Clare

ON ST. CLARE, VIRGIN, THE FIRST DISCIPLE OF ST. FRANCIS,

AT ASSISI IN UMBRIA,

In the year MCCLIII.

PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.

Clare, Virgin, at Assisi in Umbria (S.)

BY THE AUTHOR G. C.

§ I. The ancient cult of the Saint from the Martyrologies and the ecclesiastical Office, eulogies, Acts, and their writers.

This noble leader of innumerable women, who in the Order of Minors under the standard of the seraphic Father have manfully warred against the hidden snares of the demon, This holy Virgin, the deceitful invitations of the world, and the perilous enticements of the flesh, and who today in various parts of the world bravely contend against the same enemies of their souls, shone with so great a fame of sanctity that Pope Alexander IV, on account of her approved integrity of manners and evident miracles, not long after her happy death solemnly enrolled her in the catalogue of the Heavenly ones. Although this apotheosis or canonization abundantly suffices to demonstrate the lawful cult of that holy Virgin, nevertheless after our manner we shall bring forward some announcements of her yearly festival from the Usuardine Additions, which are reviewed in our illustrated Usuard at the day XII of August.

[2] Besides the other manuscript codices there reported, the great Antwerp one briefly has thus on this day: whose feast is recorded in the Usuardine Additions In the city of Assisi, the birthday of blessed Clare the virgin. But the Utrecht, Leyden, Aldenberg, and Danish ones add to this brief announcement the following eulogy: In the city of Assisi, the birthday of the blessed virgin Clare; who, hearing the preaching of blessed Francis and seeing his penance, became his spiritual daughter, and the first mistress of holy poverty. She stood forth as the foundation and glory of the Order of poor ladies, the mirror and lamp of all perfection. But the Florentine codex adds to the eulogy of the same Saint the year of her death thus: In the city of Assisi, the birthday of St. Clare the virgin; who was the first plant of the Order of poor ladies, and who was renowned both in life and in miracles. She passed to the Lord in the year of the Lord MCCLIII.

[3] and in other Martyrologies, Finally, in Greven's edition of Usuard the age of St. Clare, or the time of her life, is expressed in these words: At Assisi, the passing of blessed Clare the virgin, who, when she was eighteen years old, having left the world and the bond of marriage, being consecrated by holy Francis to the immortal spouse Christ, was made the foundation, glory, and rule of the Order of poor ladies, and the mirror of all perfection. At length, forty-two years having been spent in her holy purpose, she rested, shining with many miracles. From these things it follows that St. Clare was born about the year of Christ 1193, and was sixty years old when in the year of Christ 1253 she passed to those above. Further, we here pass over Bellinus of Padua, Molanus, Ferrari, and other more recent editors of Martyrologies, and only transcribe the words of the present Roman Martyrology, which on the day before the Ides of August thus announces the same Saint: At Assisi in Umbria, of St. Clare the virgin, the first plant of the poor women of the Order of Minors, whom, famous in life and miracles, Alexander the fourth enrolled in the number of the holy virgins.

[4] We do not know at what time the solemn Office began to be recited and from time immemorial is solemnly celebrated, in which the yearly festival of St. Clare is celebrated with proper Antiphons, hymns, versicles, Responsories, and nine Lessons. But at least we read that Office in the Roman Breviary which in the year of Christ 1479 Franz Renner of Heilbronn printed at Venice. Then in the year of Christ 1490 the Roman Breviary, together with the same solemn Office of St. Clare, was reprinted by two other printers. Finally, in the year 1522 that Office of St. Clare was augmented with certain hymns and inserted in the Roman Breviary, which again appeared in the same city of Venice through Lucantonio Giunta. Although from this we cannot determine the antiquity of that ecclesiastical Office, nevertheless from the style of the hymns and the arrangement of the Lessons we conjecture that that Office was in use long before the invention of the art of printing. Nay rather, one might suspect that it was composed when Pope Alexander IV in the year of Christ 1256 granted that the feast of St. Clare, recently canonized by him, should be solemnly celebrated under a double rite, as Wadding relates at this year 1256, number 4: for in it all nine Lessons are simply taken from the old Acts, while meanwhile in more recent Breviaries only the three Lessons of the second Nocturn are briefly and elegantly contracted from the Acts of this holy Virgin. For the rest, in the month of October in this threefold Venetian edition of the Roman Breviary the translation of the body of St. Clare is also celebrated with nine proper Lessons, of which we shall treat below. Now let us exhibit to the curious reader one or two eulogies of that same holy Virgin.

[5] After Bartholomew of Pisa, who at the end of the XIV century wrote the Work of the conformities between the life of St. Francis and that of Christ, Bartholomew of Pisa had treated in book 1 of that Work, fruit 8, among us folio 104, of the Order of Friars Minor, he goes on there to the nuns of the same Order in these words: It now remains consequently to show concerning the second Order, namely of the poor Sisters; which Order blessed Francis instituted, converting blessed Clare with others to follow the footsteps of Christ. And concerning that Order, because it does not lie so widely open to me as the first, therefore I shall succinctly disclose some things about it, showing what it is and has been: whence, if any things occur to me in the process of time, I shall set them forth at the end of this work in a separate treatise. Saying and writing some things about that Order, it seems to me that this Order, instituted by blessed Francis in the sixth year from his conversion, may be commended on three grounds; namely, first, for holiness of life and perfection: for this Order had and has in sanctity and perfection most singular ladies and Sisters. For if you seek to know who and what the chief stone of that Order was, although blessed Francis may be called the institutor of the Order, among women it was blessed Clare herself, who among the daughters of Jerusalem is found most worthy and greatest in holiness of life and in merits: whose great or magnificent deeds, if you desire to know them, the following are to be noted. Then he briefly gathers from the older Acts the chief deeds of St. Clare, with which he has mixed some things which we shall afterward discuss.

[6] Jacopo Filippo of Bergamo, who flourished in the XV century in the Order of St. Augustine, and Jacopo of Bergamo adorn her with a eulogy. in the Supplement of the Chronicles at the year of Christ 1225, or book 13 in the Brescia edition among us, page 275, adorns the same Saint with the following eulogy: Clare, a most holy virgin and most worthy of record, greatly instructed in the divine work by the teachings and examples of the divine Francis, was at these times above all held in great esteem at her own city of Assisi for the virtue of her sanctity and grace; and she herself, like an industrious bee, busied herself to bring forth abundant and honey-flowing fruits of virgins in the Lord's field together with the divine Francis her father: moved by whose fame and virtues, the supreme Pontiffs Honorius and Gregory began to aid her with honors and favors according to their power. And when she had lived most holily until the end of her life, Alexander the fourth afterward in the catalogue of the Saints

added her, and commanded that her feast day be celebrated on the day before the Ides of August. Now it is fitting to premise some things concerning the ancient Acts of the same Saint, which we are about to publish after this Preliminary Commentary.

[7] There exist various copies of her Life, Lorenz Surius inserted the Life of St. Clare into his collection at the day XII of August; but he after his manner from time to time changed the style. Nevertheless Henry Sedulius the Minorite in his Seraphic History followed the Surian edition, although he had a manuscript codex at hand, as he himself confesses in his Commentary on the Life of St. Clare, page 551 of the aforesaid Work, in these words: I used an old and faulty parchment manuscript book of our library at Louvain: wherefore it seemed good to follow Surius's text divided into thirty chapters, from which that old copy varies somewhat. Our Bolland carefully collated the Surian edition with a manuscript codex of the Regular Canons at Corsendonk, which is entitled the fourth part of various Legends, and diligently noted the variant readings, which collation we shall afterward use. Similar Acts of that holy Virgin are extant in a manuscript Passional among the Regular Canons of the monastery of Böddeken in the diocese of Paderborn, from which our John Gamans diligently excerpted the readings differing from the Surian edition, and in the year 1641 kindly sent them to our predecessors.

[8] which we shall publish from a manuscript Codex of our Museum, We have preferred to the Surian edition the parchment codex of our Museum, P. Ms. 19, which seems to have been written at the end of the XIV century or the beginning of the XV, although in this and in that a notable discrepancy sometimes occurs: for in our codex the prologue and some miracles are wanting, which we shall easily supply from Surius or from the Corsendonk Codex and the Böddeken Passional, and shall enclose in the text in brackets [ ]. But on the contrary in Surius two prodigies are omitted which are read in our codex, and which in the Acts to be published below, from number 39 to number 45 inclusive, we shall distinguish with these marks ( ). For the rest, variant readings of some moment from the Surian edition or from the Corsendonk codex and the Böddeken Passional we shall note in the margin. Now it remains to inquire who wrote these old Acts.

[9] where this work is attributed to St. Bonaventure, Our aforesaid manuscript codex prefixes this title to the Acts of the said Virgin: Here begins the life of St. Clare the virgin, which the devout doctor Bonaventure composed. Perhaps a like inscription fell into the hands of Brother Valerio of Venice, a Capuchin, who in the year 1610 published the Life of St. Clare at Venice in Italian, where in his preface to the reader he confidently asserts that these Acts of the holy Virgin were written by the seraphic doctor Bonaventure, and there strives to confirm his opinion by certain conjectures. But the good man betrays himself, when in the same Italian preface he affirms that the prologue of those Acts is addressed by St. Bonaventure to Pope Urban IV. Then he utterly overthrows his own opinion, when he translates the Latin prologue of the same Life into the Italian tongue, and there faithfully sets forth in Italian the following words of the Latin prologue: Therefore the kindly God raised up the venerable virgin Clare, and in her kindled a most bright lamp for women; whom you also, O Pope, most blessed father, setting upon a candlestick, that she may give light to all who are in the house, the power of signs compelling it, have enrolled in the catalogue of the Saints. But certainly that Pontiff whom the author of the Acts here addresses is Pope Alexander IV, who by the common testimony of all the old monuments enrolled St. Clare in the catalogue of the Saints. By what appearance of likelihood, then, is this prologue said to be addressed to Pope Urban IV? Nay rather, Brother Valerio of Venice fights with himself: for in the Italian Life of St. Clare, chapter 45, he confesses that that venerable Virgin was placed in the number of the Saints by Pope Alexander IV, while meanwhile he had before asserted that St. Bonaventure in the prologue of the Acts addresses Pope Urban IV. Let him combine these things who can, since we cannot reconcile them.

[10] Besides, in the same Brother Valerio I am forced to find lacking greater fidelity or critical judgment, which opinion Brother Valerio of Venice wrongly embraces, because he corrupted the text of the Latin prologue, or, corrupted by another, used it without discernment to establish his own opinion; since indeed the ancient author of the said prologue, to gain credit for his writing, among other things reports one thing in this manner: I went to the companions of blessed Francis, and to the very college of the virgins of Christ. But this period Brother Valerio thus interprets: I had recourse to the holy companions of MY most blessed father Francis, the most worthy institutor and founder of the aforesaid Orders, and to the sacred college of the virgins of Christ, who lived together with Clare. Why does the Italian translator here add "my," when in the Latin text that word is not read? I judge that he found this possessive word added by another, or himself added it, in order to attribute that work to a Franciscan writer, and so much the more easily to persuade us that it was composed by St. Bonaventure. I indeed confess that our manuscript codex (yet you will remember that in it the prologue of the Acts is wanting) favors the opinion of Brother Valerio, and confidently attributes the Legend of St. Clare to the seraphic doctor; but the antiquity of that codex or the authority of an unknown copyist is not with us so great that on that account we should oppose the learned men whom we shall now enumerate.

[11] Cardinal Baronius in his notes on the Roman Martyrology at this day observes the following concerning the Legend of St. Clare: while several learned men ascribe it to an anonymous contemporary, There are extant her most illustrious Acts of her life in Surius, volume IV, written by the command of Alexander the Fourth, Roman Pontiff, who judged that she should be numbered among the female Saints in the year of the Lord one thousand two hundred and fifty-five, when she had already two years before departed from this life. Concerning her also Antoninus in the third part, title 24, chapter 6, and lately at greater length the Chronicle of the Franciscans and others. No word is here made of St. Bonaventure, whom the most eminent writer would doubtless have named in this place if he had believed that he had committed the Acts of St. Clare to writing. Wadding in the Annals of the Minors at the year of Christ 1212, number 10, more clearly discloses his mind, treating of the ancient Acts of that same Virgin, which, he says, a learned but unknown author narrated in a chaste style in the second year from the holy Virgin's death, by command of Pope Alexander IV, as will be plain to the reader from his preface, which we subjoin. Wadding was followed by Arthur du Monstier in the notes on his Franciscan Martyrology, where at the day XII, at the announcement of St. Clare, §4, he discourses thus concerning her old Acts: Her more illustrious deeds and doings a certain anonymous writer narrated by command of Alexander IV, the aforesaid Pope; which thereafter also Surius, Sedulius, Villegas, Gazet, Haræus, René Benoît, Ribadeneira, Doublet, Binet, and the rest transcribed in the Life of St. Clare the virgin at the XII of August, which Sedulius himself also illustrated with scholia. That Sedulius at the beginning of his scholia in the Seraphic History, page 551, expressly ascribes the ancient Life of St. Clare to an unknown author. To these we could add Fortunatus Hueber in his Franciscan Menology, and other more recent writers who have embraced the same opinion. But from what has been said thus far it is abundantly plain that we should imprudently strive against the torrent if, on account of the title of our codex and the opinion of Brother Valerio of Venice, we were confidently to attribute that work to St. Bonaventure.

[12] from which more recent biographers have abridged similar Acts of the Saint, But whoever at last the writer of the old Acts was, they deserve great credit, since indeed they were diligently and judiciously collected by a contemporary author at the command of Pope Alexander IV, as is plain from the prologue. Therefore the sacred historiographers of later times esteemed this Life of St. Clare so highly that they eagerly inserted it into their writings, or reduced it to a compendium. Thus Peter de Natalibus in his Catalogue of the Saints, which we have printed at Vicenza in the year 1493, book 7, chapter 52, exhibits to us an old synopsis of those Acts. To this Peter de Natalibus, who about the middle of the XIV century collected the Acts of very many Saints, there succeeds next in order of time Bartholomew of Pisa the Minorite, who in book 1 of the Conformities, fruit 8, among us folio 104 and following, arranged the Life of St. Clare by another method, and added to it some things which we shall examine below in the course of the work. Then St. Antoninus in Part 3 of the Chronicles, title 24, chapter 6, transcribed the old Legend of that same holy Virgin almost in its original phrasing. Toward the end of the XV century Hilarion, a Benedictine monk, and Bonino Mombrizio adorned a compendious Life of this Saint in another style, or found it adorned, and inserted it into their hagiologies. Finally, Jacopo Filippo of Bergamo about the same times, in his Work on illustrious women, chapter 147, briefly narrated the chief deeds of St. Clare. Although most of these writings of a later age, or compendia of the Acts, differ somewhat among themselves and from the original author in arrangement and style, nevertheless all seem to have proceeded from the same fount of our old Acts: wherefore it will be enough to publish in print, after this Commentary, those first Acts of a contemporary author: if nevertheless any difference worthy of note shall occur between this ancient monument and the other more recent ones, we shall somewhere advise the curious reader of it.

[13] or have translated them into the vernacular tongue. It is scarcely worth the pains to review those writers who in the two following centuries published the Acts of St. Clare both in Latin and in the vernacular tongue. Yet lest anyone should in this part also miss anything from us in vain, we shall at least briefly indicate those more recent biographers whom we have at hand. First of all, in the Vineyard of St. Francis, which was printed at Antwerp in the year 1518, the Acts of this Virgin are read in Flemish. Then Marcos of Lisbon in the Chronicles of the Minors, part 1, book 8, chapter 1 and thirty-three following, pursued the deeds of St. Clare in an elegant style in Portuguese, and published them from the presses of Lisbon. But Brother Valerio of Venice, a Capuchin, of whom we made mention above, adorned St. Clare and the illustrious nuns of that Order in an Italian work. After these, Francis Hendricq the Minorite wrote the Life of that same holy Virgin in French, and had it printed in the city of Saint-Omer in the year of Christ 1631. Finally, Luke Wadding arranged the same Acts by years, and gathered them both from the old biographer and from more recent ones, as he himself testifies in the Annals of the Minors at the year of Christ 1255, number 7, in these words: These are the things which at various seasons of the years, and likewise from various writers, I had to say concerning that most illustrious Virgin. We have omitted nothing serious from what was observed in Bartholomew of Pisa, Antoninus, Rodulph, Surius, and Sedulius. We shall endeavor in the following paragraphs accurately to discuss those deeds of the Saint in which some difficulty or discrepancy occurs in Wadding.

§ II. Certain matters concerning the true genealogy of the Saint, her Religious profession, the institution of the Order, and the author of the Rule are examined.

This holy Virgin sprang from a noble stock, All the biographers agree that St. Clare, of a knightly

that is, according to the phrase of that time, a noble family, was born. Whence Bartholomew of Pisa, book 1 of the Conformities, among us folio 104 verso, writes thus concerning her lineage: She was born of noble parents; her father and her brothers were knights of the more noble men of the city of Assisi; her mother also, by name Ortolana, was noble by birth, but more noble by holiness of life. Peter de Natalibus, afterward bishop of Equilio, in his catalogue of the Saints, book 7, chapter 52, indicates the same nobility of stock in these words: Clare, a virgin of the Order of poor ladies of St. Damian of the city of Assisi, born of noble parents, from her childhood years being made over to the service of Christ, dedicated her virginity to the Lord. Mombrizio, in older monuments, if I am not mistaken, found concerning the illustrious pedigree of that same Virgin what he reports at the beginning of her Acts thus: Born indeed of parents illustrious for nobility of origin and uprightness of life, after receiving the brightness of grace from above she shone far more brightly not only in the city of Assisi, but even in the whole world. With this the words of Hilarion the Benedictine monk almost agree, who in his abridged Legendary, or Supplement to Jacopo da Varazze, folio 72, has these words: The venerable spouse of Christ and one dedicated to God, Clare, of the city of Assisi, sprung of most illustrious parents, after receiving the brightness of grace from above shone in the whole world. From these things it is plain that concerning the noble lineage of our Saint one cannot prudently doubt.

[15] But none of these authors reviews the ancestors of St. Clare, although authors differ somewhat among themselves in setting forth her genealogy or distinctly explains her family. Wherefore we do not know from what documents Pietro Rodolfi of Tossignano, a Conventual Franciscan, dug out what in his Histories of the Seraphic Religion, book 1, folio 132 verso, he confidently relates in this manner concerning the ancestors of this Saint: The great-grandfather of blessed Clare, first mistress of the divine Francis, was a certain Paul, a citizen of Assisi of good condition, whose son, Bernard by name, had three sons, Paul, Favorinus, and Monaldus, who were knights without violence, without tumult, and of humane zeal and will. Favorinus by the lady Ortolana his wife had two daughters, Clare and Agnes, illustrious virgins indeed and of indelible memory, plainly worthy of so great a mother, who herself also after her husband's death wrought miracles. Would that the anonymous writer of the old Acts had left to posterity a more distinct notice of this stock, or that at least Rodolfi had indicated in a word from what documents he drew his assertion!

[16] differ somewhat among themselves. Wadding in the Annals of the Minors at the year of Christ 1212, after reporting the anonymous biographer's text about St. Clare's lineage, discourses thus at number 14: The genealogy of the holy Virgin this author did not note, which nevertheless I received from that same citizen of Assisi (this citizen he had alleged in the Apparatus to the Annals, §3, number 3) from whom I noted above that the series of the parents of the divine Francis was also handed down. Rodolfi reviews Clare's ancestors, but a little otherwise than this genealogy has it. Paul, of the once most noble family of that city which was called of the Scifi (or "de Fuimi," as the Reverend Father Bartolomeo Cimarelli has it, perhaps on the mother's side), was the great-grandfather of St. Clare: he begot Berardutius Scifi, or, as Rodolfi has it, Bernard. To him three sons, Favaronus (in Rodolfi, Favorinus), Paul, and Monaldus; who were illustrious knights, and rich in the resources of earthly things. Favaronus by Ortolana, a noble and holy heroine, had daughters, Clare, Agnes, and Beatrice, a holy offspring, who became teachers of a fuller virtue to their mother, whom she also followed into the cloister, shining with miracles after her husband's death. Of Beatrice Rodolfi makes no mention; nevertheless elsewhere, when he reviews Clare's disciples, he testifies that she was her sister. Paul begot Berardutius the younger and Angela, who as a kinswoman adhered to Clare. Berardutius had one son, blessed Rufinus Scifi, a follower of Francis. But Monaldus begot three children, Boso, Jolus, and Finus. Boso's son was blessed Sylvester Scifi, afterward a follower of Francis. Beyond this degree I have found no one who carried further the lineage of this holy woman, although the aforesaid Cimarelli asserts that blessed Bernardine of Feltre, of Tomitanus, preaching at Assisi about the year MCDLXXXVII, met some still of the stock of St. Clare, and reverently greeted them. Thus Wadding from a citizen of Assisi of I know not what age, with whom rests the credit of this genealogy, which the old authors already cited did not mention. Now let us proceed to another little disputation.

