Saint Clare of Assisi is the first woman to have followed Saint Francis of Assisi on the path of Gospel poverty, and the foundress of the Order of Poor Ladies — the nuns posterity would call the Poor Clares. Born in 1194 into the high nobility of Assisi, she left everything at seventeen, on the night of Palm Sunday 1212, to consecrate herself to Christ in the hands of Francis.[1][2]
Enclosed for more than forty years in the monastery of San Damiano, Clare led there a life of prayer, penance and service, never leaving her cloister. Her great struggle was not outward but juridical: to obtain and defend the "privilege of poverty" (Privilegium paupertatis), the right for her monastery to own nothing, neither individually nor in common. This demand, unprecedented for a women's community, led her to write her own Rule — the first in the history of the Church written by a woman — approved by the pope two days before her death.[3][4]
Franciscan tradition reports that her last words, on the morning of 11 August 1253, were an act of thanksgiving for the very gift of existence[5].
This article traces Clare's life — the noble convert, the Palm Sunday fugitive, the foundress, the abbess — then her spirituality (poverty as espousal to the poor Christ, the "mirror" of the Crucified, the Eucharist, spiritual friendship with Agnes of Prague), her miracles (the Saracens repelled by the Blessed Sacrament, the deliverance of Assisi), and finally her death, canonization and posterity. It does not retell the full history of the Order of Poor Clares nor that of the sanctuary of Assisi, which have their own articles.
A noblewoman of Assisi seized by the Gospel (1194-1212)
Birth and family: the Offreduccio of Assisi
Clare — in Italian Chiara — was born on 16 July 1194 in Assisi, into one of the city's great noble families, the Offreduccio.[6][7] Her father, Favarone di Offreduccio degli Scifi, was a knight; her mother, Ortolana, a woman of deep piety, who would herself enter San Damiano after her widowhood and end her days in the habit chosen by her daughter.[8] Clare grew up in an aristocratic house adjoining Piazza San Rufino, near Assisi cathedral, in the world of the maiores, the city's powerful.
Clare's childhood was marked by the civil war tearing Assisi apart at the turn of the thirteenth century: the minores (the common people) rose up against the maiores (the nobility), and Clare's family had to take refuge for a time in Perugia.[9] It was in this world of urban violence and contested wealth that a vocation wholly turned toward voluntary poverty would take root.
Ortolana, the vision of light and the name "Clare"
Hagiographical tradition — gathered in the canonization process of 1253 — reports that before the child's birth, Ortolana, at prayer before a crucifix, heard that she would bring into the world a light that would illuminate the world. Hence the name Chiara, "the bright one," "the luminous one."[10][11] The Latin play on words between Clara (luminous) and Clare's holiness would become a motif that Pope Alexander IV would exploit magnificently in the bull of canonization.
The bull develops the Latin play on clara: a Clare hidden from the eyes of the world, yet revealed to all by her holiness, whose renown proclaims her glory[12].
Raised in devotion, Clare distinguished herself very early by prayer, fasting and almsgiving: she set aside part of her food for the poor, refused the advantageous marriage prepared for her, and kept her heart turned toward a still shapeless consecration.[13]
Meeting Francis and the call to leave everything
Around 1210-1211, the preaching of a young man of Assisi shook the city: Francis, son of the rich cloth merchant Bernardone, had left everything to marry "Lady Poverty." Clare heard him preach, no doubt at the church of San Giorgio or at the cathedral, and obtained secret meetings with him.[14][15] Francis became for her far more than a preacher: a spiritual master and a brotherly friend, in a holy friendship that remains one of the summits of the history of Christian spirituality.
Benedict XVI stressed the reciprocity of this friendship: Francis as a model for Clare, Clare as an encouragement for Francis, united in a single love of Christ that moved them to sustain one another[16].
Clare understood that her place was not in the Offreduccio palace but in the poverty of Christ. It remained to take the step — a step her family, jealous of its rank, would not tolerate.
