The First Franciscan Woman: Clare of Assisi and Her Form of Life

Theological Studies, Dec, 1994 by Michael W. Blastic

Clare of Assisi. By Marco Bartoli. Translated from the Italian by Frances Teresa, O.S.A. Quincy, Ill.: Franciscan Press, 1993. Pp. xii 244. $21.95.

The First Franciscan Woman: Clare of Assisi and Her Form of Life. By Margaret Carney, O.S.F. Quincy, Ill.: Franciscan Press, 1993. Pp. 261. $12.95.

Clare of Assisi: A Biographical Study. By Ingrid J. Peterson, O.S.F. Quincy, Ill.: Franciscan Press, 1993. Pp. xxii 436. $20.95.

The appearance of these three works during the year celebrating the eighth centenary of the birth of Clare of Assisi (August 11, 1193) witnesses to the rather recent yet remarkable interest of scholars with this creative and original medieval woman, overshadowed for too long in both the Franciscan and scholarly worlds by the imposing figure of Francis of Assisi.

Bartoli attempts to reconstruct an historical biography of Clare in order to correct romantic portraits of this saint, as well as histories which portray Clare as a weak shadow of her mentor, Francis. B.'s own expertise with the ecclesial and social history of the period provides a rich background to Clare's position both in Assisi and in the Church of her day.

He presents Clare's conversion as a clear break with her past which signaled the "beginning of a completely different life" (38), then proceeds to detail the consequences of her choice to live at San Damiano. In subsequent chapters, B. investigates the implications of her choice of poverty, her understanding of the monastic enclosure, the theology which emerges from her life and writings, as well as her relation to and impact upon Assisi and the larger ecclesial world. B.'s treatment of Clare's experience of enclosure as an experience of active fruitfulness underlines Clare's creativity in contrast to traditional approaches with which she had to contend.

Despite its positive contributions, two weaknesses in B.'s approach should be noted. First, even though this work appeared in Italian in 1989, he demonstrates no familiarity with insights of contemporary feminist research into the religious experience of medieval women. Second, in suggesting that Clare grew to become an alter Franciscus (132), Bartoli betrays a prejudice operative throughout the book that undermines Clare's position as foundress and creator of a new form of life for women, as she is constantly being compared to Francis as the standard for the charism.

Carney's study focuses on the development of Clare's form of life, or her Rule for the Poor Ladies. Beginning with a critical examination of the sources (writings, legends, chronicles, etc.) which treat of the relationship between Francis and Clare and the movement which grew around them, C. points to Clare's originality and responsibility for the unfolding of the Franciscan charism in the first decades of its existence. C. then turns her attention to the actual genesis of Clare's Rule. The methodology she uses to study the central issues of poverty, mutual charity, and governance is described as a "triptych" (99) wherein the text of Clare's Rule holds center place. On one side, the text is juxtaposed to the social, canonical, and ecclesial experience of medieval religious women; on the other side, the experience of the Friars Minor and their ongoing history provides the other piece of the picture. C. shows, e.g., how Clare's choice of poverty was made both in response to the legal situation of women with regard to ownership and inheritance and in response to the internal struggle of the friars themselves with the legal implication of both use and ownership of material goods. C. suggests links between the approach of friar-theologian Hugh of Digne from Provence in his 1241 commentary on the Rule of Francis and Clare's treatment of "most high poverty" in her Rule. The picture of Clare which emerges is one of active communication and engagement with common issues, rather than of cloistered aloofness and naive idealism.

Thus Clare's Rule witnesses to the one founding charism of the Franciscan movement--not merely as the feminine expression of Francis's charism, but as the Franciscan charism for which both Clare and Francis were responsible. As such, C. argues, the text of Clare's Rule deserves attention as a "primary source of general Franciscan spirituality" (97), and not simply as a text for Franciscan cloistered nuns.

The major contribution of Peterson's biographical study of Clare lies in her successful attempt to place Clare within the religious women's movements of her day. Peterson removes Clare from the shadow of

Francis by asking from the outset whether in fact Clare imitated Francis, or "could it not have been the other way around, that Francis formed a spiritual brotherhood in imitation of the noble ladies of Favorone's house?" (5).

In Part 1, Peterson relies on the acts of Clare's canonization process to show that Clare lived a penitential life with the ladies of her household even before Francis arrived on the scene. These noble women formed a religious circle in the home similar to that of the beguines in northern Europe. When Clare left her paternal home to join Francis and his brothers at the Portiuncula on Palm Sunday in 1212, she was already leading a religious life. Thus P. suggest that it was Francis who saw in Clare something of the gospel life he wanted to renew in the Church.