[17] Some Benedictines ascribe St. Clare to their own Order, From letters given to us from Naples in the year of Christ 1696 we understand that a dispute had then arisen there between the Benedictines and the Franciscans concerning the Religious profession of St. Clare, and that several pamphlets had appeared there in which the Benedictines contended that that holy Virgin first embraced the institute of St. Benedict, and then passed over to the Order of St. Francis. The same letters announced that the Franciscans had set apologetic replies against those pamphlets. Those polemical little works we neither have nor need, since they seem to us to seek a knot in a bulrush and to dispute about goat's wool: for perhaps certain Benedictines persuaded themselves of this, because St. Clare at the beginning of her conversion stayed for a while in the monastery of St. Paul and in the monastery of St. Angelo di Panzo, which at that time belonged to their Order. But from that brief stay, which had to be made on account of the disturbances of her kinsfolk or for other reasons, there does not follow a Religious profession of the Benedictine institute, as will easily be plain to any judicious man.

[18] because at first she followed the rule of St. Benedict; Perhaps some Benedictines ascribed St. Clare to their Order because to her and to her companions especially the rule of St. Benedict was prescribed by Cardinal Hugolino, whose diploma Wadding reports in the Annals of the Minors at the year of Christ 1219, number 46, and from which we excerpt only the following: The rule of the most blessed Benedict, in which the perfection of virtues and the highest discretion is known to be established, which was both devoutly received from the beginning by the holy Fathers and venerably approved by the Roman Church, we deliver to you to be observed in all things in which it is not found contrary to those formulas of living delivered to you by us, according to which you have specially determined to live. From this clause we gather that to this Benedictine rule certain peculiar customs or constitutions of living were joined by Hugolino. Doubtless on account of this observance of the Benedictine rule, Antonio de Heredia, who published in Spanish at Madrid toward the end of the last century the Lives of the Saints of the Benedictine Order in four volumes, among them, in volume 3, page 223, reckons St. Clare of Assisi on this day.

[19] But this slight reason does not suffice for St. Clare to be ascribed to the Benedictine Order: but this reason proves nothing, as appears among other things for since at that time a proper rule had not yet been delivered to the Franciscan nuns, it was necessary to take up some rule from the approved Religious institutes, according to the fourth Lateran synod of the year 1215, which in decree 13, in our Labbe, volume XI of the Councils, part 1, columns 165 and 168, laid down the following: Lest too great a diversity of Religious institutes bring grave confusion into the Church of God, we firmly forbid that anyone henceforth devise a new Religious institute: but whoever wishes to be converted to the Religious life, let him take up one of the approved ones. Likewise, whoever shall wish to found a Religious house anew, let him receive rule and institution from the approved Religious institutes. What wonder then, if to the new congregation of nuns whom St. Francis and St. Clare had led to a more perfect manner of living the Benedictine rule was prescribed? Add that Cardinal Hugolino added to the rule of St. Benedict various peculiar constitutions which differed not a little from the Benedictine institute, as may be seen in Wadding in the Annals of the Minors at the year of Christ 1219, number 46.

[20] To this also makes the scruple of blessed Agnes of Bohemia, who embraced the same rule, from the Pontiff's answer to the scruple of blessed Agnes of Bohemia and whose Acts our predecessors diligently illustrated at the day VI of March, volume 1 of that month, from page 502. For brevity's sake we transcribe this whole matter from Francis Harold, who in the Epitome of the Annals of the Order of Minors at the year of Christ 1243, number 4, thus abridged it from Wadding: Blessed Agnes of Bohemia was troubled by the scruple that in her monastery of Prague the norm delivered to the Damianites by Gregory IX was not observed, because in it it was commanded that they observe the rule of St. Benedict; and she feared that this was commanded under mortal sin, because at the beginning of the Gregorian norm there is set a precept of obedience, which she suspected extended to all that followed.

[21] Wherefore Innocent, in letters given to her in this year on the Ides of November, declared who had embraced the same rule. that, in order that the whole body of Sisters might restrain their affections from unlawful things and be more strongly bound by zeal for the religious life, the precept of obedience was set in it, and there was added concerning the rule of blessed Benedict, that through it, as the chief of the approved rules, your Religious institute, he says, might be rendered authentic; yet no necessity being thereby laid upon you of being bound to observe it, as is clearly proved from this, that our aforesaid predecessor, in the presence and hearing of our Venerable Brother the bishop of Ostia, declared that that rule does not bind the Sisters of his Order to anything else but to obedience, the renunciation of property, and perpetual chastity, which exist under any other Religious institute whatever, and in which consists the merit of obtaining the effect of perpetual happiness. Which declaration of the Pontiff my author (namely Wadding, who in the Annals of the Minors at the year of Christ 1243, number 22, sets forth all these things more fully, and produces the very letters of Pope Innocent IV) with due weight turns against anyone perhaps suspecting that St. Clare or her nuns could once be reckoned of the Order of St. Benedict. To these we only add the example of St. Dominic, who about the same times chose for himself and his fellows the rule of St. Augustine to be observed, and whom nevertheless, with the first Preachers, the Augustinian Religious did not on that account claim for their own Order. This new dispute being sufficiently and more than sufficiently discussed, let us pass on to some notice of the Order which St. Clare began, and to which afterward a proper rule was given, of which we shall treat below.

[22] The austerity of the Order is described Our Filippo Bonanni in his Catalogue of Religious Orders, part 2, chapter 52, briefly describes that institute of nuns begun by this holy Virgin in these words: Besides the rules which St. Francis prescribed to men, he instituted an Order of nuns, which was called of the Clarisses from blessed Clare, who was the first among them in the year MCCXII, when blessed Clare put on the religious habit; and for it a rule almost like that which they call the first was established, confirmed first by Gregory IX by word of mouth, and then by other Pontiffs in various constitutions. They are clothed with a rough woolen garment without a linen undergarment, like the Friars whom they call Observants, with

a cape of the same color reaching almost to the ankles. They wear on the head a black veil, beneath which is another white one, being girt about the loins with a thick cord. They walk with bare feet with wooden sandals. They rest upon straw on a board, subject to vigils and other afflictions of the flesh for the love of God.

[23] which St. Clare began, The ancient custom of wearing this habit can partly be confirmed from the diploma of Pope Innocent IV, who in the year of Christ 1254 wrote thus, among other things, to the nuns of that same Order at Toulouse: Since therefore, as your petition presented to us contained, you have been accustomed according to the observance of your Order to wear a tunic, a mantle, a cord, and a veil, and since Clare of holy memory, abbess of the monastery of St. Damian of Assisi, the mother of that Order, and her Sisters, from the time when blessed Francis instituted it until now, have used a cord for a girdle, and also a veil, tunic, and mantle, although in the formula of their life which Pope Gregory of happy memory, our predecessor, then constituted in a lesser office, had delivered to them to be observed, he made no mention of a cord or girdle; we, wishing to provide for your peace in this matter, being inclined by your devout prayers, grant to you by the authority of these presents that you may freely be able to use the aforesaid cord, veil, tunic, and mantle, as you have hitherto been accustomed; strictly forbidding that anyone henceforth presume to hinder or trouble you concerning the use of these four things or of any of them. Wadding in the Annals of the Minors at the year 1254, number 49, notes that here St. Clare is called by Innocent IV "of holy memory," although she had not then yet been solemnly placed in the catalogue of holy virgins, and afterward in the Pontifical Register, page 16, he exhibits the diploma of the same Pope.

[24] From this austere Order of the Clarisses there arose a more accommodating congregation of nuns, concerning which our praised Bonanni in the work just cited, chapter 53, has these words: from which afterward arose a congregation of milder observance, When the seraphic father St. Francis had prescribed rules for St. Clare and her other companions (concerning the author of this rule we shall dispute below), Innocent IV in the year MCCXLV mitigated them as too harsh for women. And although blessed Clare and many others loving poverty had taken care that the primitive rule should be observed, nevertheless, the number of the Sisters and their former fervor growing lukewarm, Urban IV published a second rule, and decreed that yearly revenues could be possessed by them. Hence Sisters of this kind were called Urbanists: they are nevertheless called daughters of blessed Francis and nurslings of the divine Clare. They are clothed with a garment of a blackish color, to which they add a scapular of the same color; they wear on their shoulders a mantle of a grayish color when they are present at the divine functions: some, however, of the same Order use a shorter mantle, as at Rome in the monastery called of St. Sylvester in Capite. With a white cord, marked with five knots, they gird their loins beneath the scapular: they cover the head with a white veil, to which they add another black one; they use shoes, and possess goods in common. The most illustrious Gonzaga in the Origin of the seraphic Franciscan Religion, part 1, page 3, relates similar things concerning both those Orders of nuns.

[25] At the beginning of the XV century blessed Colette, whose Acts have been illustrated in our Work at the day VI of March, although several monasteries have preserved or resumed the primitive rigor. restored many monasteries of nuns to their former poverty, especially in Belgium, France, and Germany, which still most constantly preserve the primitive rigor of the Order. There are also other monasteries of stricter observance, of which the aforesaid Bonanni in chapter 56 of the cited second part makes brief mention thus: There are very many other monasteries of women in divers regions of the world which live under the rule of St. Francis, and are everywhere called penitents. Some, after the manner of hermits, lead a most harsh life in separate cells. In Germany there are some dwelling in woods, yet enclosed by a circuit of walls; but if we wished to weave a catalogue of them, the labor would be immense. In habit for the most part they differ little among themselves; yet all agree in this, that they wear that rough garment without an undergarment, and walk with bare feet with sandals. Of this kind the venerable Sister Francesca of Jesus Mary, of the stock of the Farnesi, founded two monasteries, one in the city of Albano in the year MDCXXXI, the other at Rome under the title of the Conception in the Monti district in the year MDCXLIII. We here set forth a picture of the nuns of Albano, clothed in the garment of the Franciscans who are called of the Observance. They use sandals of hemp: they cover the head with a white veil, to which they add over it a black cloth of cotton, and they always wear black rosary beads hanging from the neck above the scapular before the breast, being girt with a rough cord. Further, these and other congregations of Franciscan nuns Hélyot records at length in his French Work on Religious and military Orders, where he may be consulted, volume 7 from page 180, or Part 5, chapter 25 and following.

[26] Now let us return to the first rule or ordered formula of living The rule of the Clarisses, which Cardinal Hugolino prescribed to St. Clare and her companions. That Wadding exhibited entire in the Annals of the Minors at the year of Christ 1219, number 46, and in the same place, in the number following, after reporting it from the Register of Pope Innocent IV, he thus gives notice: Under this rule and the above-named visitor they lived some years, until St. Francis prescribed a proper rule for Clare and her followers, Hugolino being present and writing it out, as we shall say at greater length at the year MCCXXIV. Then at the year of Christ 1224, as he had promised, at number 1 he treats of this new rule, and inserted it whole there in his Annals. Besides, Wadding reported that same proper rule among the Little Works of St. Francis, published at Antwerp in the year 1623, volume 2, page 190, and illustrated it with annotations.

[27] whose chief heads only are here touched, We, again consulting brevity, excerpt this matter from the praised Harold, who in the Epitome of the Annals of the Order of Minors at the year of Christ 1224, number 1, thus reduced all those things to a compendium: The holy virgin Clare and the Sisters subject to her government in the monastery of St. Damian, kindled with the same zeal of poverty and of all austerity as Francis, and having not gladly embraced either the rule of St. Benedict or the proper ordinances delivered to them by Cardinal Hugolino, begged of Francis himself that the same norm of living be prescribed for them which the Friars Minor themselves followed. Francis therefore, having communicated their desire to the Cardinal, and with his help, wrote a rule very like the Minorite one, so far as the condition of their sex and their enclosure permitted, and divided into as many chapters, with these titles: I. The rule of the life of the poor Sisters. II. How they ought to be received. III. Of the divine Office, and fasting, and how often they should communicate. IV. Of the election of an abbess. V. Of silence, and the manner of speaking at the parlor and at the grille. VI. How the Sisters may not receive any possession or property by themselves or through an intermediary person. VII. Of the manner of working. VIII. How the Sisters may appropriate nothing to themselves, and of sick Sisters. IX. Of the penance to be imposed on the Sisters. X. Of the visitation of the Sisters by the abbess. XI. Of the portress. XII. Of the visitor; in which chapter finally the Sisters are bound to have the Cardinal protector of the Order of Friars Minor as their governor, corrector, and protector also. Now it must briefly be investigated who the true author of this rule was.

[28] and which some would have given by Pope Innocent III, Bartholomew of Pisa in the Book of the Conformities, folio 105, among the deeds of St. Clare records this: From the lord Innocent the third she (read "she herself," namely Clare, of whom he there treats) asked and obtained a rule of the poor ladies, the beginning of which the Pontiff himself wrote out with his own hand, weeping from devotion. But that writer is not consistent with himself: for afterward at folio 109 verso, and folio 134 of the same Work, he expressly asserts that St. Francis prescribed a rule for the virgin Clare and her companions. Nevertheless the former opinion of the Pisan is followed by Pietro Rodolfi of Tossignano, when in his Histories of the Seraphic Religion, book 1, folio 132, he writes thus: The blessed father Francis, renowned leader of a new family, after the groomsmen and friends of the Bridegroom, who stand and rejoice, instituted a like Order among women in the year MCCXII, which six years before, full of a prophetic Spirit, he had foretold would be in the Church, while with ardent and anxious mind he was wonderfully repairing the church of St. Damian: which Order Pope Alexander IV and Innocent III approved, and subjected to the Order of Minors; in which afterward very many virgins advanced in holiness of life and in pure and most chaste manners: for blessed Clare drew fifty others with her, among whom was the lady Ortolana, her most dear parent, and she began the Order of poor ladies, having nothing in common or in private. From the lord Innocent III she herself asked and obtained a rule, whose beginning the Pontiff himself wrote out with his own hand, almost weeping from devotion.

[29] But against this last assertion, which Rodolfi probably took from the Pisan, various arguments can be opposed: it seems more probable by Cardinal Hugolino for Wadding in the Annals of the Minors at the year of Christ 1224, number 1, from old writers thus attributes these pious tears to Cardinal Hugolino: Both the Cardinal and Francis were at hand for the work, and together they framed the laws to be observed, fitting the Minorite ones to feminine frailty. Although Clare herself desired and asked for these, nevertheless the Cardinal, while he wrote them together with St. Francis, could not restrain himself from tears, considering the fervor of the virgins, higher than womanly weakness … The piety and tears of the Cardinal, while he was writing out this rule, are reported by Philip of Perugia in that letter to Gundisalvus the Minister which we transcribed above, by Marianus, and by Bernard de Bessa. This letter of Philip of Perugia Wadding reports in the Annals of the Minors at the year of Christ 1217, number 6, in which the following is read to our purpose: This only I have heard from the old fathers, that he (namely Hugolino, bishop of Ostia, of whom the discourse there is) with blessed Francis our father ordered and wrote the rule of the Sisters of the Order of St. Damian, which is now called the Order of St. Clare, after the pattern of the rule of the Friars Minor; on account of the strictness of which rule, partly out of compassion, the Cardinal himself poured forth many tears in the writing.

[30] Besides, that opinion of Rodolfi is repugnant to the Constitution of Pope Innocent IV, who in the year of Christ 1253 confirmed the same rule, where in Laerzio Cherubini, volume 1 of the Roman Bullarium, page 72, he premises that Rainald, bishop of Ostia and Velletri, judged that the formula of life should be approved which was, he says, delivered to you by blessed Francis and voluntarily received by you. Then the Pontiff inserts into his Constitution the words of the praised Rainald, which, directed to St. Clare and her companions, run thus in the same place: Therefore, being inclined by your pious prayers, the form of living and the manner of holy unity and of the highest poverty which the blessed father

Francis delivered to you by word and in writing to be observed, noted down in these presents, we confirm to you and to all who succeed you in your monastery in perpetuity, by the authority of the lord Pope and my own, and we fortify it with the protection of the present writing; which is as follows. In this place the whole of that rule is reported, whose chapters or twelve titles we assigned above from Harold. Finally, the opinion of Rodolfi cannot be reconciled with the testament of St. Clare, which we shall afterward exhibit, and in which she herself declares this concerning St. Francis: Afterward he wrote for us a form of living. All things therefore being maturely weighed, we judge it more probable that St. Francis and Cardinal Hugolino labored together at the framing of this rule, and that the opinion of Wadding is more probable, who in the Annals of the Minors at the year 1224, number 1, explains that matter in these few words: While Francis stuck at some word or period, Hugolino interposed his own work, and about certain things to be mitigated or more cautiously enjoined he gave his counsel.

* perhaps: was suffused

§ III. Some deeds of the Saint omitted in the ancient Acts, or narrated in a different manner, are discussed.

Those deeds of the Saint do not seem to us sufficiently certain, Bartholomew of Pisa in the Book of the Conformities, folio 104 verso, narrates in these words an outstanding act of humility which St. Clare performed at the beginning of her conversion: Francis, to whom she came for counsel, urging upon her contempt of the world, and speaking wonderful things of chastity and of Christ the spouse, Clare does not long draw out her consent to carrying out the aforesaid things; nay, she shows herself ready and willing to perform such things; whom, wishing to test whether it were so, blessed Francis commanded, saying: If you wish that I believe you, clothe yourself in sackcloth, and go begging bread through the whole city of Assisi. Which she also did; but she was not recognized. Thus far it is hidden from us whence the Pisan dug out that fact, which does not seem able to be conveniently enough composed with our old Acts: for these relate among us at number 5 that the counsels between St. Francis and his Disciple were secret, lest public rumor should malignantly disparage them; and in the same place at number 7 it is said that St. Clare fled by night from her father's house secretly from her kinsfolk. How then could St. Francis have sent that noble Daughter beforehand publicly to beg through the whole city of Assisi, unless he divinely foreknew that she would be unknown to all her fellow citizens? However it be, we leave the credit of this matter, which our ancient biographer did not mention, with the Pisan.

[32] (except those things which St. Bonaventure This writer also reports a certain revelation of St. Clare, which is omitted by the anonymous author of the old Acts, at folio 105 verso of the cited Work, in this manner: When blessed Francis was hesitating whether he ought to betake himself to preaching or to solitary places; and, wishing to know God's good pleasure concerning this, had sent Brother Masseo to Brother Sylvester and to blessed Clare, that they might learn the Lord's will about it, straightway the same answer was made by God to Brother Sylvester and to blessed Clare, namely that blessed Francis should go to preach, because for this he had been sent by God into the world: and so blessed Francis did. Although the ancient author of the Acts to be published below is silent about this revelation of St. Clare, nevertheless St. Bonaventure in the Life of St. Francis, chapter 12, records the same matter in other words, whose authority is altogether sufficient for us to give full credit to this narrative.

[33] confirms by his own testimony) The seraphic Doctor in the same Life of St. Francis, chapter 15, describes the obsequies of his holy Father, and on that occasion expresses the reverence of St. Clare and her companions toward the body of St. Francis in these words: But when morning came, the crowds which had assembled, taking branches of trees and with multiplied lights of tapers, with hymns and songs bore the sacred body to the city of Assisi. But passing by the church of St. Damian, in which that noble virgin Clare, now glorious in heaven, then dwelt enclosed with her virgins, and halting there a little while, they offered the sacred body, marked with heavenly pearls, to those sacred virgins to be seen and kissed. Wadding in the Annals of the Minors at the year of Christ 1226, number 42, narrates the same translation of the dead St. Francis, and to the words of the seraphic Doctor just reported straightway subjoins the following: All wept, all grieved that their Father and institutor had been snatched from them; all likewise marveled at the singular and heavenly prodigy (namely of the sacred stigmata, of which he had treated a little above), recalling then the promise made to them by the holy Man, that they should see him, however near to death, before their own decease. Now Clare the first mistress labored to draw out one of the nails which stood out from the palms, and could not; nevertheless she dipped a linen cloth in the blood, and measured the body of the holy Father, to whose stature she afterward took care that a certain receptacle should be made at the back of the tribune, where she also had his image painted.