The night of Palm Sunday 1212: flight and consecration
On Palm Sunday 1212 (in the night of 18 to 19 March by the traditional dating), Clare, then seventeen, attended Mass in festive dress, then secretly fled her father's house.[17][18] By night she reached the little chapel of the Portiuncula (Santa Maria degli Angeli), in the plain below Assisi, where Francis and his brothers awaited her by torchlight.
There, Francis cut off her hair, the sign of total renunciation of the world, clothed her in a rough penitential tunic girded with a cord, and received her vows.[19][20] The young noblewoman thus became the first woman to embrace the Franciscan forma vitae. To shelter her from her family, Francis first entrusted her to the Benedictines of San Paolo delle Abbadesse near Bastia, then to Sant'Angelo di Panzo, on the slopes of Mount Subasio.
Her family tried by force to bring her back home. According to the accounts, Clare clung to the altar, uncovered her shorn head and opposed her relatives with unshakable resolve.[21] A few days later, her young sister Agnes joined her, followed over the years by other women — and even, after her widowhood, by their mother Ortolana.
San Damiano: birth of the Order of Poor Ladies
The refuge of San Damiano
Francis soon settled Clare and her companions at San Damiano, the little ruined church outside the walls of Assisi which he himself had restored with his own hands, and where the crucifix had spoken to him: "Francis, go and repair my house" — the famous cross of San Damiano.[22] This modest place would become the cradle of an order and the heart of Clare's whole life: she would not leave it again for more than forty years.
The community lived by manual labour and alms, in absolute poverty, without property or income. Clare practised a heroic asceticism there — prolonged fasts, the bare ground for a bed, long vigils — yet never imposed it harshly on her sisters: she herself served the sick, washed the feet of the lay sisters, and cared for the weakest.[23]
Abbess despite herself (circa 1216)
Around 1216, at Francis's insistence, Clare accepted — against her desire for self-effacement — the title and charge of abbess of San Damiano, which she would exercise until her death.[24][25] But she intended to govern not as a domineering superior but as a servant: the last in esteem, the first in humility. This conception of authority as service, directly evangelical, permeates her entire Form of Life.
The "Poor Ladies": a Franciscan monasticism for women
The community of San Damiano took the name of Poor Ladies (Pauperes Dominae) or "Order of San Damiano." It was not a mere female branch of the Friars Minor: it was a cloistered contemplative life, yet animated by the same ideal of radical poverty as Francis. The sisters did not beg along the roads like the brothers; they lived poverty within the cloister, through work, destitution and total dependence on Providence.
Very soon the ideal radiated beyond Assisi: monasteries claiming Clare's spirit spread through Italy, then Europe — as far as Prague, where Princess Agnes of Bohemia founded a monastery and entered into correspondence with Clare. This was the embryo of what would become the Order of Poor Clares.
The great struggle: the "privilege of poverty"
What is the Privilegium paupertatis?
In the Middle Ages, canon law required a monastery to hold property (lands, revenues) to ensure the subsistence of its cloistered nuns, who could neither work outside nor beg. Clare wanted the opposite: that her monastery should have the right to own nothing, neither individually nor in common, living solely by the work of hands and charity.[26] This "privilege of poverty" was an extraordinary exception to the common law — a privilege not of wealth but of destitution.
According to tradition, to those who wished to release her from her vow of absolute poverty, Clare is said to have answered that she accepted absolution for her sins, but not to be dispensed from following Christ[27].
From Innocent III to Gregory IX: a privilege wrested and confirmed
Franciscan tradition reports that Clare obtained a first privilege of poverty from Pope Innocent III himself, around 1216 — an unprecedented favour that must have required all her tenacity.[28][29] Later, Pope Gregory IX — the former Cardinal Hugolino, protector of the order and friend of Clare — tried to persuade her to accept possessions for her sisters' security. Clare firmly refused; Gregory IX ended by confirming her privilege with the bull Sicut manifestum est (17 September 1228).[30][31]
According to the accounts, Gregory IX offered to dispense Clare from her vow if it troubled her, and Clare refused any dispensation that would distance her from following Christ[32].
