Poor Ladies, Sisters of St. Clare - The Second Order of St. Francis.

Beginnings at San Damiano

In the great Franciscan movement of the thirteenth century an important part was played by this order of religious women, which had its beginning in the convent of San Damiano, Assisi. When St. Clare in 1212, following the advice of St. Francis, withdrew to San Damiano, she was soon surrounded by a number of ladies attracted by the holiness of her life. Among the first to join her were several immediate relatives, including her sister Agnes, her mother, aunt, and niece. Thus was formed the nucleus of the new order. Here St. Clare became the counsellor of St. Francis and after his death remained the supreme exponent of the Franciscan ideal of poverty.

Rule of Ugolino

In 1217 an event occurred which proved to be of first importance in the development of the new community. In that year Ugolino, Cardinal-Bishop of Ostia, was sent to Tuscany as Apostolic delegate; he formed a warm attachment for St. Francis, and soon became the confidant and adviser of the seraphic doctor in all things relating to the second Order. Concerning the manner of life of the religious who gathered in various places imitating the example of the community at San Damiano we have only the account given by Jacques de Vitry in 1216 and the letters of Ugolino to Honorius III in 1218. The former speaks of women who dwell in hospices in community life and support themselves by their own labour.

Ugolino writes that many women have renounced the world and desired to establish monasteries where they would live in total poverty with no possessions except their houses. For this purpose estates were often donated, but the administration of these presented difficulties. The pope decided that Ugolino should accept these estates in the name of the Church and that the houses established thereon should be immediately subject to the pope. About 1219 Ugolino drew up a rule for these groups of women, taking the Rule of St. Benedict as a ground work, with severe regulations having, however, no distinctively Franciscan element in them. His first foundation was the monastery of Monticello near Florence (1219). This rule was soon adopted by the monasteries at Perugia, Siena, Gattajola, and elsewhere.

There is no evidence that it was ever accepted at San Damiano. It is noteworthy that it does not raise the question of the ownership of property by the various monasteries. This was a point on which St. Francis and Ugolino did not agree. The subsequent modifications which this rule underwent at the hands of Innocent IV in 1247, and of Urban IV in 1263, resulted in the triumph of Ugolino's view, while St. Francis's ideal of utter poverty found expression in a definitive rule, the confirmation of which St. Clare secured in 1253. The opening words of Ugolino's Rule, �Regulam beatissimi Benedicti vobis tradimus observandam�, have been taken to indicate that the Poor Clares were an offshoot of the Benedictines. This conclusion, however, is unwarranted. The Lateran Council, a few years earlier, had decreed that new orders should adopt a rule already approved. The new order was not bound to the observance of the older rule, except in regard to the three customary vows. This was Ugolino's intention in drawing up the rule, and it is confirmed by a letter of Innocent IV to Agnes of Bohemia, in which he explains the meaning of the words in question (Sbarales, I, p. 315).

After the death of St. Francis (1226) and the elevation of Ugolino to the papal chair as Gregory IX (1227), certain changes were introduced in the practical direction of conventual life. The pope offered to bestow possessions on the convent of San Damiano over which St. Clare presided. She firmly refused the offer and petitioned to be permitted to continue in the spirit of St. Francis. In response to this request, Gregory granted her (17 September, 1228) the �privilege of most high poverty�, namely,� ut recipere possessiones a nullo compelli possitis�. The convents of Perugia and Florence followed the example of San Damiano. Other convents, however, gladly availed themselves of the possessions which the pope offered them, �propter eventus temporum et pericula s?culorum�. Thus were laid the foundation of the two observances which obtain among the daughters of St. Clare.