[34] I do not know from what documents Wadding took all these things, which are narrated by more recent writers, if you except that which he relates concerning the nail which blessed Clare tried to draw out of the hand of St. Francis: for this he probably excerpted from Bartholomew of Pisa, who at folio 309 verso of the work already several times cited alleges our Saint among other eyewitnesses of the sacred stigmata in these words: The stigmata and the body of blessed Francis, according to his prophecy, blessed Clare saw with her Sisters, who then dwelt at St. Damian's; and this while the body of blessed Francis was being carried from St. Mary of the Angels to Assisi to be buried: for by a divine prompting the Friars, keeping the said road, delivered the body of blessed Francis, marked with the pearls of the stigmata of Christ, to blessed Clare and the Sisters to be touched and kissed, the grille being removed. And then (as is said) blessed Clare tried to remove one nail from his hands, but was in no way able. Of that effort of St. Clare, and of the other things then done which Wadding adds, St. Bonaventure made no word, although he narrated the same translation of the sacred body made to the nuns, as appears from the preceding number.

[35] Nay rather, the Pisan asserts that St. Clare saw the stigmata of St. Francis while he was still living (we judge that this is to be understood only of the stigmata of the hands), when in the same Work of the Conformities, in the preceding column of the cited folio 309 verso, he writes thus: and are omitted by the ancient writer of her life. Blessed Clare saw the stigmata of blessed Francis while he lived, and she herself made a certain plaster for the wound in his side, as is still shown in the monastery of St. Clare at Assisi. We think that the discourse here is of the poultice or plaster which Wadding testifies was seen by himself, and concerning which in the Annals of the Minors at the year 1224, number 23, he relates these things: In the church of St. George of the Clarisses at Assisi I saw that there is still preserved a certain kind of cataplasm or plaster, in the old Italian vernacular called CAMOCIUM (in Italian "camoscio" signifies the skin of a sheep or a like animal, as may be seen in the Crusca Vocabulary at this word), which the most holy virgin Clare made for the holy man to soothe the pain of the wound in his side and to stanch the blood; and likewise shoes made by the industry of the same Virgin in such a way that they covered the upper part of his feet, that it might not be seen, and so raised the lower part from the ground that the projecting points of the nails might not altogether hinder his step. But it is indeed strange that our contemporary writer of the Acts, or St. Bonaventure, did not mention even in passing this inspection or industry of St. Clare, although he in the Life of St. Francis, chapter 13, alleges several inspectors of the same stigmata. Since therefore we have not thus far known any witnesses of this narrative older than Bartholomew of Pisa, we shall suspend our judgment until perhaps older asserters of this matter occur in the Acts of St. Francis, which will have to be discussed more laboriously at the day IV of October.

[36] We nevertheless readily admit those things Wadding in the Annals of the Minors at the year of Christ 1251, number 14, reports from authentic documents certain other things concerning the same holy Virgin, omitted by the anonymous writer of the old Acts, in this manner: On a certain day, while she was praying more intently, God more clearly disclosed in her body the flame of divine love which burned in her heart, showing to Sister Benvenuta of Perugia (who was one of the first disciples, and herself deposed the matter in the process of canonization) a huge globe of fire, which made the holy Woman at prayer luminous and beautiful. At another time, when before Mass, for the sprinkling of the lustral water, that versicle was being sung, I saw water going forth from the side of the temple, being rapt into contemplation of the mystery, all that day, sprinkling her daughters with blessed water, she exhorted them with great affection always to have in mind that most sacred water which came forth from the side of Christ hanging on the cross. The force too of this inward heat did not permit the loving soul to rest, nor did she think she had done enough unless she offered herself wholly as a holocaust and victim to God by martyrdom. And so, when she heard that those five athletes of the faith, the sacred first-fruits of the Minors, had suffered for Christ at Marrakesh, she strove with all effort and art to set out for the same place of martyrdom, that by her blood she might give full proof of her love. Nor did she leave the journey unattempted; but the kindly master Francis drew her back, saying that at home also, within the narrow bounds of the cloister, a long martyrdom was prepared for her, and that her presence and a longer life were necessary for the training of disciples and the promoting of the pious institute.

[37] which Wadding reports from the Process of canonization, Then this author at the same year of Christ, number 19, narrates another prodigy concerning St. Clare in these words: From the process of canonization it is had that, while she, being near to death, received the holy Eucharist from the hand of the Provincial Minister, Sister Francesca of Collemedio saw above her head a huge globe of fire, and the form of the Host changed into a most beautiful little child; and that Clare herself, after receiving with wonderful reverence and tears the life-giving Sacrament, added: So great a benefit has the almighty Lord conferred on me today that neither heaven nor earth can be compared to it. And the same Sister deposes in the same place that on the feast of the holy Philip and James she saw in the bosom of the holy Virgin a child of unspeakable beauty, and above Clare's head two most shining wings raised, which sometimes were extended on high, sometimes lowered, wonderfully covering the Virgin's head and shoulders. Although it has not been permitted us to see that Process of canonization, nevertheless we readily believe the sincere and learned Wadding, who doubtless had that ancient document at hand.

[38] although we do not assent to the same author, But we do not so readily assent to the same Wadding, when in the praised Annals of the Minors at the year of Christ 1253, number 2, he embellishes in these words another miracle, to be reported below in another manner from our manuscript codex in the Acts from number 43

circumstances: She then asks of the supreme Pontiff, with angelic countenance, the remission of all her sins. And when he said, Would that I had need of so great a pardon, he imparts the gift of perfect absolution and the grace of the Apostolic benediction. He drew out holy delays with the Virgin from early morning until Terce, sweetly conversing of divine matters; and when it was now time that the weak woman should eat at the physician's prescription, she humbly begged the Vicar of Christ to bless what was set before her. To whom the Pontiff said: I now commit it to you, that you yourself bless it; and at length he commanded her, as she humbly resisted and discreetly excused herself, that she should do so. It was not lawful further to oppose so great a command. Wherefore she consecrated the food with the sign of the cross, which presently appeared on the bread set before her, and on several others zealously brought thither by the steward, that they might be blessed by the Pontiff: for indeed on all of them there straightway appeared the sign of the cross, and the bread set before the Handmaid of God, being broken in the form of a cross, went into four parts. This prodigious event further confirmed to the most holy Father and to the other bystanders the dignity of the virgin's sanctity.

[39] These attendant circumstances of chronology and narrative indicate that that prodigy happened not long before the death of St. Clare, while he defers a certain miracle until the Saint's approaching death, and consequently that that Roman Pontiff who then visited the holy Virgin was Innocent IV. But William Spoelberch the Minorite, who published at Antwerp in the year 1620 the Mirror of St. Francis with the style changed, and whom the Annalist of the Minors himself cites in the same place in the margin, in part 2 of the Mirror, chapter 30, utterly overthrows that opinion of Wadding: for after the said chapter he expressly gives notice in his notes that that Pontiff, in whose presence St. Clare then signed the loaves with the sign of the cross, was Gregory the ninth, who departed from this life in the year of Christ 1241. Besides, in our Acts and in the Mirror of St. Francis no word is made of the bread miraculously broken into four parts, although the Pisan extended that prodigy of the breaking also to all those loaves, when in the Book of the Conformities, folio 105, he narrates the same matter thus: When the lord Pope had entered the monastery of that blessed Clare to visit her, he caused the table of the Sisters to be prepared, that he the supreme Pontiff might bless it before his departure: and when blessed Clare had asked the Pontiff concerning this, he in turn commanded her to bless that table in his presence: which when she (as a daughter of obedience) had done, the Pope, the Cardinals, and the others looking on, straightway there appeared on the loaves (namely on each) the sign of the cross, and each loaf divided itself into four parts in the manner of a cross. Astounded at which miracle, the bystanders with the greatest devotion each took his own portion of the aforesaid loaves. But neither here nor in the other old documents does any word occur from which you may gather that this miracle of the prodigious blessing must be deferred to the death of St. Clare.

[40] Rather to those times of her approaching death belongs the testament of that same holy Virgin, which after the example of St. Francis, when now about to die, she left to her spiritual daughters, to which times her testament rather pertains, and which Wadding in the Annals of the Minors at the year of Christ 1253, number 5, recites thus from an ancient manuscript Memorial: In the name of the Lord, amen. Among the other benefits which we have received, and daily receive, from our bountiful Father of mercies, we ought the more on that account to render thanksgivings to him, the glorious one. Great is our vocation, which, the more perfect and greater it is, the more we owe him exceedingly. Whence the Apostle: Acknowledge your vocation. The Son of God has become for us the way, which by word and example our blessed father Francis, his true lover and imitator, showed and taught us. Therefore we ought to consider, beloved Sisters, the immense benefits of God conferred on us, but among the rest, those which through his beloved servant our father blessed Francis he deigned to work in us, not only after our conversion, but even while we were in the vanity of the world: for when that Saint, not yet having Friars or companions, straightway as it were after his own conversion, while he was building the church of St. Damian, where, being wholly visited with divine consolation, he was compelled to leave the world entirely, out of great gladness and the illumination of the Holy Spirit prophesied concerning us what the Lord afterward fulfilled: for, ascending at that time upon the wall of the said church, he spoke with a loud voice in the French tongue to certain poor men staying nearby: "Come and help me in the work of the monastery of St. Damian, since there shall yet be ladies here, by whose famous and holy manner of life our heavenly Father shall be glorified in all his holy Church."

[41] in which she praises God In this therefore we can consider the abundant kindness of God toward us, who out of his abounding mercy and charity deigned to speak these things concerning our vocation and election through his Saint: and not only did our most blessed Father prophesy these things concerning us, but also concerning others who were to come into the holy vocation to which the Lord has called us. With how great solicitude, therefore, and with how great zeal of mind and body ought we to keep the commandments of God and of our Father, that, the Lord cooperating, we may render him the talent multiplied? For the Lord himself has set us not only as a form for an example and mirror to others, but also to our Sisters, whom the Lord has called to our vocation, that they too may be a mirror and example to those living in the world. Since therefore the Lord has called us to things so great that those who are an example and mirror to others may behold themselves in us, we are bound greatly to bless and praise the Lord, and to be the more strengthened in the Lord to do well. Wherefore, if we shall live according to the aforesaid form, we shall leave to others a noble example, and shall by a very short labor acquire the prize of eternal beatitude.

[42] for the grace of her vocation, After the most high heavenly Father through his mercy and grace deigned to enlighten my heart, that by the example and teaching of our most blessed father Francis I should do penance, a little after his conversion, together with a few Sisters whom the Lord had given me a little after my conversion, I voluntarily promised him obedience, as the Lord had bestowed on us the light of his grace through his praiseworthy life and teaching. But blessed Francis, considering that we were weak and frail according to the body, yet that we refused no need, poverty, labor, tribulation, or lowliness and contempt of the world — nay, that we accounted them as great delights — by the examples of the Saints and of his Friars, as he himself and his Friars frequently tested, rejoiced greatly in the Lord, and, moved to compassion toward us, bound himself, both by himself and by his Religious institute, always to have of us, as of his own Friars, diligent care and special solicitude. And so by the will of the Lord and of our most blessed father Francis we went to the church of St. Damian to dwell; where the Lord in a short time by his mercy and grace multiplied us, that what the Lord had foretold through his Saint might be fulfilled: for we had stayed in another place, though for a little while. Afterward he wrote for us a form of living, and above all that we should always persevere in holy poverty. Nor was he content in his lifetime to exhort us with many discourses and examples to the love and observance of most holy poverty; but he also handed to us several writings, that after his death we should in no way turn aside from it, even as the Son of God, while he lived in the world, never willed to turn aside from that holy poverty: and our most blessed father Francis, imitating his footsteps, in no way turned aside, while he lived, by his example and teaching, from his holy poverty, which he chose for himself and for his Friars.

[43] Considering therefore, I Clare, handmaid of Christ and of the poor Sisters of the monastery of St. Damian, and calls her disciples to the strict observance of poverty, though unworthy, and a little plant of the holy Father, together with my other Sisters, our most high profession, and the command of so great a Father, and also the frailty of the others which we feared in ourselves after the death of our holy father Francis, who was our pillar, our only consolation after God, and our support, again and again we voluntarily bound ourselves to our lady most holy poverty, that after my death the Sisters who are and who are to come may in no way turn aside from her. And as I have always been zealous and solicitous to observe the holy poverty which we promised to the lord and to our father St. Francis, and to cause it to be observed by others — nay, even for greater security I was solicitous to have our profession of most holy poverty, which we promised also to our Father, corroborated by the privileges of the lord Pope Innocent, in whose time we began, and of his other successors, that at no time should we in any way turn aside from it. Wherefore on bended knees and with both the inward and the outward man bowed, I commend to holy mother the Roman Church, to the supreme Pontiff, and especially to the lord Cardinal who shall be appointed to the Religious institute of the Friars Minor and to us, all my Sisters who are and who are to come, that for the love of that Lord who, poor, was laid in a manger, lived poor in the world, and remained naked on the gibbet, he may always cause his little flock, which the Lord the Father begot in his holy Church by the word and example of blessed father Francis, following the poverty and humility of his beloved Son and of his glorious Virgin mother, to observe the holy poverty which we promised to God and to our most blessed father Francis, and may deign always to cherish and preserve them in it.

[44] And as the Lord gave us our most blessed father Francis as our founder, planter, and helper in the service of Christ, after the imitation of St. Francis, and in those things which we promised to God and to that our Father — he who also, while he lived, was ever solicitous by word and deed to cultivate and cherish us his little plant — so I commend and leave my Sisters who are and who are to come to the successor of our blessed father Francis and to the whole Religious institute, that they may be to us a help in ever advancing to what is better in serving God, and especially in better observing most holy poverty. But if it should happen at any time that the said Sisters should leave the said place and transfer themselves to another, they shall none the less be bound after my death, wherever they may be, to keep the aforesaid form of poverty which we promised to God and to our most blessed father Francis. Let her, however, who shall be in office, as also the other Sisters, be always solicitous and provident that about the aforesaid place they acquire or receive no land, except as much as extreme necessity shall require for a garden for growing vegetables.

But if at any time, for the seemliness and seclusion of the monastery, it should be needful to have more land outside the enclosure of the garden, let them not permit more to be acquired than extreme necessity demands; and let that land not be worked at all, nor sown, but let it always remain solid and untilled.

[45] I admonish and exhort in the Lord Jesus Christ all my Sisters who are and who are to come, that they always strive to imitate the way of holy simplicity, mutual charity, humility, and poverty, and also the seemliness of a holy manner of life, as from the beginning of our conversion to Christ we were taught by our blessed father Francis: from which things, not by our own merits but by the mercy and grace of the bountiful Giver alone, may the Father of mercies himself cause that they be always in the fragrance of good repute, both to those who are far off and to those who are near: and, loving one another out of the charity of Christ, may you show outwardly by works the love which you have within, so that, stirred by this example, the Sisters may always grow in the love of God and in mutual charity. I ask also her who shall be in the office of the Sisters, that she strive to be over the others rather by her virtues and holy manners than by her office; so that the Sisters, stirred by her example, may obey her not so much out of office as rather out of love. Let her also be provident and discreet toward her Sisters, as a good mother toward her daughters; and especially let her strive to provide for those whom the Lord shall give them, according to the need of each. Let her also be so kindly and approachable that they may safely make known their needs and have recourse to her confidently at every hour, as shall seem expedient to them, both for themselves and for their Sisters. But let the Sisters who are subject remember that for the Lord's sake they have renounced their own wills. Whence I will that they obey their mother, as they promised the Lord of their own free will, so that their mother, seeing the charity, humility, and unity which they have toward one another, may bear more lightly every burden which she endures by reason of her office, and that what is troublesome and bitter may be turned into sweetness for her by their holy manner of life.

[46] And since the way and path is narrow, and strait is the gate by which one goes and enters into life, and having exhorted them to the other virtues, few there are who walk and enter by it; and if there are some who walk by it for a time, very few there are who persevere in it. But blessed are they to whom it is given to walk by it and to persevere unto the end. Let us therefore take heed that, if we have entered upon the way of the Lord, we in no way turn aside from it at any time by our own fault, negligence, or ignorance, lest we offer injury to so great a Lord, and to his Virgin Mother, and to our father blessed Francis, and to the Church triumphant and also militant. For it is written: Cursed are they who turn aside from your commandments. For this cause I bend my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the merits of the glorious virgin holy Mary his mother, and of our most blessed father Francis, and of all the Saints supporting me, that the Lord himself, who gave a good beginning, may give increase, and may also give always final perseverance. Amen. This writing, that it may be the better observed, I leave to you, my dearest and most beloved Sisters, present and future, as a sign of the blessing of the Lord, and of our most blessed father Francis, and of my own blessing, who am your mother and handmaid. We do not know the determinate age of the old manuscript document from which Wadding transcribed these tablets of her last will; but we know that Marcos of Lisbon in the Chronicle of the Minors, part 1, book 8, chapter 35, translated the same before Wadding from an ancient Memorial into the Portuguese tongue.

[47] she foretells them by a prophetic spirit the coming of the Sisters. We say nothing here of the other writings of St. Clare, or of the letters given by her, some of which we inserted into the Acts of blessed Agnes of Bohemia at the day VI of March. We also pass over the various diplomas or privileges of the Roman Pontiffs granted to that same holy Virgin and to her Order, all of which are easily found in the Annals of the Minors. It will nevertheless be well to subjoin here, by way of a coping-stone, a certain revelation of that same Saint when now about to die, omitted by the ancient biographer, of which Wadding in the Annals of the Minors, so often praised, at the year 1253, number 7, makes mention thus: She gathered herself wholly for a tranquil departure from this world. But while the Sisters stood by, she said: "Go out to meet your Sisters, who come to see me from the Florentine monastery of Monticelli; go as quickly as possible; they are already at the doors, and, having first refreshed them a little, bring them in, that my soul may bless them before I die." That she had truly prophesied the Sisters found, and they did what she had commanded. But to the newcomers and to those who dwelt there Clare did not cease to minister words of salvation and to teach the regular profession, saying what they ought to do, and foretelling what things were to come after her death. She bequeathed to the aforesaid Florentine college of virgins her veil, which, being sent thither by the abbess and by Sister Agnes, Clare's sister, is preserved whole and unharmed to the present day, and countless miracles are wrought at its touch, especially in lethargic children. Below we shall treat of this veil, and of other things pertaining to the posthumous glory of St. Clare, which in the two following paragraphs we shall endeavor to illustrate and vindicate.

* read: table

§ IV. The canonization of the Saint, and an insane and shameless calumny against her briefly refuted.

Alexander IV in the bull of canonization, All chronologists agree that St. Clare, on account of the evident miracles with which she shone both living and dead, was two years after her death, or in the year of Christ 1255, solemnly enrolled in the number of the holy virgins; but the copies of the bull of canonization differ among themselves as to the day of this solemnity, as Wadding in the Annals of the Minors at the year of Christ 1255, number 5, noted. Hence also the most illustrious Fontanini in the Codex of Canonizations, which he published at Rome in the year 1729, after reporting the constitution of the supreme Pontiff by which this holy Virgin is inscribed in the roll of the Heavenly ones, thus gives us notice at page 96 in his notes: Clare, when about to depart to heaven, was visited by the supreme Pontiff Innocent IV, who was also present at her funeral with the Cardinals, and among these with Rainald bishop of Ostia, who afterward, being called Pope Alexander IV, canonized her at Anagni in the year of the Lord MCCLV. Concerning the day there is dispute: for some have thought it was done on the day XII, others the XV of August; others the XXVI of September, others the XIX of October. This disagreement, however, arose from this, that several bulls on that matter were not given at one time. For indeed in that age holy men were not always canonized on that very day on which the bulls were published, as has often been observed. We think that her Life, written by the command of Alexander IV, in Surius at the day XII of August, is to be preferred to the rest, which testifies that Clare was placed in the canon of the holy virgins on the very anniversary of her departure, namely the XII of August (she died on the XI of that month, as we have noted elsewhere). But whatever the certain day of the canonization was, the Pontifical constitution of this apotheosis occurs everywhere in Sedulius, Wadding, and other authors.