The battle of the rules
Clare had to defend her poverty not only against the well-meaning popes but against the rules successively imposed on her order, all of which softened her ideal. The table below summarizes this long battle of texts, which ended only on Clare's deathbed.
| Rule / text | Author | Date of approval | What it brought |
|---|---|---|---|
| Brief forma vitae | Saint Francis | circa 1212-1213 | A few founding words: to live according to the perfection of the Gospel, in most high poverty |
| "Hugolinian" Rule | Card. Hugolino (future Gregory IX) | confirmed by Honorius III, bull Sacrosancta, 1219 | Discipline modelled on the Rule of Saint Benedict; did not impose absolute poverty |
| Rule of Innocent IV | Pope Innocent IV | 1247 | Linked the order to the Friars Minor; allowed possessions in common |
| Form of Life of Clare | Saint Clare | bull Solet annuere of Innocent IV, 9 August 1253 | Enshrined absolute poverty; the first rule written by a woman |
The first woman to write a monastic rule
Dissatisfied with the texts she received, Clare composed her own Form of Life, which faithfully took up the forma vitae given by Francis and placed the most high poverty at the heart of the Rule. Pope Innocent IV approved it with the bull Solet annuere on 9 August 1253, only two days before Clare's death.[33] Tradition reports that the dying nun was able to press to her lips the sealed parchment bringing the long-awaited approval. Clare is thus the first woman in the history of the Church to have written a religious rule approved by the Holy See.[34][35]
Her Writings thus celebrate poverty as the source of eternal riches for whoever loves and embraces it[36].
Blessed is poverty which, loved and embraced for the love of Christ, gives eternal riches. — Saint Clare, Writings (paraphrase)[37]
Clare's spirituality: the mirror of the poor Christ
Contemplating Christ: the pedagogy of the mirror
The heart of Clare's mysticism is not action but contemplation. Her whole life is a fixing of her gaze upon Christ, and particularly upon the poor and crucified Christ. In her famous fourth letter to Agnes of Prague, she develops the image of the mirror: Christ is the spotless mirror in which the spouse must look at herself each day in order to conform herself to him.[38][39]
There she invites Agnes to look each day into this mirror and to contemplate her face in it: a mirror, she writes, in which shine forth blessed poverty, holy humility and ineffable charity[40].
Look each day upon this spotless mirror — Christ poor, humble and full of love — and let yourself be transformed into him. — Saint Clare, Fourth Letter to Agnes of Prague (paraphrase)[41]
This spiritual pedagogy is of great depth: we become what we contemplate. By dint of gazing at the poor, humble and loving Christ, the soul lets itself be transformed into him.
Poverty as espousal to the poor Christ
For Clare, poverty is never a mere material privation: it is a love story, a marriage to a Spouse who made himself poor. To renounce all possession is to make oneself like the Christ of the manger and of the cross, who had nowhere to lay his head. This joyful poverty, chosen out of love, explains her intransigence in the struggle for the Privilegium paupertatis: to yield on poverty would have meant, for her, ceasing to espouse the poor Christ.
Spiritual friendship with Agnes of Prague
One of the treasures Clare left behind is her correspondence with Agnes of Bohemia (Agnes of Prague), daughter of King Ottokar I, who renounced an imperial marriage to found a monastery of Poor Ladies in Prague.[42][43] The four letters Clare addressed to her (between 1234 and 1253) are masterpieces of nuptial spirituality, in which she encourages her to remain faithful to the poverty of Christ the Spouse.
There she speaks of the happiness of the one to whom it is given to attach herself with her whole heart to Christ the Spouse, whose beauty amazes the hosts of heaven[44].
Eucharist and Real Presence
Clare's faith in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist is extraordinary: tradition attributes two deliverances to her — that of her monastery by the showing of the Blessed Sacrament before the Saracens (1240), and that of Assisi by prayer and penance during the siege of 1241 (see below).[45] Her monastery lived in intense Eucharistic devotion; Clare herself, already ill, had the ciborium carried to her monastery's gate to make a stand, not with weapons but with the presence of Christ.
