Clare of Assisi and the Thirteenth-Century Church: Religious Women, Rules, and Resistance

Catherine M. Mooney challenges the conventional narrative of Clare of Assisi's founding of the Order of San Damiano, suggesting that Clare and her sisters fought against a papal program that aimed to regiment, enrich, and enclose religious women. Mooney reveals how Clare established a single community that was later coerced into joining an order founded by the papacy, and how her relationships with the Franciscans grew fraught after Francis's death. She also overturns the myth that Clare was the sole author of a rule she had written collaboratively with others. The story of Clare and her sisters is a chapter in the long history of women who tried to define their religious identities within a Church more committed to unity and conformity than to diversity and difference.

\n Format: Paperback / softback
\n Length: 312 pages
\n Publication date: 06 September 2021
\n Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
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In her groundbreaking work, Catherine M. Mooney challenges the conventional narrative surrounding Clare of Assisi's founding of the Order of San Damiano, or Poor Clares. Through a meticulous analysis of previously unexplored sources, Mooney presents a stark counternarrative that reveals the struggles and challenges faced by Clare, her sisters, and their allies against a papal program aimed at regimenting, enriching, and enclosing religious women in the thirteenth century. This program proved largely successful, leading to the establishment of a single community that was eventually coerced into joining an order previously founded by the papacy.

Mooney artfully renames this order after Clare's San Damiano, with Clare as its putative mother, and associates it with Francis of Assisi, further enhancing its cachet. She meticulously traces how Clare and her allies in other houses attempted to follow Francis's directives rather than the pope's, engaging in acts of defiance such as divesting themselves of property against the pope's orders and organizing to challenge papal rule.

After Francis's death, the women's relationships with the Franciscans themselves grew similarly fraught. Clare's pursuit of her vision remained unwavering, and at the time of her death, she newly identified her community as the Order of Poor Sisters and allied it unambiguously with Francis and his friars. Mooney also overturns another myth by revealing that Clare was not the sole author of the rule she had written collaboratively with others.

Throughout her work, the story of Clare and her sisters emerges as a chapter in the long history of women who sought to define their religious identities within a Church more committed to unity and conformity than to diversity and difference. Mooney's meticulous research and compelling storytelling shed new light on the complexities and challenges faced by these women as they navigated the religious landscape of their time.

\n Weight: 482g\n
Dimension: 152 x 230 x 23 (mm)\n
ISBN-13: 9780812225075\n \n