[49] I had determined to transcribe this bull of canonization from the aforesaid Roman edition of the year 1729; but since it there teems with errors, I have excerpted it from the Roman Bullarium of Laerzio Cherubini, published in the year of Christ 1255, where in volume 1, from page 81, it runs thus: Alexander, bishop, servant of the servants of God, to his venerable brethren, all the archbishops and bishops established throughout the kingdom of France, health and Apostolic benediction. Clare, preeminent in bright merits, shines brightly with the brightness of great glory in heaven and with the splendor of lofty miracles on earth. The strict and lofty religion of this Clare flashes here; the greatness of her eternal reward shines above; and her virtue shines forth to mortals with magnificent signs. To this Clare was here assigned the privilege of the highest poverty: to her on high is repaid an inestimable abundance of treasures: to her by Catholics full devotion and a heaping of honor is shown. This Clare her shining works here distinguished: this Clare the fullness of divine light glorifies on high. Her the astounding tokens of her prodigies declare to Christian peoples. O Clare, endowed with the titles of a manifold brightness! Before your conversion you were certainly bright, in your conversion brighter; in your cloistered life preeminently bright, and after the course of the present life's span you have shone most brightly.

[50] alluding to the name of St. Clare, From this Clare a bright mirror of example went forth to this age. From her, among the delights of heaven, the sweet lily of virginity is offered. From her, on earth, manifest remedies of help are felt. O admirable brightness of blessed Clare, which, the more zealously it is sought in each particular, the more splendid it is found in each! She shone forth, I say, in this world, she gleamed in Religion, she gave light in the house like a ray, she flashed in the cloister like lightning. She shone in life, after death she radiates; she was bright on earth, in heaven she shines again. O how great the force of this light, and how vehement the illumination of that brightness! This light indeed remained shut up within the secret cloister, and sent forth gleaming rays abroad. It was gathered in a narrow monastery, and was scattered over the wide world. It was kept within, and remained without: for Clare lay hidden, but her life lay open. Clare was silent, but her fame cried out. She was concealed in a cell, and was made known in the cities. Nor is it strange, since a lamp so kindled, so shining, could not be hidden but that it should shine, and give a bright light in the house of the Lord. Nor could a vessel of so many spices be shut away but that it should be fragrant and sprinkle the Lord's dwelling with a sweet odor. Nay rather, when in the narrow enclosure of her solitude she harshly crushed the alabaster of her body, the whole hall of the Church was filled with the odors of her sanctity.

[51] he narrates her conversion, Indeed, when she, while she was still a girl in the world, strove from her tender age to pass over this frail and unclean world by a clean path, and, guarding the precious treasure of her virginity with modesty ever unstained, watchfully applied herself to works of charity and piety, so that from her a pleasing and praiseworthy report went out to her neighbors and to others, blessed Francis, hearing the proclamation of this fame, began straightway to exhort her, and to lead her to the perfect service of Christ: and she, presently cleaving to his holy counsels, and desiring to renounce the world with all earthly things utterly, and to serve the Lord alone in voluntary poverty, fulfilled this her fervent desire as quickly as she could: and at length she distributed and turned all her goods into alms and helps for the poor, that together with herself she might assign whatever she had also to the service of Christ. And when, fleeing from the noise of the world, she had turned aside to a certain church in the fields, and, the sacred tonsure having been there received from blessed Francis himself, had gone on to another, her kinsfolk endeavoring to bring her back from there, she straightway, embracing

the altar and taking hold of its cloths, the cutting of the hair of her head being uncovered, bravely and steadfastly resisted those same kinsfolk in this, because, being already joined to God with an undivided mind, she could not bear to be torn away from his service.

[52] At length, when she had been brought by that same blessed Francis to the church of St. Damian outside the city of Assisi, whence she drew her origin, he praises the Order of nuns, there the Lord gathered to her several companions for the love and assiduous worship of his name: for from her indeed the distinguished and sacred Order of St. Damian, now spread far through the world, took its saving beginning. She, blessed Francis himself exhorting her, gave the beginning to be followed of this new and holy observance: she was the primary and stable foundation of this great Religious institute: she stood forth as the first stone of this lofty work: she, noble by birth but nobler in her manner of life, especially preserved under this rule of holiness the virginity which even before she had guarded. This Religious institute her mother afterward, Ortolana by name, intent on pious works, following the footsteps of her own daughter, devoutly took up, in which at last this excellent Ortolana "gardener", who in the Lord's garden brought forth such a plant, happily closed her days. But after some years blessed Clare herself, overcome by the great importunity of that same St. Francis, received the government of the monastery and of the Sisters.

[53] She indeed was a tall and lofty tree, stretched out with long branches, whom she by her own example which in the field of the Church brought forth the sweet fruit of Religion, and to whose delightful shade many nurslings of the faith ran together from every side, and still run, to taste such fruit beneath its pleasantness. She was the new woman of the valley of Spoleto, who gave to drink a new fount of living water for the refreshment and profit of souls, which, now derived through divers rivulets into the territory of the Church, has watered the nurseries of Religion. She was the lofty candlestick of sanctity, glowing exceedingly in the dwelling of the Lord, to whose mighty splendor very many hastened and hasten, kindling their lamps from her light. She indeed in the field of faith planted and cultivated the vineyard of poverty, from which rich and abundant fruits of salvation are gathered. She on the estate of ecclesiastical humility set a garden planted with a manifold want of things, in which a great abundance of virtues is found. She in the district of Religion built a citadel of strict abstinence, in which a generous refreshment of spiritual nourishment is ministered. She was the first mistress of the poor, the leader of the humble, the teacher of the continent, and the abbess of penitents. She governed her monastery and the household entrusted to her in it carefully and prudently in the fear and service of the Lord, and in the full observance of the Order; watchful in care, zealous in ministry, attentive in exhortation, diligent in admonition, moderate in correction, temperate in precepts, outstanding in compassion, discreet in silence, mature in speech, and well advised in all things fitting for a perfect government, wishing rather to serve than to rule, and rather to honor than to be exalted with honor.

[54] Her life was for others instruction and teaching. In this book of life the rest learned the rule of living. to a strict norm of living, In this mirror of life the rest beheld the paths of life. For in body she stood on earth, but in mind she dwelt in heaven: a little vessel of humility, a cabinet of chastity, the ardor of charity, the sweetness of kindness, the strength of patience, the bond of peace and the fellowship of familiarity; mild in word, gentle in deed, and in all things lovable and acceptable. And that, the flesh being pressed down, she might grow strong in spirit (since everyone becomes stronger when his enemy is weakened), she had the bare ground, and sometimes twigs, for a bed, and for a pillow beneath her head a hard piece of wood, and was content with one tunic with a mantle of cheap, despised, and rough cloth. These humble garments she used for the covering of her body, a rough hair shirt woven of little cords of horsehair being sometimes applied to her flesh. Strict also in food and stinted in drink, she restrained herself in these with such abstinence that for a long time on three days in the week, namely the second, fourth, and sixth days, she tasted nothing at all for the nourishment of her body; on the remaining days none the less so restraining herself by the smallness of her food that the others wondered at her, how she could subsist under so severe a strictness.

[55] and to the strict observance of poverty she urged them, Being besides assiduously given to vigils and prayers, she spent in these especially the times of day and night. At length, being entangled in long weaknesses, when she could not rise of herself for bodily exercise, she was raised by the help of her Sisters, and, supports being placed at her back, she labored with her own hands, lest even in her infirmities she should be idle. Whence from the linen cloth of this her zeal and labor she caused many corporals to be made for the Sacrifice of the altar, and to be presented to divers churches through the plains and mountains of Assisi. But being an especial lover and diligent cultivator of poverty, she so fixed it in her mind, so bound it in her desires, that, always firmer in love of it and more ardent in its embrace, she never departed for any necessity from its strict and delightful union, nor could she at all be induced by any persuasions to consent that her monastery should have its own possessions, although Pope Gregory of happy memory, our predecessor, piously considering the great need of that monastery, willingly wished to assign it sufficient and suitable possessions for the support of her Sisters.

[56] and on account of the miracles which both in her life, But because a great and splendid luminary cannot be suppressed but that it puts forth the rays of its brightness, even in her life the power of her sanctity shone forth with many and various miracles: for to one of the Sisters of her monastery she restored the voice which she had for a long time almost wholly lost. To another, utterly deprived of the use of her tongue, she restored ready speech. To another she opened a deaf ear to hearing. One laboring with a fever, one swollen with dropsy, one wounded with a fistula, and others oppressed with other weaknesses she freed, the sign of the cross being made over them. A certain Friar of the Order of Minors she healed of the affliction of madness. But when on one occasion the oil in the monastery had wholly failed, she, having called the Friar who was appointed to that monastery for the collecting of alms, took a jar and washed it, and placed it empty at the doors of that monastery, that the same Friar might carry it away to obtain oil: which, when he wished to take it up, he found filled with oil by the bounty of the divine generosity. Again, when on one day there was in the same monastery only half of one loaf for the refreshment of the Sisters, she ordered that same half to be divided into pieces and distributed to the Sisters; which, between the hands of her who broke it, he who is the living bread and gives food to the hungry so multiplied that from it there were made fifty sufficient portions, and they were distributed to the Sisters as they sat at table.

[57] and after her death, By these and other conspicuous signs the preeminence of her merits became known while she still lived. For also, when she was in her last moments, a white-robed company of blessed virgins, adorned with gleaming crowns, among whom one appeared more eminent and more shining, was seen to enter the house where that Handmaid of Christ lay, and to advance even to her little bed, and to show about her, with a certain zeal of kindness, as it were the office of visitation and the solace of comfort. But after her death a certain man who fell with the falling sickness, and who because of a contracted leg could not walk, being brought to her sepulcher, was there cured of both infirmities, that leg making as it were the sound of a crash. Those bent in the loins, those contracted in their limbs, those deathly with madness and demented fury received there entire soundness. To a certain man his right hand, the use of which he had so lost through a violent blow inflicted on him that he could work nothing at all with it, as being wholly useless, was fully restored to its former action by the merits of that Saint. Another, who through long blindness had lost the light of his eyes, when he had come to the same sepulcher under another's guidance, his sight being there recovered, returned thence without a guide.

[58] By these and very many other glorious works and miracles this venerable Virgin shone forth, she manifestly wrought by her intercession, so that it evidently appears that that was fulfilled which her mother is said to have heard concerning her, while she was pregnant with her and was praying; namely that she would bring forth a certain light which would greatly illuminate the world. Let mother Church therefore rejoice, that she bore and reared such a daughter, who as a fruitful parent of virtues brought forth by her examples many nurslings of religion, and formed them with full mastery to the perfect service of Christ. Let the devout throng of the faithful also be glad, that the King of the heavens and Lord has with glory brought into his most lofty and most illustrious palace their Sister and companion, whom he had chosen as a bride for himself. For the ranks of the Saints also rejoice together, that in their heavenly fatherland the nuptials of a new royal bride are celebrated.

[59] But since it is fitting that her whom the Lord has exalted in heaven the Catholic Church should venerate on earth, he enrolls her in the number of the holy virgins, since concerning the holiness of her life and her miracles it has clearly been established, a diligent and attentive inquiry, and a strict examination and solemn discussion having been made beforehand — although otherwise her shining Acts were sufficiently well known both in nearby and in remote parts — we, by the common counsel and assent of our Brethren and of all the prelates then present at the Apostolic See, trusting in the divine omnipotence, by the authority of the blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, and by our own, have judged that she should be enrolled in the catalogue of the holy virgins: and therefore we admonish and attentively exhort you all, commanding you by these Apostolic writings, that on the day before the Ides of August you devoutly and solemnly celebrate the feast of that Virgin, and cause it to be venerably celebrated by your subjects, that you may deserve to have her before God as a kindly and diligent helper.

[60] And that the multitude of the Christian people may flow together more eagerly and more abundantly to venerate her sepulcher, and grants indulgences to those who piously visit her tomb. and that her festival may be more famously kept, to all who are truly penitent and have confessed, who shall come to it with reverence on the feast of that Virgin, or even within the Octaves of that feast, yearly, to ask humbly her intercessions, trusting in the mercy of almighty God and in the authority of his blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, we mercifully relax one year and forty days of the penances enjoined upon them. Given at Anagni on the sixth of the Calends of October, in the first year of our Pontificate.

In Wadding in the Annals of the Minors at the year 1255, number 6, and in the latest Roman edition of the Codex of canonizations, page 96, it is said that this was done on the XIV of the Calends of November. In the Seraphic History of Sedulius, page 550, the day agrees with the Roman Bullarium of Laerzio Cherubini. But other copies note other days, as we have already noted above.

[61] Although Alexander IV was most severe Adorned therefore with so great a eulogy, St. Clare

Alexander IV inscribed in the catalogue of the Heavenly ones — a man exceedingly severe in examining the deeds of the Saints, who cannot be accused even by the heretics themselves of excessive credulity: for when he was still a Cardinal and bishop of Ostia, he withstood Pope Innocent IV when he wished, at the very obsequies of Clare, to declare the sanctity of this Virgin, intimately known to him, as the contemporary writer of the Acts will testify below among us at number 53 in these words: They had come to the celebrating of the divine office, when, the Friars beginning the Office of the dead, suddenly the lord Pope declares that the Office of virgins, not of the dead, ought to be performed, so that he seemed to canonize her before her body had been given to burial. But the most eminent man the lord of Ostia answering that it should be done more deliberately, the Mass of the dead is celebrated. From this it sufficiently appears that he, afterward raised under the name of Alexander IV to the chair of St. Peter, did not number that same Virgin among the Saints until after he had instituted a rigid examination of her virtues and miracles.

[62] in examining the deeds and miracles of the Saints, Besides, the severity of this man in examining the deeds and miracles of the Saints can evidently be gathered from the Acts of St. Stanislaus, bishop and martyr, which were illustrated in our Work at the day VII of May: for there, in volume II of that month, page 202, in an ancient synopsis of his Life it is narrated how the same man, while still Cardinal and bishop of Ostia, withstood the canonization of St. Stanislaus, and was led to promote it only by a manifest apparition of that same holy Martyr; all of which is there related in these few words: After a hundred and seventy years the Lord at length stirs up the spirit of Prandota, bishop of Cracow, a holy man; likewise of duke Boleslaus with his wife Kinga, a most chaste woman: who, the miracles of the holy Bishop having been collected and tested as by fire by public credit, send legates to Innocent the fourth, supreme Pontiff; and diligently pray that he would be willing to place so great a man in the number of the Saints. A consultation is held at Assisi, where the supreme Pontiff then happened to be. Among others there was then one opposing the cause of the divine Stanislaus, Reniholdus (read Reynaldus or Reginaldus, by which name he was called before his Pontificate), Cardinal of Ostia, a man of the first authority. He fell into a grave and deadly disease: to whom in his sleep the divine Stanislaus appears: he teaches him that he acts unworthily who resists the will of God. The old man is roused, commends himself to the Saint, recovers, and defends the cause which he had before assailed. Jan Długosz, in the same volume II of May among us, page 257, narrates this history more fully, and affirms that that Cardinal, whom he more correctly names Reginald, succeeded Pope Innocent IV in the chair of St. Peter. Hence it is abundantly clear that that Cardinal, afterward supreme Pontiff, did not indulge his pious credulity or his own affection when in the year of Christ 1255 he reckoned Clare in the number of the holy virgins and adorned her with the praises reported above.

[63] Nevertheless, after so solemn a canonization of St. Clare, made by that rigid investigator of miracles, there is said to have been found a certain rash Friar Preacher who boldly clamored against this most weighty judgment of the supreme Pontiff in a public sermon; [nevertheless a certain Friar is said to have contradicted this canonization by the same Pope,] concerning which matter Francis Harold, in the Epitome of the Annals of the Order of Minors which he published in two volumes at Rome in the year 1662, at the year of Christ 1260, number 7, has the following: The name of Clare was then borne great through the world, and great and frequent miracles showed her great glory and merits in heaven; but so great is the iniquity of human envy that those who are driven by this evil do not wish even the Saints to be saints: for there was not wanting then a Religious of a certain Order who with insane spite at Vienne in Germany, in a public sermon which he delivered to the people, bursting out into profane revilings (as the Pontiff says), presumed to utter with polluted lips that that same holy Clare, whose happy soul shines in the sight of the Most High, had not been gathered into the college of the Saints, and that the judgment of the Apostolic See in her enrollment in the catalogue of the Saints had been erroneous. These things therefore impelled the Pontiff to command by letters given in this year the Provincial Prior of that Religious to compel him, being peremptorily summoned, first to sing a recantation, and then to send him into the presence of the Pontiff himself, to pay the penalties of his rashness. What outcome this matter had we do not know. For the rest, the very letters of Pope Alexander IV, here indicated by Harold and addressed to the Provincial Prior of the Friars Preachers in Germany, Wadding exhibits in the Annals of the Minors at the year of Christ 1260, number 41, which for brevity's sake we omit, and refer the reader to see them in Wadding at the place just cited.

[64] The insane rashness of this Friar is surpassed by the impiety of the Magdeburg Centuriators, and heretics scurrilously calumniate both this Pontiff and the Saint herself. who in Century 13 of their heretical medley, chapter 7, among us column 720, among other contumelious falsehoods poured out this with shameless pen: Alexander the fourth ordered Clare the virgin, the disciple (or if you prefer, the concubine) of Francis, to migrate to heaven by his own authority. Those excellent reformers, forsooth, of the Catholic Church thought that this spiritual intercourse of St. Francis and St. Clare was like the sacrilegious nuptials which their patriarch Luther, a deserter from the ancient faith and from a Religious Order, celebrated with a covenant-breaking nun of the same bran. Woe to those lustful goats, who imagine Catholics, even saints, to be like themselves or like their wanton fellows. St. Jude the Apostle seems to have designated impious men of this kind in his Catholic epistle, where among other things which aptly fit these heretics he writes thus: In the last time there shall come mockers, walking according to their own desires in ungodliness. These are they who separate themselves, sensual men, not having the spirit. But since these sensual men, to speak with the Apostle Paul, 1 Corinthians 2, verse 14, do not perceive the things that are of the spirit of God, they deserve contempt rather than a laborious refutation.

[65] Wherefore Odorico Rinaldi in the Ecclesiastical Annals at the year of Christ 1255, number 24, does not judge it worth the pains to refute those same calumniators, who without witnesses or documents blurt out anything whatever, and therefore in the same place merely rebukes them in these few words: Of blessed Clare added to the catalogue of holy virgins the innovators made mention (here in the margin he cites the place of the Centuriators reported by us above), and, as men most defiled with crimes are wont, to turn divine things into laughter and to tear the Saints with blasphemous words, they broke out into such madness that they called her (what the pen shudders to write) the concubine of the divine Francis, and, to condemn the ecclesiastical rite, said that Alexander by his own authority ordered her to migrate to heaven: as though they were so stupid and leaden as to be able not to know that the Pontiff by that rite does not thrust the Saints into heaven, but enrolls in the catalogue of the Saints — whom the Church venerates as friends of the Deity and princes of the divine court flourishing in favor with him — those whom God already testifies by conspicuous miracles to enjoy heavenly glory. But it is better to despise the insane mockeries of blasphemers than to crush them with a longer discourse. These insipid calumnies of the heretics being therefore spurned, let us proceed to illustrate the posthumous glory of St. Clare.

§ V. The posthumous glory of the Saint from the honorable translation of her body, the visitation of her sepulcher, the veneration of her relics, and certain miracles.