Miracles and the defence of Assisi
The Saracens repelled by the Blessed Sacrament (1240)
In September 1240, troops of Saracen mercenaries in the service of Emperor Frederick II, ravaging the Spoleto valley, scaled the walls of San Damiano to pillage the monastery.[46][47] Clare, gravely ill, had herself carried to meet the threat, holding in her hands the ciborium containing the Blessed Sacrament, and prostrated herself, begging the Lord to protect her daughters.
According to the account, Clare implored the Lord himself to protect the sisters she could not defend, and a voice answered her that her servants would always be kept[48].
The assailants, seized with sudden terror, climbed back down the walls and fled. It is this scene — Clare brandishing the monstrance before the invaders — that would become her most famous iconographical attribute.
The deliverance of Assisi (1241)
The following year, in June 1241, the general Vitale d'Aversa, at the head of an imperial army, laid siege to Assisi. Clare gathered her sisters, had them strew ashes on their heads, and spent the night in prayer. In the morning, a violent storm scattered the assailants' tents and the siege was lifted.[49][50] The city would attribute its deliverance to the prayers of the saintly recluse of San Damiano.
The Christmas Mass "at a distance": patroness of television
One Christmas night, near the end of her life, Clare, confined to bed by illness and unable to attend the office, saw and heard the Mass celebrated in the basilica of Saint Francis as if she were present there, upon the wall of her cell.[51] Nearly seven centuries later, Pope Pius XII relied precisely on this account to proclaim Clare heavenly patroness of television — the very technique that likewise makes it possible "to see and hear at a distance."[52]
Death, canonization and posterity
Death (11 August 1253): thanksgiving for existence
Weakened by nearly thirty years of illness borne without complaint, Clare died on 11 August 1253, two days after the approval of her Rule, surrounded by her sisters and Francis's first companions. Her last words, according to Franciscan tradition, were an act of thanksgiving for the very gift of existence[53].
I give you thanks, Lord, for the gift of my existence. — Last words attributed to Saint Clare, handed down by Franciscan tradition (paraphrase)[54]
Pope Innocent IV, who was then in Assisi, came in person to attend her funeral.
The lightning canonization (1255) and the bull Clara claris praeclara
As early as 18 October 1253, Innocent IV ordered the opening of the canonization process (bull Gloriosus Deus), entrusted to the bishop of Spoleto.[55] The depositions of the sisters and of the inhabitants of Assisi — the precious canonization process of Saint Clare — were gathered within days, so unanimous was her reputation for holiness. Barely two years after her death, on 26 September 1255, at Anagni, Pope Alexander IV proclaimed her a saint with the bull Clara claris praeclara, whose play on "light" (clara) runs through the whole text.[56]
Relics, the Basilica of Saint Clare and the Poor Clare heritage
In 1260, Clare's body was transferred to the new Basilica of Saint Clare in Assisi, built to house it, and laid beneath the high altar. Forgotten over the centuries, it was rediscovered in 1850 and placed in the basilica's crypt, where it is still venerated.[57] The cross that had spoken to Francis at San Damiano was likewise transferred to the Basilica of Saint Clare, where the cross of San Damiano is kept.
Clare's legacy infinitely exceeds her monastery's walls. The Order of Poor Clares she founded is today present on every continent and remains one of the great female contemplative orders of the Church. Saint Clare remains, eight centuries after her Palm Sunday flight, the radiant figure of a freedom conquered through stripping: she who, possessing nothing, possessed Christ.
Benedict XVI saw in the saints, including Clare and Francis, those who change the world for the better and remain its great benefactors[58].
To go further
- Primary sources: the writings of Saint Clare — the Four Letters to Agnes of Prague, the Form of Life (Rule), the Testament and the Blessing (ed. Sources Chrétiennes, vol. 325, Claire d'Assise. Écrits); the Canonization Process of Saint Clare (1253); the bull of canonization Clara claris praeclara of Alexander IV (1255).
