscan, building yet another hospital, this one at Marburg.* She died in 1231, just twenty-four years old.

During the brief years of her marriage, Elizabeth gave birth to three children: a son, born in 1222, who would succeed his father as landgrave of Thuringia; a daughter, Sophie, born in 1224, who would marry the duke of Brabant; and a daughter Gertrude, born in 1227, who became abbess Aldenberg. Like her father, Gertrude never became a saint, but she was beatified by Pope Clement VI in 1348.

One of the miracles associated with St. Elizabeth of Hungary is the "miracle of the roses." As the story is told, Elizabeth was taking bread to the poor when she met her husband, who was out hunting, in the forest. Members of his hunting party suspected that Elizabeth was stealing--but, when she was asked to open her cloak to reveal what she had concealed, a miracle occurred. When she revealed what she was hiding, the bread had been transformed into red and white roses.

There are several devotional biographies of Elizabeth of Hungary. Perhaps the best is Lori Pieper's The Greatest of These Is Love: The Life of St. Elizabeth of Hungary. For a more scholarly account, Kenneth Baxter Wolf's The Life and Afterlife of St. Elizabeth of Hungary: Testimony of Her Canonization Hearings offers primary texts for a view of the politics of becoming a saint and for the testimony of ordinary people who found inspiration in her life.

The Miracle of the Roses,
nineteenth-century stained glass,
St. Patrick's Basilica, Ottawa**

*A tertiary or third-order Franciscan is someone who, for a variety of reasons, may not take formal vows to join the religious order but who, as a lay person, lives outside the convent according to the ways of life of those who live inside.

**Many thanks to an anonymous poster (see below) for a correction on the name of the church. I've added a link to the source for the image as well.

Agnes of Bohemia, a Pious Princess Gets Her Way

Agnes of Bohemia (died 2 March 1282)

Born in 1211 in Prague, Agnes was the youngest daughter of Ottokar, the king of Bohemia, and Constance of Hungary--making Agnes a descendant of Saint Ludmila of Bohemia (c. 860-921) and a first cousin of St. Elizabeth of Hungary (1207-1231). As a child, she was educated in a convent founded by her aunt, yet another woman destined to become a saint, St. Hedwig of Silesia (1174-1273).

It should not be surprising, then, that although politically important marriages were planned for her, Agnes resisted. She had another kind of life in mind for herself. After early plans to marry her, first, to the son of the Holy Roman Emperor and, then, to the king of England, fell through, a third marriage was suggested for her, in 1231. 

At this point, Agnes appealed to the pope, Gregory IX, asking for his help. Here is one account of his response: 

And in order that she might more surely persevere in her resolution, which she conceived through God's inspiration, putting her hand to strong things, through trustworthy and discreet messengers, she made known her intention to the noble vicar of Christ, the Lord Pope Gregory IX. This felicitous pope rejoiced at the most generous devotion of the virgin, encouraged her by his gracious letter which he sent back by the same messengers, commended and confirmed her holy resolution, and with many spiritual gifts invited her to be his adopted daughter and accorded her his devoted paternal affection all the rest of his days.

The daughter of Christ was filled with spiritual consolation by these things that she received by way of reply from the High Pontiff. . . . 

Inspired by the model of Francis of Assisi and of his associate and disciple, Clare of Assisi, Agnes founded the Hospital of St. Francis. With the assistance of Clare, who sent five nuns to Prague, Agnes established a convent for a community of Poor Clares.

Agnes entered the Monastery of the Most Holy Redeemer on 11 June 1234, when she was twenty-three years old, serving as its first abbess. She found herself in conflict with the pope who had earlier helped her dedicate herself to a religious life--Gregory IX endowed her establishment with revenues that Agnes felt violated the Franciscan ideal of absolute poverty. She eventually prevailed.

Agnes's letters to Clare of Assisi and to Pope Gregory IX do not survive, but their letters to her do, allowing us insight into this remarkable woman. To read the letters to Agnes, click here.

The convent founded by St. Agnes in 1231,
the "oldest Gothic building in Prague,"
now the National Gallery

Although Agnes's cousin, Elizabeth of Hungary, was canonized in 1235, just four years after her death, Agnes of Bohemia had to wait a bit longer. She was beatified some six hundred years after her death, in 1854, by Pope Pius IX. She was finally canonized, becoming Saint Agnes, in 1989, by Pope John Paul II. 

For Walter Seton's edition of a medieval life of St. Agnes, click here. The texts are in Latin and German, which you may not read, but this volume is still worth checking out for its great introduction, which includes a long biographical section. 

You might also enjoy Joan Mueller's The Privilege of Poverty: Clare of Assisi, Agnes of Prague, and the Struggle for a Franciscan Rule for Women. Mueller has also published an edition of Clare's letters to Agnes, Clare of Assisi: The Letters to Agnes--each letter is introduced and followed by a discussion of its context and an analysis of its "contemporary relevance."