Pope Alexander IV in the year 1260 When five years had elapsed from the canonization of St. Clare, Pope Alexander IV ordered the sacred body of that same Virgin to be honorably translated, and therefore wrote letters to three neighboring bishops, which are preserved in a certain manuscript treatise among the Conventual Franciscans at Ancona, and whose transcript among our papers runs thus: Alexander, bishop, servant of the servants of God, to his venerable Brethren the bishops of the dioceses of Perugia, Spoleto, and Assisi, health and Apostolic benediction. Since on the vigil of the feast of blessed Francis next coming the body of blessed Clare ought to be translated into the high altar, we will, and by these presents by Apostolic authority strictly commanding we charge you, that you take care to be present in person at this translation, solemnly setting forth the word of God to the people. For we, granting you at the feast of that translation an indulgence of two years and two quarantines yearly — which indulgence indeed we will to be extended as far as the indulgence granted on the aforesaid feast of that same blessed Francis extends — grant free faculty by Apostolic authority. Given at Subiaco on the fifth of the Ides of September, in the sixth year of our Pontificate, which corresponds to the year of Christ 1260.

[67] ordered the body of St. Clare to be translated, Further, Wadding in the Annals of the Minors at the year 1260, number 40, thus records this translation of St. Clare: The structure of a double church having been completed at Pontifical expense within the walls of the city of Assisi at the building of St. George — the inner for the nuns, the outer for placing the body of the most holy virgin Clare — that most precious treasure was translated with the highest authority from the church of St. Damian, in which it had lain five years, to the new church dedicated to her name, the bishops of Perugia, Spoleto, and Assisi being present, whom the Pontiff had commanded to be present without fail. If the body of St. Clare lay in the church of St. Damian until the year of Christ 1260 only five years, as is here said, it certainly seems that this solemn translation of the sacred body was preceded by another, of which we find no mention: for since the holy Virgin died in the year 1253, and was buried immediately after the obsequies, her sacred body must afterward (namely after two years, when she was enrolled in the catalogue of the holy Virgins) have been translated from the first place of burial to the church of St. Damian; otherwise until the year 1260, in which this honorable translation was made, it would have rested in the church of St. Damian not five but seven years.

[68] But Wadding at the place just cited continues his narrative in these words: the memory of which translation is kept yearly, The disciples followed their Mistress, exchanging their old and narrow enclosure for a new, ample, and spacious convent, which we wrote above that Gregory IX first began. Not undeservedly was a place granted them in which the Founder once lay, and the remains of their Mistress were being laid up. This translation was made with great solemnity on the vigil of that same holy Founder; but on account of the solemnity of the feast of St. Francis it is celebrated on the second day of the month of October. That which Wadding here touches in passing concerning the yearly memory of this translation he afterward explains more distinctly in the same Annals at the year of Christ 1357, number 1, when he writes there concerning the fifty-third General Chapter of his Order: William Farinier, Cardinal and vicar general of the fellowship of the Minors, appointed in this year a general assembly of the whole Order to be held at Barcelona, in which Brother John Bucchius of the province of Aquitaine, master of sacred theology, was elected as prefect of the Order, and it was established that the feast of the translation of St. Clare should be kept, both by the Minors and by the Clarisses, on the second day of October, lest it should be an impediment to the vigil or to the first Vespers of St. Francis, although until that time it was celebrated

on the very eve of the holy Patriarch.

[69] Among the highest Hierarchs of the Church who honored St. Clare, living and dead, with great honor, Clement IV may deservedly be numbered, and afterward the Roman Pontiffs venerated this Saint. concerning whom Wadding in the Annals of the Minors at the year of Christ 1265, number 20, has this: Out of the Pontiff's great affection toward St. Francis he visited in person his church at Assisi, and the church of St. Clare, which he wished to be consecrated within and without round about by Rodulph, Cardinal bishop of Albano. The rite was performed with great solemnity on the first day of September, on a Sunday, the Pontiff himself and the whole curia being present, the Pontiff himself consecrating the high altar, beneath which St. Clare rested. Among these venerators of St. Clare there must also be reckoned Pope Nicholas IV, who at Rome in the church of St. Mary Major ordered an image of St. Clare to be portrayed, as the praised Wadding at the year 1291, number 16, testifies. We pass over the countless men of every condition who for four centuries have flowed together from every side to the sepulcher of this holy Virgin for the sake of veneration, among whom our Henschen and Papebroch in the year 1660 venerated the body of St. Clare. When we here say that they venerated the body of that holy Virgin, the greater part of the body is fittingly to be understood: for certain bones of this sacred body were translated to other regions, as we shall now show.

[70] The most illustrious Gonzaga relates that a tooth of St. Clare and other relics of hers are honorably preserved in the convent of nuns at Metz, Certain bones of St. Clare which in the Origin of the Seraphic Religion, among us page 575 and the following, he thus describes: On the slope of the higher part of the city of Metz, beside which the greater Convent of the Friars was built, distant from it as far as a stone's throw, there still remains the constructed monastery of the Sisters of St. Clare of the Urbanists, the old one having been submerged, which had been erected in the year of the Lord MCCLVII. The church was consecrated (as may be seen from the letters of the most reverend bishop of Metz) to the patrons Cosmas and Damian, martyrs, being conspicuous for a tooth of blessed Clare the virgin; nay, and famous also for relics of divers Saints, though unknown: among which there is preserved with much reverence a corporal with its burse, which St. Clare made with her own hands while she was alive, and which the venerable Father and confessor of the Sisters uses when he performs the sacred rites on the chief festivals of the year. In this monastery there live twenty Sisters, most zealously intent upon the divine praises.

[71] into France, Guillaume Marlot in the History of the Metropolis of Reims, book 3, chapter 27, or volume 2 of that Work, page 503, treating of the coming of the Clarisses into the city of Reims, writes this to our purpose: Manuscript codices have it that archbishop Alberic (to whom St. Francis was known, when he was setting out for the Lateran council) had a conversation with him about sending nuns of this kind, and that blessed Clare the more gladly sent some to Reims under the direction of Marie de Broyes, because she had previously been asked about this business, and that she gave them as a pledge of love the rule, her girdle, a Corporal woven by her own hand, with her veil, all which are still religiously preserved in the Convent. Then Marlot in the same place, page 506 and the following, enumerating the sacred relics of this monastery, thus adds others to the preceding: The white veil which blessed Clare gave to the first nuns as a pledge of love when they were setting out for Reims. Likewise a Corporal woven by her own hand; a particle of her hair shirt of horsehair, and a girdle of hempen thread, one part of which (for it is in two parts) is exposed for the veneration of the faithful, and is a singular remedy for pregnant women, to whom it is very often carried; and a washing is made, the end of it being dipped in water, for those whose eyes are painful. A bone of the head of St. Clare, obtained from the parish church of Erpy in the diocese of Reims, by the procurement of the Reverend Father William Gifford, archbishop of Reims, in the year MDCXXIV.

[72] and were translated into divers regions, Rocco Pirri, volume 2 of Sicilia Sacra, among us page 620, among the other sacred relics of the island of Malta which are honored in the metropolitan church of that military Religious Order, reckons a hand of St. Clare the virgin. In the famous Spanish monastery of the Escorial, besides other lesser remains of that same Virgin, there is preserved a bone of St. Clare which is two fingers long and half a finger broad, as is noted in the Spanish relic-list of that monastery, which we transcribed there in the year 1722. Besides, the Reverend lord Tomáš Jan Pěšina of Čechorod in the Phosphorus of the metropolitan church of Prague wove, in the order of the months, a catalogue of the sacred relics which are piously preserved in the aforesaid church, and in it at the day XII of August, or page 515 of the praised Work, he announces the yearly memory of St. Clare the Virgin, whose finger in a monstrance, which he had obtained from his mother Elizabeth, Charles (namely the emperor, the fourth of that name, who began to reign before the middle of the XIV century) gave to the church of Prague. Then it is added in the same place, a part of her headdress and of her mantle. Finally, Arnold Raissius in his Belgic Hierogazophylacium, page 81, asserts that at Cambrai among the Regular Canons of St. Autbert a part of the head of St. Clare is shown.

[73] together with other remains of hers, Masini in volume 1 of Bologna Surveyed, page 411, and Hertfelder in the Augsburg Basilica of Sts. Udalric and Afra, page 77, mention hairs of St. Clare, which are shown in both places. We say nothing here of certain relics of that same holy Virgin which the praised Raissius mentions on page 455 of the Belgic Hierogazophylacium, and Gelenius in the Greatness of Cologne Agrippina, pages 268 and 587, because they do not indicate their quality or quantity. Rather, therefore, let us hear Bartholomew of Pisa, who in the often-cited work of the Conformities, folio 105, writes thus more distinctly concerning the sacred remains of St. Clare: She was clothed in a simple and rough garment and a coarse mantle. I saw her tunic and that of blessed Francis; the tunic of St. Clare was rougher and coarser. Then on the following folio he narrates this concerning certain small gifts which St. Clare sent to blessed Agnes of Bohemia: When blessed Clare had heard the fame of this blessed Agnes through the messengers whom she had sent to St. Clare, she praised the Lord God, and sent some things to the said St. Agnes; namely a "Pater noster" rosary, a veil, the dish from which St. Clare herself ate, and a cup, and some other things, which were received by St. Agnes herself with the highest devotion: through which God wrought many signs by the merits of blessed Clare; all which, adorned with gold and gems, are preserved in the said monastery. We do not doubt that in several churches and in very many monasteries of the Franciscan Order similar relics of this holy Virgin are found; but it is not of our design to investigate or review them all.

[74] Wherefore we shall put an end to this Commentary, after we have reported one or two miracles from Bartholomew of Pisa, and by the invocation of this Saint, who at folio 105 verso of the work just cited narrates the first, as a witness who heard it, in these words: Although the miracles of that blessed Clare are innumerable, I shall report one which I heard from him to whom it happened. When some men of the city of Pisa were going to Sardinia, a horrible tempest of the sea coming on with the dark gloom of night, and the ship being opened at the bottom by the force of the storm, all who were in the ship, seeing death at hand for them, began with tears to beg the intercession of the Virgin and of the Saints; but when they were by no means heard, they began to invoke blessed Clare, promising that for their deliverance they would visit her church at Pisa barefoot and in their shirts with a rope about their necks and a taper of one pound in their hands. Straightway, the vow being made, three lights descended from heaven; one placed itself on the prow of the ship, another on the stern; the third descended to the bilge of the ship and closed the hole through which the water of the sea was entering: and there was a calm on the sea, and with a favorable wind those three lights, never leaving them, went with them that same night as far as Oristano; in whose harbor, when they were, and all the men were on land, and the merchandise had been removed from the ship, all beholding, those three lights disappeared, and the ship was swallowed by the waters: but those men, returning to Pisa, fulfilled their vow.

[75] Then at folio 106 the same author subjoins another to this prodigy thus: and the pious veneration of her relics I relate another miracle, which is plain to the whole city of Florence: for when the aforesaid Agnes, the sister of blessed Clare, had been abbess of the Sisters of the monastery of Monticelli near Florence, she, first departing from the said monastery, returned to Assisi before the death of St. Clare, and was present at her death; to whom also blessed Clare foretold that she would shortly follow her by death, which also came to pass: for not long after the death of St. Clare, blessed Agnes her sister also happily fell asleep in the Lord. Now she, after the death of St. Clare, assigned to the said Sisters of Monticelli, out of the charity and love which she had conceived toward them, and in memory of herself and for their devotion, the black veil which blessed Clare herself wore on her head while she lived. This veil indeed is kept in the aforesaid monastery, and remains so whole, without any defect, as though it had been newly made, whereas the veils of others, on account of the black dye, straightway become corrupted and decay.

[76] many miracles are wrought, That veil indeed, together with the mantle of blessed Francis, which also is kept there, being placed on the head of children suffering from the lethargic affliction, they are cured: and this is so well known that all the infants of the county of Florence are brought thither and are cured. And there is no year in which more than two hundred children are not carried thither and almost all cured. Nor is this new, since it has lasted more than a hundred and thirty years and more, and continues without interruption. Many other miracles are wrought throughout the world by the intercession of St. Clare, which for the present I omit. We freely confess that to demonstrate the sanctity of this Virgin the ancient miracles which are reported in the bull of canonization, and which will be more fully reported below in the old Acts, altogether suffice. But would that the Pisan, or some other writer, had added to them more recent ones also, to increase the posthumous glory of that same Saint. If any new or unpublished miracles or benefits of St. Clare had been supplied to us, we should have subjoined them to the old Acts of the anonymous biographer, which from our manuscript codex we now for the first time submit to the press.

* that is, merchandise

* read: departing

THE LIFE

by an anonymous contemporary author.

From the parchment codex of our Museum P. Ms. 19, which has been collated with two other manuscript Codices and with the Surian edition.

Clare, Virgin, at Assisi in Umbria (S.)

BHL Number: 1815

BY A CONTEMPORARY AUTHOR.

PROLOGUE.

The author, addressing Pope Alexander IV, [As if the worn-out old age of the world were pressing on ,

the sight of faith was growing dim, the step of morals was tottering, the strength of manly works was withering: nay rather, the dregs of the times were being exchanged even for the dregs of vices, when God the lover of men, raising up out of the secret of his goodness a newness of sacred Orders, provided through them both a support of faith and a discipline for the reforming of morals. I should certainly call the modern fathers, with the men who follow them , luminaries of the world, leaders of the way, masters of life: in whom a midday brightness rose for the world at evening, that those who walk in darkness might see the light. Nor was it fitting that help should be wanting to the weaker sex, whom, intercepted in the whirlpool of lust, pleasure drew to sin no less, and frailty impelled the more . Therefore the kindly God raised up the venerable virgin Clare, and kindled in her a most bright lamp for women; whom you also, O Pope, most blessed father, setting upon a candlestick, that she may give light to all who are in the house, the power of signs compelling it *, have enrolled in the catalogue of the Saints ^a. Of these Orders we honor you as father, we know you as fosterer, we embrace you as protector, we venerate you as lord: whom the universal governance of the greatest ship so occupies that it does not exclude a singular and solicitous care also for a little boat.

[2] Indeed it pleased your Lordship to enjoin upon my littleness that, the acts of St. Clare being reviewed , I should shape her Legend: a work certainly which my great rudeness dreaded, had not the pontifical authority repeated the word again and again to me in person. he protests that he reports the Saint's deeds from eyewitnesses. Therefore, gathering myself to the command, and not thinking it safe to proceed by those things which I had read as defective, I went to the companions of blessed Francis ^b, and to the very college of the virgins of Christ, frequently turning over this in my heart, that it was not lawful of old to weave a history except for those who had seen, or had received it from those who saw. By these, I say, instructing me more fully with truth going before and with the fear of the Lord, gathering some things and passing over more, I have run through in a plain style; so that, since virgins will delight to read the mighty deeds of a Virgin, unpolished understanding may not find where it should be darkened by the compass of words. Let men therefore follow men, the new disciples of the incarnate Word. Let women imitate Clare, the footstep of the Mother of God, the new captain of women. But to you, most holy Father, as full authority remains of correcting, taking away, and adding in these things, so my will in all things is subject, agrees, and demands it. May the Lord Jesus Christ make you fare well now and for ever, Amen. ^c

ANNOTATIONS.

* Böddeken and Corsendonk manuscripts: "aged"

* Böddeken manuscript: "declining"

* Corsendonk manuscript: "with true followers"

* Böddeken manuscript: "the greater"

* Böddeken manuscript: "compelling"

* Corsendonk manuscript: "recent"

* Böddeken and Corsendonk manuscripts: "thinking it not safe"

CHAPTER I.

The Saint's birth, pious childhood, conversion to a more perfect life, and constancy in her purpose.

This holy Virgin, The admirable woman Clare, bright in name and in virtue, drew her origin from the city of Assisi, from a family illustrious enough. She was first a fellow citizen of blessed Francis on earth, and afterward reigns with him on high. Her father was a knight ^a, and her whole lineage on both parents' side was of knightly rank. The house was well supplied, and its resources, according to the custom of the country, abundant. Her mother, by name Ortolana, who was to bring forth a fruitful little plant in the garden of the Church, herself also abounded not moderately in good fruits. For although subject to the marriage yoke, although bound with household cares, she nevertheless gave herself so far as she could to divine services and applied herself to works of piety. For indeed she devoutly crossed the sea with pilgrims, and, traversing those places which God made man had consecrated with his sacred footsteps, at length returned with joy. Likewise she went to St. Michael the Archangel for the sake of prayer, and more devoutly visited the thresholds of the Apostles.

[2] whom a pious mother bore, Why say more? A tree is known by its fruit, and the fruit is commended from the tree. There went before in the root an abundance of the divine gift, that in the little branch there might follow an abundance of sanctity. At length the woman, being pregnant and now near to childbirth, when before the cross in the church she was attentively praying to the Crucified that he would deliver her safely from the peril of childbirth, heard a voice saying to her: Do not fear, woman: for you shall bring forth in safety a certain light which shall illuminate the world itself more brightly. Being taught by which oracle, she ordered the infant girl, when born and reborn in holy baptism, to be called Clare, hoping that the brightness of the promised light would in some way be fulfilled according to the good pleasure of the divine will.

[3] in her childish age Little Clare, being soon brought forth into the light, began early enough to grow bright with light in the shadow of the world, and within her tender years to shine with uprightness of manners. With a teachable heart she first received from her mother's mouth the rudiments of faith, and, the Spirit inwardly breathing and likewise forming her, she became known as a vessel truly most pure, a vessel of graces. She willingly stretched out her hand to the poor, and from the abundance of her house supplied the wants of very many. And that her sacrifice might be more pleasing to God, delicate as she was she withdrew choice food from her own little body, and, sending it secretly by messengers, refreshed the bowels of orphans. Thus from infancy, compassion growing with her, she bore a compassionate mind, pitying the miseries of the wretched.

[4] She held the pursuit of holy prayer as her friend: where, being often sprinkled with a good fragrance, she gradually practiced a celibate life. she shines with various virtues, When she had no beads by whose turning she might say the Our Father, she counted her little prayers to the Lord by a heap of pebbles ^b. When therefore she first began to feel the goads of holy love, she judges the unstable painted show of worldly flowers to be despised, being taught by the unction of the Spirit to set on cheap things the price of cheapness. For beneath precious and soft garments she wore a little hair shirt hidden, flourishing outwardly to the world, inwardly putting on Christ. At length, when her people wished to marry her nobly, she by no means consented: but, dissembling for the time to come as to mortal wedlock, she was committing her virginity to the Lord. Such were in her father's house the foretastes of virtue, such the first-fruits of the spirit, such the preludes of sanctity. And so, overflowing with such ointments, like a store-chamber of spices, though closed, she reveals herself by her own fragrance. For, though unable to be praised by the mouth of her neighbors, she began, and, truthful report disclosing her secret acts, the rumor of her goodness was spread abroad among the people.

[5] But hearing then the famous name of Francis, who, as a new man, and afterward at the exhortation of St. Francis was renewing with new virtues the way of perfection blotted out in the world, presently she desires to hear and to see him, the Father of spirits himself persuading it, of whom each had already, though differently, received the first-fruits. Nor less did he, breathed upon by the famous report of so gracious a girl, desire to see and address her, if in any way he — who was wholly gaping after booty and had come to lay waste the kingdom of the world — might be able to snatch that noble prey from the wicked world and claim it for his Lord. He visits her, and she more often him, moderating the times of their visitations, so that that divine pursuit could neither be perceived by man nor be disparaged by public rumor ^c. For, with only one familiar companion accompanying her, the girl, going out from her father's dwelling, made frequent secret approaches to the man of God, whose words seemed to her flaming, and whose works beyond man. Father Francis exhorts her to contempt of the world: with living speech he shows the hope of the world to be dry and its appearance deceptive: he instills into her ears the sweet nuptials of Christ, persuading her that the pearl of virginal chastity must be kept for that blessed * spouse whom love made man.

[6] Why should I delay with many words? The most holy father urging, and after the manner of a most faithful groomsman acting skillfully, she resolves to embrace a more perfect life, the virgin does not long draw out her consent. Straightway there is opened to her a view of the eternal joys, at whose sight the world would grow cheap to her, at whose desire she would melt away from herself, at whose love she would pant for the heavenly nuptials. For, kindled with heavenly fire, she so despised from on high the glory of earthly vanity that nothing now of the world's applause clung to her affections. Shuddering also at the enticements of the flesh, she resolves henceforth to know herself wholly in no offense, desiring to make of her body a temple for God alone, and striving to merit by virtue the nuptials of the great king. From that time she commits herself wholly to the counsel of Francis, setting him after God as the charioteer of her direction. Thereafter her soul hangs upon his sacred counsels, and with warm breast she receives whatever he utters in speech concerning the good Jesus. Now she bears with annoyance the comeliness of secular adornment, and counted as dung all things that applaud outwardly, that she might gain Christ.