- Magisterium: Benedict XVI, General Audience of 15 September 2010 (catechesis on Saint Clare of Assisi), vatican.va; Pius XII, apostolic letter proclaiming Saint Clare heavenly patroness of television (1958).
- Studies and notices: Catholic Encyclopedia, art. "St. Clare of Assisi" (New Advent); Vatican and École franciscaine de Paris notices; Encyclopædia Britannica, art. "Saint Clare of Assisi".
- Related articles on Ignispedia: Saint Francis of Assisi, Clare's master and friend; the Poor Clares, the order she founded; the sanctuary of Assisi; the cross of San Damiano that spoke to Francis; the popes Innocent III, Honorius III, Gregory IX, Innocent IV and Alexander IV, actors in the history of her order and canonization.
Notes and References
Benedict XVI, General Audience of 15 September 2010, vatican.va: catechesis on Saint Clare of Assisi — birth into a noble family, flight to the Portiuncula on Palm Sunday 1212, tonsure by Francis, more than forty years of life at San Damiano, death in 1253 and canonization by Alexander IV in 1255; spiritual friendship between Francis and Clare; the Privilegium paupertatis as an extraordinary exception to canon law; the theme of the "mirror" of Christ (4th letter to Agnes); Clare's Eucharistic faith (showing of the Sacrament before the Saracens in 1240, deliverance of Assisi through prayer in 1241); the saints as benefactors of humanity. Ideas paraphrased in the body, no guaranteed verbatim.
1 4 14 16 17 20 23 26 31 39 42 45 47 58Catholic Encyclopedia, art. "St. Clare of Assisi," New Advent (newadvent.org/cathen/04004a.htm): reference notice on the birth on 16 July 1194 in Assisi, the family (father Favarone/Favorino degli Scifi, mother Ortolana), the flight on Palm Sunday 1212 and the consecration at the Portiuncula ("cut off her hair, clothed her in a rough tunic"), the stays at San Paolo and Sant'Angelo di Panzo, the settlement at San Damiano, the abbacy from 1216 for nearly forty years, the Privilegium paupertatis, the confirmation of the Rule by Solet annuere (9 August 1253), death on 11 August 1253, canonization by Alexander IV (1255), translation of the relics (1260) and their rediscovery in 1850.
2 6 8 13 15 19 22 24 57Innocent IV, bull Solet annuere, 9 August 1253, addressed to the sisters of San Damiano: approval of the Form of Life (Rule) composed by Saint Clare, enshrining absolute poverty. Promulgated two days before Clare's death (11 August 1253). Clare is thus the first woman to have written a monastic rule approved by the Holy See. Text preserved in the archives of the Protomonastero Santa Chiara in Assisi.
3 33 34Last words attributed to Saint Clare, 11 August 1253: an act of thanksgiving for the gift of existence, reported by Franciscan biographies and the Legend of Saint Clare (wording paraphrased in the body, no guaranteed verbatim); cf. Franciscan notices and Vatican News (saint of the day, 11 August).
5 53 54"Clare of Assisi," French Wikipedia: details on the birth on 16 July 1194, the Offreduccio family, the family's exile in Perugia during Assisi's civil war, the vision of light and the origin of the name Chiara, the flight on Palm Sunday night (night of 18 to 19 March 1212), Clare's resistance to her family (uncovered shorn head), the arrival of her sister Agnes, the siege of Assisi lifted in 1241, death on 11 August 1253 and canonization on 26 September 1255 (bull Clara claris praeclara, Alexander IV, Anagni).
7 9 10 18 21 25 28 35 50Alexander IV, bull of canonization Clara claris praeclara, Anagni, 26 September 1255: proclamation of Clare's holiness, who died on 11 August 1253, two years after her death; the text develops the Latin play on clara ("luminous"/"illustrious") and links to Clare's birth the prophecy of light made to her mother Ortolana. Wordplay mentioned by Benedict XVI (audience of 15 September 2010, ideas paraphrased in the body).
11 12 56Privilege of poverty (Privilegium paupertatis): the right, exceptional in canon law, to own no property either individually or in common. Franciscan tradition attributes a first privilege granted to Clare by Innocent III (circa 1216); it was later confirmed by Gregory IX (the former Cardinal Hugolino) with the bull Sicut manifestum est of 17 September 1228. Cf. Catholic Encyclopedia, art. cited, and Benedict XVI, audience of 15 September 2010. Clare's refusal of any dispensation that would distance her from following Christ is reported by hagiographical tradition (ideas paraphrased in the body, no guaranteed verbatim).
27 29 30 32Saint Clare of Assisi, Writings (the Form of Life, the Testament and the letters, composed before 1253): the Rule written by Clare and approved by Solet annuere takes up the forma vitae given by Francis and places "most high poverty" at the heart of the Poor Ladies' life. The praise of poverty, source of eternal riches for whoever loves and embraces it, expresses Clare's central ideal (idea paraphrased in the body). French ed.: Claire d'Assise. Écrits, Sources Chrétiennes, vol. 325.
36 37Saint Clare of Assisi, Fourth Letter to Agnes of Prague: development of the image of the mirror — Christ is the spotless mirror in which the spouse must contemplate her own face each day in order to conform herself to him (the poverty, humility and charity of Christ to contemplate). Idea paraphrased in the body, no guaranteed verbatim; ed. Sources Chrétiennes, vol. 325. Mentioned by Benedict XVI (audience of 15 September 2010).
38 40 41Letters of Saint Clare to Agnes of Prague (four letters, c. 1234-1253), cf. ed. of the Capuchin Friars Minor and École franciscaine de Paris: spiritual correspondence between Clare and Agnes of Bohemia, daughter of King Ottokar I, who renounced an imperial marriage to found a monastery of Poor Ladies in Prague. Nuptial language (Christ as Spouse) and constant call to fidelity to poverty. Images paraphrased in the body (happiness of attaching oneself to Christ the Spouse, beauty that amazes heaven).
43 44Miracle of the Saracens at San Damiano (September 1240): Saracen mercenaries in the service of Emperor Frederick II, ravaging the Spoleto valley, scaled the monastery walls. Clare, ill, had herself carried with the ciborium (Blessed Sacrament) and obtained the flight of the assailants through her prayer. Reported in the Canonization Process and the Legend of Saint Clare; Benedict XVI sees in it a fruit of Clare's Eucharistic faith (audience of 15 September 2010, ideas paraphrased). This episode — and it alone, not the 1241 siege lifted through prayer — is the origin of Clare's iconographical attribute, the monstrance.
46 48Siege of Assisi and deliverance (June 1241): the imperial general Vitale d'Aversa besieged Assisi; Clare and her sisters spent the night in prayer and penance (ashes on their heads); in the morning, a storm dispersed the army and the siege was lifted. Cf. French Wikipedia ("Claire d'Assise"), Canonization Process and Legend of Saint Clare.
49Pius XII, apostolic letter proclaiming Saint Clare heavenly patroness of television (1958, document published 21 August 1958). Reason given: one Christmas night, Clare, ill and confined to her cell at San Damiano, is said to have seen and heard, as if present there, the Mass and chants celebrated in the Franciscan church — a symbolic prefiguration of television, which makes it possible "to see and hear at a distance." The proclamation date is sometimes given as 14 February 1958.
51 52Innocent IV, bull Gloriosus Deus, 18 October 1253: order opening Clare's canonization process, entrusted to the bishop of Spoleto. The process, conducted from November 1253 (depositions of the San Damiano sisters and inhabitants of Assisi), constitutes the Canonization Process of Saint Clare, a first-rate biographical source. The canonization would be pronounced by Innocent IV's successor, Alexander IV, in 1255.
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