[7] Straightway, lest worldly dust further defile the mirror of her unstained mind, and shortly carrying out this purpose, or the contagion of secular life leaven her unleavened age, the kindly father hastens to lead Clare out of the dark world. The solemn day of Palms was at hand, when the girl with fervent heart betakes herself to the man of God, inquiring concerning her conversion what and in what manner it must be done. Father Francis bids that on the feast day, dressed and adorned, she go forth for the palm with the throng of the people, and that on the following night, going out beyond the town, she turn worldly joy into the mourning of the Lord's passion. And so, the Lord's day coming, the girl, shining with festive splendor amid a throng of ladies, enters the Church with the rest. Where this happened with a worthy presage, that, while the rest ran for the branches, and Clare out of modesty remained motionless in her place, the bishop, coming down the steps, went up to her and placed a palm in her hands. On the following night, preparing herself according to the Saint's command, she undertakes the wished-for flight with honorable company. And when it did not please her to go out by the usual door, she unbarred with her own hands, with wonderful strength, another door which weights of timber and stones blocked.

[8] Therefore, house, city, and kinsfolk being forsaken, she hastened to St. Mary of the Portiuncula: where the friars carrying it out, who were keeping the sacred watches in the hall of God received the virgin Clare with lights. Presently there, the filth of Babylon being cast off, she delivered to the world a bill of divorce: there, laying aside her hair at the hands of the friars, she left behind her various adornments. Nor was it fitting that the Order of flowering virginity should be raised up at the evening of the ages anywhere else than in her hall who, first of all and most worthy, alone was mother and virgin. This is that place in which the new warfare of the poor, under the leadership of Francis, took its happy beginnings, so that it might clearly be seen

that the Mother of mercy brought forth both religious institutes in her own lodging. But when before the altar of blessed Mary she had received the tokens of holy penance, and, as before the couch of this Virgin, the humble handmaid had been wedded to Christ, straightway St. Francis led her to the church of St. Paul ^d, there to remain * until the Most High should provide otherwise.

[9] But when the rumor flew to her kinsfolk, with torn heart they condemn the deed and purpose of the virgin; and, massed together into one, they run to the place, against the threats and blandishments of her kinsfolk attempting what they cannot obtain. They employ an onset of violence, the poisons of counsels, the blandishments of promises, urging her to depart from such baseness, which neither befits her family nor has any precedent in that region. But she, taking hold of the cloths of the altar, uncovers her shorn head, affirming that she is by no means to be torn away any further from the service of Christ. Her spirit grows as the war of her own people grows, and love, provoked by injuries, supplies strength. So, so, when for several days she suffered a barrier in the way of the Lord, and her own people set themselves against her holy purpose, her spirit did not collapse, nor was her fervor slackened: but amid words and hatreds she so long refashioned her spirit toward hope, until her kinsfolk, their brows beaten back *, grow quiet.

[10] she steadfastly perseveres in it. A few days intervening, she passed over to the church of St. Angelo di Panzo ^e: where, since her mind did not fully rest, at length by the counsel of blessed Francis she removed to the Church of St. Damian. There, fixing as it were the anchor of her mind on solid ground, she no longer wavers for change of place, does not hesitate at its narrowness, nor shrink at its solitude. This is that church in the repairing of which Francis toiled with wonderful zeal, and to whose priest he had offered money for the work of repairing. This is the one in which, while Francis was praying, a voice, gliding to him from the wood of the Cross, sounded: Francis, go, repair my house, which, as you see, is being wholly destroyed. In the prison-house of this little place, for the love of her heavenly spouse, the virgin Clare shut herself up. In it, hiding herself from the storm of the world, she imprisoned her body as long as she should live. In the hollow of this wall, a silvered dove building her nest brought forth a college of virgins of Christ, established a holy monastery, and began the Order of poor ladies. Here on the way of penance she wears down the clods of her limbs ^f, here she sows the seeds of perfect justice, here by her own going she marks footsteps for those who shall follow. In this narrow enclosure for forty-two years she breaks the alabaster of her body with the scourges of discipline, that the house of the Church may be filled with the fragrance of ointments. How gloriously she lived there will at length be openly told, if it be first told how many and how great souls came through her to Christ.

ANNOTATIONS.

* Böddeken manuscript: "first"

* Surius: "she was promising," and the Corsendonk manuscript: "she was commending"

* Böddeken manuscript: "good"

* Surius, faultily: "mausoleum"

* That is, region

* Surius: "blunted"

CHAPTER II.

The public fame of her virtues, her love of humility and poverty, the wonderful multiplication of bread and oil.

The fame of her virtues A little afterward the report of the sanctity of the virgin Clare is spread through the neighboring regions, so that women run from every side at the fragrance of her ointments. Virgins hasten by her example to keep for Christ what they are: married women busy themselves to live more chastely: noble and illustrious women, spacious palaces being despised, build for themselves narrow monasteries, and count it great glory to live for Christ in ashes and sackcloth. No less is the vigor of young men stirred up to undefiled contests, and is provoked to spurn the mockeries of the flesh by the brave examples of the weaker sex. At length several joined in matrimony, binding themselves by mutual consent to the law of the continent, the husbands pass over to Orders, the wives to monasteries. A mother invites her daughter, a daughter her mother, to Christ: a sister draws her sisters, and an aunt her nieces. All with emulous fervor desire to serve Christ. All wish to be made partakers of this angelic life which through Clare became famous. Countless virgins, stirred by the reports of Clare, while they cannot pass over to the cloistered life, strive to live regularly without a rule in their fathers' houses. So many seeds of salvation did the virgin Clare bring forth by her examples that in her that word of the prophet seemed to be fulfilled: Many are the children of the desolate, more than of her that has a husband.

[11] Meanwhile, lest the vein of this heavenly blessing, which gushed forth in the valley of Spoleto ^a, is spread far and wide, be shut within narrow bounds, it is by divine providence so drawn off into a stream that the rush of the river gladdens the whole city of the Church. For the newness of such great things passed far and wide into the world, and everywhere began to gain souls for Christ. Clare, remaining enclosed, begins to grow bright to the whole world, and shines preeminent with titles of praise. The fame of her virtues fills the chambers of illustrious ladies, the palaces of duchesses, and penetrates the very inner rooms of queens. The summit of nobility is bent to follow her footsteps, and, from a stock of proud blood, degenerates into holy humility. Not a few worthy of marriage with Dukes and kings, invited by the proclamation of Clare, do strict penance, and those who had married the powerful imitate Clare in their own measure. Countless cities are adorned with monasteries: the very plains and mountains too are decked with the fabric of this heavenly building. The title of chastity is multiplied in the world, most holy Clare going before, and the order of virgins is called back into the midst, restored to life. With these blessed flowers which Clare brought forth the Church today happily flourishes, by which she also asks to be supported, saying: Stay me up with flowers, compass me about with apples, because I languish with love. But now let the pen return to its purpose, that it may become known what her manner of life was.

[12] and the holy Abbess, distinguished by humility She, the first stone and noble foundation of her Order, strove from the very beginning to set the fabric of all the virtues upon the foundation of holy humility. For she promised holy obedience to blessed Francis, and in no way departed from her promise. But three years after her conversion, declining the name and office of Abbess, she humbly wished rather to be under than to be over, and more gladly to serve among the handmaids of Christ than to be served. But blessed Francis compelling her, she at length took up the government of the ladies: from which there arises in her heart fear, not swelling; and not liberty, but servitude is increased. For the higher she is now seen by some show of prelacy, the lower she is found in her own esteem, the readier in service, the meaner in dress. Now she refuses no acts of the servants, so that for the most part she would pour water on the hands of the sisters, would wait on them as they sat, would serve them as they ate. Very unwillingly did she command anything: but of her own accord she did it, choosing rather to do things herself than to order the sisters. The seats of the sick she herself washed, she herself wiped, with that noble spirit of hers neither fleeing what was filthy nor shuddering at what was foul. The feet of the servants returning from outside she often washed, and imprinted kisses on them when washed. Once she was washing the feet of a certain serving sister: which, when she hastens to kiss them, that sister, not bearing so great humility, drew back her foot and struck her lady on the mouth with her foot. But she gently takes up again the servant's foot, and fixes a close * kiss beneath the very sole.

[13] She held poverty of spirit, which is true humility, together with poverty of all things. burning with love of strict poverty, First, at the beginning of her conversion, she caused her paternal inheritance, which had come to her, to be sold, and, reserving nothing of the price for herself, gave it all to the poor. Hence, the world being left behind outwardly, and being enriched inwardly in mind, she ran after Christ unburdened, without a purse. At length she entered into so great a covenant with holy poverty, and contracted such love, that she wished to have nothing except the Lord Jesus, permitted her daughters to possess nothing, and that nothing besides necessary food and clothing should be received by the sisters or kept for the future. By no means did she think that the most precious pearl of heavenly desire, which she had bought when all was sold, should be possessed with the gnawing solicitude for temporal things. She impresses upon her sisters in frequent discourse that that college would then be acceptable to God when it was rich in poverty, and would then remain perpetually stable if it were always fortified by the tower of the highest poverty. She exhorts them in the little nest of poverty to be conformed to the poor Christ, whom a poor mother laid as a little one in a narrow manger. For with this special memorial, as with a golden necklace, she adorned her breast, lest the dust of earthly things should pass to her inward parts.

[14] At length, wishing her religious institute to be entitled with the title of poverty, she asked of Pope Innocent the third, of good memory, the privilege of poverty. And that magnificent man, rejoicing at so great a fervor of the virgin, and trusting in divine providence, says the purpose is singular, in that never had such a privilege been asked of the Apostolic See. And that an unwonted favor might smile upon an unwonted petition, the Pontiff himself with great cheerfulness wrote with his own hand the first draft of the privilege asked. The lord Pope Gregory of happy memory ^b, a man as most worthy of the See so also venerable for his merits, loved that Saint more closely with fatherly affection. And when he urged her that, on account of the events of the times and the perils of the ages, she should consent to have some possessions, which he himself also liberally offered, she resisted with a most steadfast spirit, and by no means consented. To whom, the Pontiff answering, If you fear your vow, we absolve you from the vow: Holy father, she said, I by no means desire to be absolved for ever from the following of Christ. The fragments of alms and the little bits of bread which the almoners brought in she received very cheerfully, and, as though saddened by whole loaves, she rather exulted

in the fragments. Why say more? She busied herself to be conformed by most perfect poverty to the poor Crucified, that no perishable thing might shut off the lover from the beloved *, or hinder her course with the Lord. Behold, there occur two marvels which the lover of poverty deserved to work.

[15] There was a single loaf in the monastery, when now hunger and the hour of eating were pressing. she wonderfully multiplies bread The dispenser being called, the Saint bids her divide the loaf, and send one part to the brethren, and keep one part within for the sisters. Of the half kept back she bids fifty cuttings be made, according to the number of the ladies, and to set them on the table of poverty. And when the devout daughter answered that the ancient miracles of Christ would be needful for this, that so little bread should receive fifty slices, the mother answered and said: Do, daughter, in confidence, what I say. The daughter hastens to fulfill the mother's commands: the mother hastens to send her holy sighs for her daughters to her Christ. By the divine gift that little material grows between the hands of her that breaks it, and there was an abundant portion for everyone of her Convent.

[16] On a certain day oil had so wholly failed the handmaids of Christ, and multiplies oil. that there was no seasoning at hand even for the weak. The lady Clare takes a little vessel, and, mistress of humility *, washed it with her own hands; she sets the empty vessel apart, that the Brother almoner may take it, and he himself is called, that he may go to obtain oil. The devout Brother hastens, that he may succor so great a want, and runs to take up the little vessel. But it is not of him that wills, nor of him that runs, but of God that shows mercy. For indeed, God alone pouring it in, that vessel is found full of oil, the prayer of St. Clare forestalling the Brother's service for the comfort of her poor daughters. But the aforesaid Brother, murmuring under his breath, as though he had been called in vain, said: Those women called me in mockery, since, behold, the vessel is full.

ANNOTATIONS.

* Surius: "be shut in," and the Corsendonk manuscript: "be closed off"

* Böddeken manuscript: "holy"

* Böddeken manuscript: "immoderate"

* Corsendonk manuscript: "she clasped"

* Corsendonk manuscript: "should lead astray"

* Böddeken manuscript: "grace"

CHAPTER III.

Her austere manner of life, and the efficacy of her prayers.

The Saint by various afflictions Concerning the wonderful mortification of her flesh it would perhaps be more expedient to be silent than to speak, since she did such things as that the astonishment of the hearers vies with the truth of the matters. It is no great thing that with a simple little tunic and a cheap mantle of rough cloth she rather covered than cherished her poor body. Nor is it wonderful that she was utterly ignorant of the use of shoes. It is no great thing to continue fasts at all times, nor to use a bed without a feather. For in these, since she had the rest in her cloister like herself, she perhaps deserved no singular praises. But what fellowship has virgin flesh with a swine's garment? For the virgin had procured for herself a garment of swine's hide, which, with the bristly clipping of the hairs turned toward her flesh, she wore secretly beneath her tunic. She used sometimes a hard hair shirt, knotted together of horsehair, which on this side and that she bound to her body with rough little cords. When she had lent this garment to one of her familiars * who asked for it, that one, straightway succumbing to so great harshness, did not so cheerfully ask for it as she quickly gave it back after three days. The bare ground, and sometimes the twigs of vines, were for a little bed, and a hard piece of wood performed beneath her head the office of a pillow. But in process of time she spread a hide for her weakened body, and kindly indulged her head a little straw. But after a long infirmity began to seize her body, so severely treated, at the bidding of blessed Francis she used a sack full of straw.

[18] chastises her body, Further, in fasting so great was the rigor of her abstinence that on the slender viaticum which she took she would scarcely have lived bodily, unless another power had sustained her. For in the time of her health, fasting the greater Lent and the Lent of St. Martin the bishop on bread and water, she tasted wine, if she had it, on Sundays only. And that you may wonder, hearer, at what you cannot imitate, on three days in the week, namely the second, the fourth, and the sixth day, she took nothing for food in those Lents. Thus alternately days of scanty refreshment and days of thoroughgoing mortification * succeeded one another, so that the vigil of perfect fasting was relaxed as it were into a festival of bread and water. It is no wonder if so great strictness, observed for a long time, subjected Clare to infirmities, if it consumed her strength, if it unnerved the vigor of her body. Therefore her most devoted daughters had compassion on their holy Mother, and with tears bewailed those deaths which she daily bore of her own will. At length blessed Francis and the Bishop of Assisi forbade St. Clare that deadly fast of three days, commanding that she should pass no day without taking at least an ounce and a half of bread for food. And whereas grave affliction of bodies commonly begets affliction of minds, far otherwise did it shine forth in Clare: for in all her mortification she kept a festive and cheerful countenance, so that she seemed either not to feel or to laugh at bodily distresses. From which it is plainly given to be understood that the holy gladness with which she abounded inwardly overflowed outwardly: since love of the heart lightens the scourgings of the body.

[19] and pours forth prayers continually, But she, as being dead beforehand in the flesh, so was she utterly a stranger to the world, and continually occupied her soul with holy prayers and divine praises. She had now fixed upon the light the most fervent point of her inward desire, and she who had passed beyond the globe of earthly revolutions spread the bosom of her mind more widely to the showers of graces. With long stretches after Compline she prays with the sisters, and floods of tears, while they burst forth in her, are stirred up in the rest. But after the rest went to refresh their wearied limbs on hard couches, she remained sleepless and unconquered in prayer, that she might then receive by stealth the veins of the divine whispering ^a, when slumber had seized the rest. Very often, prostrate on her face at prayer, she drenches the ground with tears and caresses it with kisses: so that she may always seem to hold her Jesus in her hands, upon whose feet those tears flow and kisses are imprinted. Once, as she was weeping in the depth of night, an angel of darkness stood by in the form of a little black boy, and warned her, saying: Do not weep so much, for you will become blind. To whom, when she at once answered: He shall not be blind who shall see God: he departed confounded. On the same night, after Matins, as Clare was praying and bathed in her wonted stream, the deceitful adviser came: Do not, said he, weep so much, lest you blow out through your nostrils a brain so long dissolved: for you will yet have a crooked nose. And when she quickly answered: She who serves the Lord suffers no crookedness, straightway he slipped away and vanished.

[20] What great strengthening * she receives in the furnace of fervent prayer, which were of such efficacy, how greatly the divine goodness grows sweet to her in that enjoyment, the wonted tokens prove. For when she returned from holy prayer with gladness, she brought back from the fire of the Lord's altar warm words which kindled the breasts of the Sisters. For they marveled that a certain sweetness proceeded from her mouth, and that her face appeared brighter than usual. Surely God in his sweetness had provided for the poor, and outwardly, in the body, he exhibited a pattern of the mind which the true light had filled in prayer. Thus in a slipping world not slippingly joined to her noble spouse, she is continually delighted in things above: thus on the turning wheel, upheld by steadfast virtue, and shutting up the treasure of glory in an earthen vessel, with her flesh in the depths, in mind she remains on high. It was her custom to forestall the young ones at Matins, whom, silently rousing by signs, she called forth to praises. Often, while the rest slept, she lighted the lamps: often she rang the bell with her own hands. There was no place for the body, no place for sloth in her cloister; where a sharp rebuke goaded on laziness in praying and in serving the Lord.

[21] It is fitting here to recount the mighty works of her prayers, as most faithful in truth, by which she put the Saracens to flight, so also most worthy of veneration. In that storm which under the Emperor Frederick ^b the Church was enduring in divers parts of the world, the valley of Spoleto drank more frequently of the cup of wrath. There were in it, by Imperial command, ranks of soldiers appointed for the laying waste of strongholds and for the storming of cities, and swarms of Saracen archers like swarms of bees. And when once the fury rushed upon Assisi, the Lord's own city, and the army was already drawing near to the very gates, the Saracens, a most wicked race, who thirst for Christian blood and more shamelessly dare every impiety, flowed together at St. Damian within the bounds of the place, nay within the cloister of the virgins. The hearts of the ladies melt with fears, their words tremble with dread, and they bring their weeping to the Mother. She, undaunted in heart, bids herself, sick as she was, be led to the door and set before the enemies, the silver casket, enclosed within ivory, going before her, in which the body * of the Holy of holies was most devoutly kept.

[22] And when she had prostrated herself wholly in prayer before the Lord, she says with tears to her Christ: Does it please you, my Lord, to deliver into the hands of the pagans your unarmed handmaids, she put to flight those invading her monastery, whom I have nourished in your love? Guard, Lord, I pray, these your handmaids, whom I myself in the present crisis cannot guard. Presently from the propitiatory of new grace a voice as of a little boy sounded in her ears: I will always guard you. My Lord, she said, protect also, if it please you, this city, because for love of you it sustains us. And the Lord to her: It shall bear afflictions, but it shall be defended by my protection and by your intercession. Then the Virgin, lifting up her tearful face, comforts the weeping ones, saying: I give you my word, little daughters, that you shall suffer no evil: only trust in Christ. Nor was there any delay: straightway the boldness of those dogs, being checked, takes fright, and, going out quickly by the walls which they had scaled, they were overthrown by the power of her who prayed. Immediately Clare earnestly charges those who had heard the aforesaid voice, saying: Beware by every means, dearest daughters, that you disclose that voice to no one while I bear this body.

[23] she freed Assisi from siege, At another time Vitale of Aversa, a man greedy of glory and spirited in battles, brought up against Assisi the Imperial army, over which he was captain. And so he stripped the land of trees, laid waste all the neighboring parts, and thus settled down in the siege of the city. He affirms with threatening words that he will by no means withdraw thence until he shall have that city. And now it had come to this, that men feared for the city's peril close at hand. And when Clare, the handmaid of Christ, had heard this, she groaned vehemently, and, the sisters being called to her, said: From this city, dearest daughters, we daily receive many good things: it is exceedingly impious if we do not succor it, so far as we can, in the fitting time. She bids ashes be brought, she bids the sisters bare their heads. First she sprinkled her own uncovered head with much ash: then she puts ash upon their heads. Go, she says, to our Lord, and beg with your whole affections for the deliverance of the city. Why should I tell each thing? Why the tears of the virgins,

why should I repeat their vehement prayers? The merciful God brings about on the following morning an outcome with the temptation, so that, the whole army being scattered, the proud man departed against his vow, and did not further trouble that land. For the very leader of the war was also slain a little after by the sword.

[24] she obtained by a prodigy the conversion of her sister Agnes But neither ought that wonderful power of her prayer to be buried in silence, by which in the very beginning of her conversion she turned a soul to God, and defended it when turned. For she had a sister, tender in age, own sister in flesh and in purity: whose conversion desiring, among the first-fruits of the prayers which she offered to God with full affections, she asked this the more earnestly, that as she had had with her sister in the world a cleaving together of minds, so now in God's service there might be between them a unity of wills. She prays therefore instantly to the Father of mercy that to her sister Agnes, left in the house, the world may grow tasteless and God grow sweet, and that he may so transfer her from the purpose of carnal nuptials to the bond of his own love, that together with her she may wed the Spouse of glory in perpetual virginity. For a wonderful mutual love had settled upon both, which had made the new separation, though with unlike affection, painful to both. The divine majesty quickly favors the excellent suppliant, and the more speedily bestows that first gift which she chiefly asks, and which it more delights God to grant. For sixteen days after the conversion of Clare, Agnes, breathed upon by the divine spirit, hastens to her sister, and, unlocking to her the secret of her will, says that she wishes wholly to serve the Lord. Whom she, joyfully embracing, said: I give thanks to God, sweetest sister, that he has heard me when I was solicitous concerning you.

[25] A defense sufficiently to be wondered at followed the wonderful conversion. and steadfastness against the violence of her kinsfolk, For when the happy sisters, at the church of St. Angelo di Panzo, were cleaving to the footsteps of Christ, and she who had the greater sense of the Lord was instructing her novice and own sister, suddenly new battles of their kinsfolk are stirred up against the girls. For hearing that Agnes had passed over to Clare, twelve men, kindled with fury, run to the place on the following day, and, dissembling outwardly the malice they had conceived, make a show of a peaceable entrance. And presently, turning to Agnes (for concerning Clare they had already before despaired), they say: What have you come to this place for? Hasten as quickly as possible to return home with us. And when she answered that she would not depart from her sister Clare, one knight of savage spirit rushed upon her and, not sparing fists and heels, tried to drag her away by the hair, the rest pushing her and lifting her with their arms. But the young girl, while, as though seized by lions, she was being snatched from the hand of the Lord, cries out, saying: Help me, dearest sister, and do not permit me to be taken from Christ the Lord. When therefore the violent robbers were dragging the resisting young girl down the slope of the mountain, tearing her garments, and filling the ways with the tearing out of her hair, Clare, falling with tears to prayer, asks that steadfastness of mind be granted to her sister, asks that the strength of men be overcome by the divine power.

[26] But straightway the body of her lying on the ground seems to be fixed with so great a weight she obtained, that several men, straining with their efforts, are by no means able to carry her beyond a certain little brook. Some too, running up from the fields and vineyards, strive to render them help, but they can in no way lift that body from the ground. And while they fail in their effort, they exalt the miracle with a jesting word, saying: She has eaten lead all night, and therefore it is no wonder if she weighs heavy. For the lord Monaldus her uncle also, when, being set in so great a rage, he wished to strike her mortally with his fist, a fearful pain suddenly seized the hand which he lifted, and the anguish of the pain tortured it for a long time. Behold, after a long struggle Clare, going to the place, asks her kinsmen to depart from such a conflict, and to commend Agnes, lying half dead, to her care. And when they withdrew with bitter mind, their business unaccomplished, Agnes rose up joyful, and now rejoicing in the cross of Christ, for whom she had striven in this first fight, she gave herself up perpetually to the divine services. And indeed blessed Francis with his own hand shore her, and instructed her together with her sister in the way of the Lord. But since a brief discourse could not set forth the magnificent perfection of her life, let attention be turned to Clare.

[27] It is no wonder if Clare's prayer prevailed against the malice of men, and she drove out demons. which even burned the demons. For a certain woman of the diocese of Pisa came once devoutly to the place, to give thanks to God and to St. Clare because by her merits she had been freed from five demons. Now the demons confessed at their expulsion that the prayers of St. Clare burned them and drove them out of the vessel they possessed. Not without cause did the lord Pope Gregory have a wonderful faith in the prayers of this Saint, whose power he had felt admirable and effectual. Often indeed, when some new difficulty emerged, as is wont to happen, both when he was bishop of Ostia and after he had been raised to the Apostolic summit, becoming a suppliant to that same virgin by letter, he asks her support, he feels her help. A thing surely as conspicuous for humility so also to be imitated with all zeal: when the Vicar of Christ begs aid of a handmaid of Christ, and commends himself to her virtues. He knew well what love can do, and how free an access lies open to pure virgins to the consistory of majesty. For if the King of heaven gives himself to those who fervently love him, what is there that he does not grant to those who devoutly pray, if it be expedient?

ANNOTATIONS.

* Surius: "daughters"

* Böddeken manuscript: "of sanctification performed"

* Surius: "change"

* Böddeken manuscript: "the holy body of Christ"

CHAPTER IV.

Her exceeding devotion toward the most holy Sacrament of the Eucharist, and toward the Cross of Christ, by whose sign she wrought various miracles.

Toward the Sacrament of the Eucharist, How great was the affection of devotion of blessed Clare toward the Sacrament of the altar, the effect shows. In that grave infirmity which had confined her to a pallet, she caused herself to be raised up and to be supported by props placed about her: and, sitting, she spun most delicate cloths: of which, making more than fifty pairs of Corporals, and enclosing them in silken or purple cases, she sent them to divers churches through the plains and mountains of Assisi. But when about to receive the Body of the Lord, she was first bedewed with warm tears: and approaching with trembling, she fears him hidden in the Sacrament no less than him who rules heaven and earth.

[29] and toward Christ, For as in her infirmity she was mindful of the memory of her Christ, so also Christ visited her in her sicknesses. In that hour of the Nativity, when at the birth of the little one the world rejoices with the angels, all the ladies go to Matins, and leave alone their mother, pressed with infirmities. And when she had begun to think of the little Jesus, and grieved much that she could not be present at his praises, sighing she said: Lord God, behold, I am left alone to you in this place. And behold, suddenly that wonderful harmony which was being made in the church of St. Francis began to sound in her ears. She heard the jubilee of the Friars singing psalms, she attended to the harmonies of those who sang, she perceived even the very sound of the organs. By no means was the nearness of the place so great that she could reach these things humanly, unless either that solemnity had been divinely extended to her, or her hearing had been strengthened beyond human measure. But what surpasses this whole oracle, she was worthy to see the very manger of the Lord. In the morning, when her daughters came to her, Clare said: Blessed be the Lord Jesus Christ, who, when you left me, did not leave me. I have truly heard, by the grace of Christ, all those solemnities which were celebrated this night in the church of St. Francis ^a.

[30] and especially toward him suffering, so great was the Saint's affection, Familiar to her was the lamentation of the Lord's passion, which now draws out from the sacred wounds affections steeped in myrrh, now sucks sweeter joys. The tear of the suffering Christ vehemently inebriates her, and memory frequently presents again him whom love had more deeply imprinted on her heart. She teaches the novices to lament Christ crucified, and at the same time exemplifies by deeds what she teaches in words. For often, when in secret she exhorted them to such things, a stream of tears forestalled the issue of her words. Among the hours of the day, at Sext and None she is affected by custom with greater compunction, that she may be immolated with the immolated Lord. For once too, as she was praying in her little cell at the hour of None, the devil, striking her on the cheek, suffused her eye with blood and her cheek with a bruise. But that she might feed her mind without intermission on the delights of the Crucified, she more frequently ruminated the prayer of the five wounds of the Lord. She learned the Office of the Cross, as Francis the lover of the Cross had instituted it, and frequented it with a like affection ^b. A little cord ringed with knots in thirteen couplings she girded beneath, next her flesh, a secret memorial of the wounds of the Savior.

[31] There had come at a certain time the day of the most sacred Supper, on which the Lord loved his own to the end. Toward evening, so that she was caught up into an ecstasy, as the Lord's agony drew near, Clare, saddened and mournful, shut herself up in the secret place of her cell. And when, praying, she followed the praying Lord, and her soul, sorrowful even unto death, had drunk in the affection of that sorrow, being now and now inebriated with the memory of his seizure and of all the mockery, she sat down upon her bed. Through that whole night therefore and the following day she remains so absorbed, so estranged from herself, that with eyes unwavering, ever intent upon one thing, she seemed fixed with Christ and wholly insensible. A certain familiar daughter returns often to her, in case she should wish anything, and always finds her in the same condition. But when the night of the Sabbath day came, the devout daughter lit a candle and by a sign or by * a word recalls the command of St. Francis to her mother's memory. For the Saint had commanded that she should let no day pass without eating. She therefore standing by, Clare, as though returning from elsewhere, uttered this word: What need is there of a candle? Is it not day? Mother, said she, the night is gone, and the day has passed, and presently another has returned. To whom Clare: Blessed be this sleep, dearest daughter; since, long desired, it has at length been given me. But beware that you report this sleep to no one while I live in the flesh.

[32] The beloved Crucified repays her love in turn: and she who is kindled with so great love about the mystery of the Cross and by the sign of the cross is made illustrious by the power of the Cross in signs and miracles. For while she applies the sign of the life-giving Cross to the sick, she wonderfully puts the diseases to flight from them. I shall touch on a few out of many. A certain Friar, by name Stephen, laboring with the disease of madness, blessed Francis sent to the lady Clare, that she might make over him the sign of the most holy Cross. For he knew her great perfection, and venerated the great power in her. The daughter of obedience signs him at her father's bidding, and in the place where she herself was wont to pray she lets him sleep a little. But he, after a short sleep, rises up whole and, free of his madness, returns to the father.

[33] A certain boy of three years, by name Matthiolus *, she healed many sick, of the city of Spoleto, had incautiously thrust a certain little stone into his nostrils. No one

could draw it out of his nostrils, nor could the boy himself cast it out. Being in peril with great distress, he is led to the lady Clare, and while he is signed by her with the sign of the Cross, straightway, the stone being cast out, he is made free.

Another boy of Perugia, having his whole eye covered with a speck, was brought to the holy Handmaid of God. She, touching the boy's eye, impressed the sign of the Cross, and said: Lead him to my mother, that she herself may repeat over him the sign of the Cross. Her mother, I say, the lady Ortolana ^c, following her own little plant, had passed over to religion after her daughter, and in the enclosed garden was serving the Lord as a widow with the virgins. But the sign of the Cross being received from her, at once the boy's eye, cleansed of the speck, saw clearly and plainly. Clare therefore asserts that the boy himself was delivered by her mother's merit: the mother turns the weight of the praise upon her daughter, and confesses herself unworthy of so great a thing.

[34] afflicted with divers diseases, One of the Sisters, by name Beneventuta, had endured the sore of a fistula under her arm for nearly twelve years, which sent forth matter through five openings. Clare, the virgin of God, having compassion on her, applied that peculiar plaster of hers, the sign of salvation. And straightway at the tracing of the Cross she received perfect health from the ulcer of many years.

Another of the number of the sisters, Amata by name, lay burdened for thirteen months with dropsy, and moreover wasted with fever and cough and pain in the side. Over whom the lady Clare, moved with pity, has recourse to the experiment of her noble medicine. She signs her with the Cross in the name of her Christ, and straightway restores her to full health.

Another handmaid of Christ, born at Perugia, had so lost her voice for two years that she could scarcely form speech outwardly. And when on the night of the Assumption of Our Lady it had been shown to her in a vision that the lady Clare would set her free, she awaited the day with desire. When it dawned, she hastens to the Mother, demands the sign of the Cross, and, being signed, presently recovers her voice.

[35] she recalled to their former health, A certain Sister, by name Christina, having endured deafness in one ear for a long time, had made many medicines against that evil, yet in vain. Her head the lady Clare kindly signs, handles her ear, and her hearing is at once repaired.

There was in the monastery a great multitude of sisters languishing, afflicted with divers pains. Clare enters the place as usual with her wonted medicine, and, the sign of the Cross being made five times, she straightway relieves five from their languor. From these things it plainly appears that the tree of the Cross was planted in the virgin's breast, whose fruit, while it refreshes the soul, its leaves outwardly furnish medicine.

ANNOTATIONS.

* Surius has "not" for "or"

* Böddeken manuscript: "Machidius," and the Corsendonk manuscript: "Nicolaus"

CHAPTER V.

The holy Abbess's solicitude toward her subjects, her ecstasy with St. Francis, and the prodigious blessing of bread.

The Saint carefully instructs her subjects, Truly, because she was the mistress of the unskilled, and as it were set over the girls in the palace of the great King, she formed them with such discipline and cherished them with so great a love of piety that no discourse could set it forth *. She teaches them first to drive every noise from the lodging of the mind, that they may be able to cleave to the inner chambers of God alone. She teaches them no longer to be moved by love of carnal kinsfolk, and to forget their father's house, that they may please Christ. She exhorts them to despise the exactions of the frail body, and to restrain the trifles of the flesh by the command of reason. She shows that the insidious enemy casts hidden snares for pure minds, and tempts the holy in one way, the worldly in another. Thus finally she wills them to work with their own hands at certain hours, that they may straightway grow warm again toward the desire of their Creator through the exercise of prayer, and, forsaking the torpor of negligence, may lay aside the cold of indevotion by the fire of holy love. Nowhere is there a greater strictness of silence, nowhere a fuller color and tenor of everything honorable. There a flowing speech does not speak a flowing mind, nor does lightness of word betray a light affection. For the Mistress herself, sparing in words, abundantly compresses the desires of her mind into brevity of speech.

[37] She provides for her daughters through devout preachers the nourishment of the word of God, she takes care that they be instructed by sermons, whereby she does not make her own portion the worse. For she is suffused with so great exultation in the hearing of holy preaching, she is so delighted with the remembrance of her Jesus, that once, when Brother Philip of * Adria was preaching, a certain most beautiful boy stood by the virgin Clare, and through a great part of the sermon delighted her with his congratulations. From the sight of which apparition she, who deserved to see such things concerning her mother, felt an unspeakable sweetness. And although she was not lettered, yet she rejoiced to hear a learned discourse, judging that in the shell of words there lies hidden a kernel, which she reached more subtly and tasted more savorily. She knew how to draw from anyone's discourse what would profit the soul: knowing that it is of no less prudence sometimes to pluck flowers from a rough thorn than to eat fruit from a noble tree. When once the lord Pope Gregory had forbidden that any Friar should go to the monasteries of the ladies without his leave, the pious Mother, grieving that her Sisters would more rarely have the food of sacred doctrine, said with a groan: Let him take away from us henceforth all the Friars, since he has taken from us the bestowers of vital nourishment. And straightway she sent back all the Friars to the Minister, being unwilling to have almoners who should procure bodily bread, since the spiritual bread had no almoners. Which when Pope Gregory heard, he straightway relaxed that prohibition into the hands of the general Minister.

[38] But this venerable Abbess does not love only the souls of her daughters, and rules them with motherly benevolence, who also serves their poor bodies with a wonderful zeal of charity. For very often in the cold of night she covers with her own hand those who sleep, and those whom she sees too weak to keep the common strictness she wills to be content with a milder rule. If temptation troubled any, if sadness, as is wont, invaded any, she calls her secretly and consoles her with tears. Sometimes she prostrates herself at the feet of the sorrowing, that with motherly caresses she may lighten the force of their grief. Her daughters, not ungrateful for her kindnesses, repay her with themselves in all devotion. For they embrace in a mother the affection of love, they reverence in a mistress the office of prelacy, they follow in a teacher the step of uprightness, and in a bride of God they marvel at the prerogative of every kind of sanctity.

[39] and once, after repeated entreaties (Francis, the servant of the most high God, while he was staying at Assisi, Clare the bride of Christ being still alive, since he frequently visited her with his sacred exhortations, she asked blessed Francis several times that he would grant her this consolation, namely that they should eat together once. But St. Francis always refused to do it. Whence it came about that the companions of the holy Father, weighing the desire of St. Clare, said to blessed Francis: Father, it seems to us that this strictness is not according to divine charity, namely that you do not hear the virgin Clare, so holy and beloved of God, and who especially at your preaching forsook the pomps of the world; wherefore she has not yet been able to take food with you; but if she had asked with such insistence a greater favor, you ought to have granted it to your little plant.

[40] she was admitted to St. Francis's poor table, St. Francis answered: Does it seem to you that I should hear her in this desire? To whom the companions said: Yes, father; for she is worthy that you should fulfill this consolation for her. St. Francis answered: Since it pleases you, it seems so to me also; but that she may be more fully consoled, I wish this to be done at St. Mary of the Angels: for she has long stayed enclosed at St. Damian; whence she will be somewhat gladdened by seeing again the place of St. Mary, where she was shorn and made a bride of our Lord Jesus; and there we shall eat together in the name of the Lord. A day therefore was appointed for her to go out with a companion; and, the companions of the holy Father accompanying her, blessed Clare came to St. Mary of the Angels: and, the most blessed Mother of God having been reverently and humbly adored, and the place all round having been surveyed out of devotion, the hour of eating came.

[41] and with him and others is caught up into an ecstasy, Now the humble and godlike Francis caused the table, as he had often been wont, to be prepared on the level ground; and he himself sat down, and the most blessed Clare, and one of the companions of St. Francis with the companion of St. Clare, and all his other companions were placed at that humble table. But for the first course Francis began to speak of God so sweetly and holily, and so exceedingly divinely, that St. Francis himself and St. Clare, and her companion, and all the others who were at that poor little table, were caught up; and so great an abundance of the grace of the Most High came upon them. But while they sat thus caught up, with eyes and hands lifted to heaven, it seemed to the men of Assisi and of Bettona, and everywhere throughout the district ^a, that St. Mary of the Angels, and the whole place and the wood which were then beside the place, were all burning, and that one great fire had seized upon all the aforesaid, that is, the church and the wood. Wherefore the men of Assisi, that they might succor the place, ran with great haste, firmly believing that all was being burned by fire. But when they came to the place, they saw all things utterly unharmed and untouched. And entering the house, they found blessed Francis with blessed Clare and with all the aforesaid companions caught up to the Lord, and all sitting about that most humble table clothed with power from on high. And then they perceived with certainty that that was a divine fire which, on account of the devotion of such holy men and women, was inflaming the said place with abundant consolations of divine love. Whence they departed greatly consoled and edified.

[42] But St. Francis and blessed Clare, and the rest, being refreshed with so abundant a divine consolation, and she at once returns to the monastery, cared little or nothing for other food. Then, this so blessed food being taken, blessed Clare returned to St. Damian. Whence the Sisters, seeing her, were exceedingly glad, because they had feared that St. Francis might wish to send her to govern another monastery, as he had sent Agnes her own sister to Florence as abbess: for at that time St. Francis used to send the governance of outside monasteries to the monasteries; and once he said to Clare: Prepare yourself, as you will have to go wherever I shall send you. And she, as a daughter of obedience, said: I am ready, Father, to obey wherever you shall send me. For this reason the Sisters were glad when

they had her back again. And blessed Clare from that time remained greatly consoled in the Lord ^b.

[43] St. Clare, the most devout disciple of the cross and the precious little plant of St. Francis, where at the bidding of the supreme Pontiff, was of such sanctity that not only bishops and Cardinals, but even the supreme Pontiff more affectionately desired to see and hear her, and often visited her in person. For indeed on a certain occasion the Pope came to the monastery of St. Clare, that from her who was a sanctuary of the Holy Spirit he might hear heavenly and divine discourses. While both therefore were long treating of the salvation of the soul and of the divine praise, meanwhile St. Clare caused bread to be spread for the Sisters on all the tables, desiring to keep those loaves blessed by the Vicar of Christ. Whence, the most holy conversation being ended, St. Clare, bending her knee, with great reverence asked the supreme Pontiff that he would deign to bless the loaves set on the tables.

[44] But the Pope answered: Sister Clare, most faithful one, I will that you bless those loaves, and make over them the cross of the blessed Christ, he once blessed loaves, to whom you have offered yourself wholly in a marrowy sacrifice. But she answered: Most holy Father, spare me, because in this I should be exceedingly to be blamed, that before the Vicar of Christ I, who am one worthless little woman, should presume to make such a blessing. And the Pope answered: To the end that it be not imputed to presumption, but that you may moreover have merit therefrom, I command you by holy obedience that over these loaves you make the sign of the cross, and bless them in the name of the Lord. But she, as a daughter of obedience, making the cross over those loaves, most devoutly blessed them.

[45] Wonderful surely, that straightway on all the loaves a most beautiful sign of the cross appeared; on which the sign of the cross remained visibly and wonderfully impressed. of which several were eaten with great devotion, and several were kept afterward for a miracle. The Pope moreover, marveling at the powerful cross made by the Bride of Christ, first gave thanks to God, and afterward consolingly blessed blessed Clare. There were dwelling in the said monastery Sister Ortolana, the mother of St. Clare, and Sister Agnes her own sister, all full of the Holy Spirit, with many other holy nuns and brides of Christ, to whom St. Francis used to send very many sick to be signed with the sign of the cross, which they cherished with their whole heart, and as many as were signed carried away * a remedy ^c.)

ANNOTATIONS.

* Surius: "will fulfill."

* Elsewhere: "Andera."

* Elsewhere: "brought back."

CHAPTER VI.

The last illness of the holy Virgin, in which she is visited by Pope Innocent IV, and her happy death.

St. Clare lying sick For forty years she had run in the course of the highest poverty, when behold she was now drawing near, a manifold languor going before, to the prize of the heavenly calling. For since the vigor of her flesh in the earlier years had succumbed to the austerity of penance, infirmity occupied the later times, so that she who in health had been enriched by the merit of works might in infirmity be enriched by the merits of sufferings. For indeed strength is made perfect in weakness. How her wonderful strength was made perfect in weakness is chiefly plain from this, that in a long languor of twenty-eight years no murmur sounds, no complaint: but always from her mouth there proceeds holy discourse, always a giving of thanks. But although, weighed down by the burden of sicknesses, she seemed to hasten to her end, it nevertheless pleased God to reserve her death for that time in which she might be exalted with worthy honors by the Roman Church, whose future special daughter * she was. For while the supreme Pontiff was tarrying at Lyons with the Cardinals, when Clare had begun to be pressed by her disease more than usual, the sword of a mighty grief was slaying the minds of her daughters.

[47] as had before been revealed to a certain Benedictine nun, Presently to a certain handmaid of Christ, a virgin devoted to God, of the monastery of St. Paul of the Order of St. Benedict, a vision of this kind is shown. It seems to her that together with her Sisters she is standing by the lady Clare, sick at St. Damian, and that the same Clare is lying on a bed. But as they wept and with tears awaited the death of blessed Clare, a certain beautiful woman, appearing at the head of the little bed, speaks to those who wept: Do not, she says, O daughters, weep for one who shall live: since she shall not be able to die until the Lord comes with his disciples. And behold, after a little time the Roman Curia came to Perugia. But on hearing of the increase of her infirmity, the lord of Ostia ^a hastens from Perugia to visit the bride of Christ, of whom he had been by office a father, by care a foster-father, and by purest affection ever a devoted friend. He feeds the sick woman with the Sacrament of the Lord's body, and feeds the rest also with words of saving exhortation. She entreats so great a father with tears that he would have commended for Christ's name her own servants and those of the other ladies *. But this above all she asks, that he obtain for her from the lord Pope with the Cardinals the confirmation of the privilege of poverty: which that faithful helper of religion fulfilled in deed as he promised in word. When the year had come round, the lord Pope with the Cardinals passed over from Perugia to Assisi, that the vision shown beforehand concerning the Saint's passing might take effect. For the Supreme Pontiff himself, being above man and below God, represents the person of the Lord; to whom in the temple of the Church militant the lord Cardinals cleave more familiarly, as disciples.

[48] Divine providence now hastens to fulfill its purpose concerning Clare: the Roman Pontiff visits her, Christ hastens to exalt the poor pilgrim to the palace of the heavenly kingdom. She now longs, and with all desire sighs, to be delivered from the body of this death, and in the ethereal dwellings to see Christ reigning, whom, a poor little woman, she had followed with her whole heart, poor upon earth. And so, her sacred limbs being worn away by her old disease, a new weakness is heaped upon her, which both indicates her approaching calling to the Lord and prepares the way of perpetual health. The lord Innocent IV, of holy memory, hastens together with the Cardinals to visit the handmaid of Christ, and whose life beyond the women of our time he had approved, her death he does not hesitate to venerate with a Papal presence. Having entered the monastery, he goes to the little bed, and applies his hand to the mouth of the sick woman to be kissed. Which she receives most gravely, and demands the Apostolic foot to be kissed with the highest reverence. A wooden footstool being mounted, the courteous ^b lord graciously offers his foot, upon which she, plying kisses up and down, reverently bows her face.

[49] Thereupon she asks of the supreme Pontiff with an angelic countenance the remission of all her sins. from whom the Virgin, about to die, asks pardon of her sins, And he, saying: Would that I needed so great a pardon; imparts the hand of perfect absolution and the grace of an ample benediction. But when all had withdrawn, because on that day she had received the sacred host at the hand of the provincial Minister, with eyes lifted to heaven and hands joined toward God, she said with tears to her sisters: Praise the Lord, my little daughters, because today Christ has deigned to bestow on me such a benefit that heaven and earth do not suffice to repay it. I have received today, she says, the Most High himself, and I have deserved to see his Vicar. Her daughters, soon to be orphaned, stand about their mother's bed: whose souls the sword of bitter grief was piercing through. Sleep does not call them away, hunger does not tear them off: but, forgetful of beds and table, night and day it delighted them only to lament. Among whom Agnes, the devout virgin, inebriated with the brine of tears, begs her sister not to depart and leave her. To whom Clare answered: It pleases God, dearest sister, that I depart: but do you cease to weep, since after me you shall speedily come to the Lord; and the Lord, she said, will grant you a great consolation before you die.

[50] At length she seems to labor in her last extremity for very many days, and after seventeen days passed without food, in which the faith of the nations and the devotion of the peoples increase: by the frequent visitation also of Cardinals and prelates she is daily honored as truly holy. But what is wonderful to hear, when for seventeen days she could take no food, she is strengthened by the Lord with such fortitude that she comforted all who came to her in the service of Christ. For when the kindly brother Reinaldus ^c exhorted her to patience in the long martyrdom of so great infirmities, she answered him with a most free voice: After I knew the grace of my Lord Jesus Christ through that servant of his Francis, no pain has been troublesome, no penance heavy, no infirmity hard to me, dearest brother.

[51] amid the tears of her subjects, But the Lord dealing graciously, and now standing as it were at the door, she wishes priests and spiritual Friars to stand by her, to recite the Lord's passion and holy words. Among whom, when brother Juniper ^d appears, the excellent javelin-thrower of the Lord, because he often belched forth warm words concerning the Lord, she, suffused with new cheerfulness, asks whether he had anything new of the Lord at hand. And he, opening his mouth, sends forth from the furnace of his fervid heart flaming sparks of words, and in his parables the virgin of God takes great solace. At length she turns herself to her weeping daughters, to whom, commending poverty, she recounts with praise the divine benefits. She blesses her devout brethren and sisters, and prays down an ample grace of blessing upon all the ladies of the poor monasteries, both present and to come. Who could tell the rest without weeping? There stand by her two blessed companions of blessed Francis, one of whom, Angelo ^e, mourning himself, consoles the mourners: the other, Leo ^f, kisses the little bed of her who is departing. The daughters lament, forsaken by the withdrawal of their pious mother, and follow with tears her departing whom they should not see again. They grieve most bitterly that all their solace passes away with her, and that they are left in the valley of tears, no longer to be consoled by their mistress. Shame alone scarcely restrains the hand from the tearing of their bodies, and this makes the fire of grief the sharper, that it is not suffered to steam forth in outward lamentation. The censure of the cloister commands silence, the force of grief wrings out groaning and sobbing. Their faces swell with tears, and the impulse of their mourning heart still supplies new waters.

[52] with great confidence she passes to the Lord. But the most holy Virgin, turning to herself, silently addresses her own soul: Go in safety, for you have a good escort for the journey. Go, since he who created you has sanctified you: and ever guarding you, has loved you with tender love, as a mother her son. You, she says, Lord, be blessed, who created me. And when one of the Sisters asked her to whom she was speaking, she answered: I am speaking to my blessed soul. Nor was that glorious escort far distant. For turning to a certain daughter, Do you see, she says, O daughter, the King of glory, whom I see? Upon another too the hand of the Lord came, and amid her tears she receives with bodily eyes the happy sight. Pierced indeed with the javelin of deep grief, she also directs the light of her eyes toward the door of the house: and behold, a throng of virgins in white garments enters, who all bore golden garlands on their heads. Among them walks one more resplendent than the rest, from whose crown, which at its summit presented the appearance of a windowed censer, so great a splendor shines out that it turns the very night within the house into the light of day. She advances to the little bed where the Bride of her Son lies, and, bending most lovingly over her, bestows a most sweet embrace. A mantle of wonderful beauty is brought forth by the virgins, and, all vying in service, both Clare's body is covered and her bridal chamber adorned. On the morrow therefore of blessed Lawrence ^g that most holy soul of the Mother goes forth, to be crowned with laurel as her reward; and, the temple of the flesh being dissolved, her spirit happily passed to the stars. Blessed is this going out from the valley of misery, which was made for her an entrance into the blessed life. Now instead of a slender viaticum she rejoices at the table of the citizens above; now instead of the meanness of ashes she is adorned, blessed in the heavenly kingdom, with the robe of eternal glory.

ANNOTATIONS.

* Elsewhere: "spiritual."

* Corsendonk manuscript: "souls"

CHAPTER VII.

Her honorable obsequies, her miracles after death, and her solemn canonization.

Her obsequies being honorably celebrated, Straightway the report of the virgin's passing shakes the whole people of the city with the astounding hearing of it. Men flow together, women flow together to the place, and the folk pour in in so great a multitude that the city seems to be left alone. All proclaim her holy, all dear to God, and amid words of praise not a few stream with weeping. The Podestà runs up with a troop of soldiers and a multitude of armed men, and that evening and all night they set diligent guards, lest by chance it should happen that harm be suffered concerning the precious treasure which lay in their midst. On the following day the whole court is stirred: the Vicar of Christ with the Cardinals comes to the place, and the whole city directs its steps toward St. Damian. They had come to the celebrating of the divine office, when, the friars beginning the office of the dead, suddenly the lord Pope declares that the office of Virgins, not of the dead, ought to be performed: so that he seemed to canonize her before her body had been given to burial. But the most eminent man the lord of Ostia ^a answering that it should be done more deliberately, the Mass of the dead is celebrated. Afterward, the supreme Pontiff being seated ^b, and the assembly of Cardinals and prelates also, the Bishop of Ostia, taking his matter of discourse from the vanity of vanities, commends in a noble sermon the excellent despiser of vanity.

[54] Straightway the Cardinal priests surround the holy corpse with devout reverence, the holy Virgin is buried with a great concourse of the people, and fulfill the wonted offices about the Virgin's body. At length, since they judge it neither safe nor worthy that so precious a pledge should be so far distant from the citizens, she is lifted up with hymns and praises, with the blare of trumpets and solemn jubilation, and is honorably carried to St. George *: for this too is that place where the body of the holy Father Francis had first been laid; so that he who had prepared the way of life for her while she lived, might by a certain presage prepare a place for her also when she died. Thereupon there was made a concourse of many peoples to the tomb of the Virgin, praising God and saying: Truly holy, truly glorious, she reigns with the angels, who takes so great honor from men on earth. Intercede for us to Christ, O first among the poor ladies, who have led countless souls to penance, countless to life. A few days intervening, Agnes, called to the nuptials of the Lamb, followed her sister Clare to the eternal delights: where both, daughters of Sion, sisters by nature, by grace, and in the kingdom, rejoice to God without end. And truly she received that consolation which Clare promised to Agnes before she departed. For as, her sister going before, she had passed from the world to the Cross: so, while Clare glowed with signs and miracles, Agnes after her flew early from the light that has an end to God ^c. Our Lord Jesus Christ granting it, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns for ever and ever. Amen.

[55] and she is renowned for various miracles: Those are the wonderful signs of the Saints, those the venerable testimonies of miracles, which consist in holiness of manners and perfection of works. John indeed wrought no sign, yet those who work signs are not, nor shall be, holier than John. And therefore the proclamation of her most perfect life would suffice for St. Clare the virgin as a testimony of sanctity, did not sometimes partly the lukewarmness, partly the devotion of the peoples demand something else. And so Clare, while she lived, by her merits, and now swallowed up in the abyss of perpetual brightness, is nonetheless still wonderfully declared through the corners of the world by the light of miracles. Sincere and sworn truth compels us to write down many things: their multitude compels us to pass over a great many more ^d.

[56] for besides those possessed, [A certain boy, by name Jacobinus of Perugia, seemed not so much sick as possessed by a most wicked demon. For now casting himself desperately into the fire, now dashing himself on the ground, even to the breaking of his teeth, biting stones, he tore his head most wretchedly and stained his body with blood. With mouth distorted, thrusting out his tongue, he so easily balled up the frame of his limbs that he would often put his leg over his neck. Every day the aforesaid madness vexed that boy twice: nor could two persons prevent him from stripping off his own garments. The help of skilled physicians is sought: but none is found who knows how to advise. His father, Guidolotus by name, after he found no remedy for so great a misfortune among men, turned himself to the merits of St. Clare. O most holy virgin, he said, O Clare, venerable to the world, to you I vow my wretched son, from you with all supplication I demand his health. He hastens full of faith to her sepulcher, and, setting the boy he had brought upon the virgin's tomb, straightway, while he asks, obtains help. For at once the boy is made free from that infirmity, and is thenceforth vexed by no like affliction.

[57] Alessandra of Fratta in the diocese of Perugia was vexed by a most wicked demon. freed from possession by a demon, Whom the demon had so reduced under his power that he made her fly like a little bird along a lofty rock which stood out on the bank of the river: he made her also go down along a very slender branch of a tree overhanging the river Tiber, and there disport herself as in play: by the merit also of her own sins, when she had wholly lost her left side and had a contracted * hand, and, medicines being often tried, was nothing profited: she came to the tomb of the glorious virgin Clare with compunction of heart, and, her merits being invoked, she received against that threefold peril of hers the saving effect of a single remedy. The contracted hand indeed is stretched out, her side is restored to health, the possessed woman is freed from the demon. Another woman of the same place, at the same time before the sepulcher of the Saint, received the gift of deliverance from a demon and from many pains.

[58] A certain French boy ^e, who followed the court, and others healed of sickness, the disease of madness had invaded, which had taken from him the use of speech and made his body monstrously restless. He could by no means be held by anyone, but rather broke himself horribly within the hands of those who wished to hold him. He is bound with ropes to a bier of the dead, and is carried unwilling by his countrymen to the church of St. Clare, is laid down before her sepulcher, and straightway, for the faith of those who offered him, is most perfectly delivered.

Valentino of Spello was so subject to the collapse of the falling sickness that six times a day he fell down indifferently anywhere. Being stricken also with a contraction of the leg, he could not walk freely. He is led, carried on a little ass, to the sepulcher of St. Clare; where for two days and three nights he lies: on the third day, no one touching him, his leg resounded with a great crack, and he was straightway healed of both infirmities.

[59] Jacobellus, called the son of the woman of Spoleto, stricken at twelve years of age, she wonderfully restored the use of his eyes to a blind man, followed a guide of the way, nor could he walk anywhere without a leader except into a fall. For once too, being left a little while by a boy, he was driven headlong and carried off a broken arm with a wound of the head. When this man was sleeping one night near the bridge of Vernium *, a certain lady appeared to him in his sleep, saying: Jacobellus, why do you not come to me at Assisi, that you may be delivered? And he, rising in the morning, trembling recounts the vision to two other blind men. They answer him: We lately heard that a certain lady departed this life in the city of Assisi, whose sepulcher the hand of the Lord is said to honor by gifts of healings and by many miracles. On hearing this, becoming eager he hastens quickly, and, lodging by night at Spoleto, he beholds the same vision again. He flies the faster, girding himself wholly to the course for love of the light.

[60] But coming to Assisi, he found so great a press of people running together before the Virgin's tomb

, who had come among many sick to her tomb. that he himself could by no means get in to the tomb. He puts a stone under his head, and with great faith, grieving nevertheless that he could not have entrance, takes sleep before her doors. And behold, a third time a voice came to him: The Lord will do you good, James, if you can * get in. Waking therefore, he begs the crowds with tears, crying out and redoubling his prayers, that for the sake of the divine mercy they would deign to make him a way. A way being given him, he casts off his shoes, strips off his garments, girds his neck with a thong, and thus humbly touching the sepulcher, falls into a slow sleep. Rise, blessed Clare says to him, rise, for you are delivered. Rising immediately, all blindness shaken off, all darkness of the eyes banished, while he sees clearly through Clare, he makes clear the clearness of the light by praising God, and for the magnificence of so great a work invites all nations to bless God.

[61] Moreover she heals a broken hand, A certain man of Perugia, called Bonus Johannes *, had gone out with his fellow citizens against the men of Foligno. And when the contest had begun on both sides, a heavy blow of a stone broke his hand with a hard shattering. He spends much money on physicians for love of health; but by no medicinal help can he be so far aided but that he carries that hand useless and utterly powerless for every work. Grieving therefore to bear the weight of that right hand as though it were not his own, and to lack its use, he often wishes it had been cut off. But hearing what the Lord deigned to show through his handmaid Clare, making a vow, he hastens to the Virgin's sepulcher, brings a waxen image of a hand, and lies down upon the tomb of St. Clare. Straightway, before he leaves the church, his hand was perfectly restored to health.

[62] a crooked boy, A certain Petronus of the town of Bettona *, wasted by three years of infirmity, appeared almost wholly dried up by the consumption of a long languor. By the violence of his disease he was so contracted in the legs that, always crooked and bent to the ground, he could scarcely go about with a staff. The boy's father tries the skill of many physicians, especially of those who had experience in healing broken bones. He was ready to spend all his goods for the recovery of the boy's health. And when it was answered by all that by the help of no art could that disease be succored, he turned himself to the support of the new Saint, whose mighty deeds he heard of. The boy is carried to the place where the precious spoils of the virgin rest, and, not lying long before the sepulcher, he receives the grace of perfect health. For straightway he rises up upright and whole, walking and leaping and praising God, and he invites the people flowing together to the praises of St. Clare.

[63] a boy lame from his mother's womb, There was a boy of ten years in the village of San Quirico in the diocese of Assisi, lame from his mother's womb; he had thin shins, threw his feet crosswise, and, walking crookedly, could scarcely rise when he fell. His mother had several times vowed him to blessed Francis, and had received no help of any bettering. But hearing that blessed Clare shone with new miracles, she carried the boy to her sepulcher. After some days, the bones of his shins being healed, his limbs were brought back to straightness, and what St. Francis, entreated with many prayers, did not grant, his disciple Clare by divine power bestowed.

[64] and others contracted, A citizen of Gubbio, by name Jacopo di Franco, having a five-year-old boy who with feeble feet had never walked nor could walk, bewailed him as a portent of his house and a reproach of his own flesh. He lay on the ground, crept in the ashes, sometimes rolling himself to a bench *, and unable to rise: to whom nature had given the desire of walking but had denied the power. His parents vow the boy to the merits of St. Clare, and, to say it in their own words, they wish to be St. Clare's man if through her he obtain health. Straightway, the vow being uttered, the Virgin of Christ, healing her man, repaired in the boy offered to her the office of free walking. Immediately his parents, hastening with the boy to the Virgin's tomb, offered him to the Lord leaping and rejoicing.

[65] A certain woman of the town of Menano, Pleneria by name, or paralytics having long endured a contraction of the loins, could not walk unless supported by a staff. Yet by the aid of the staff she did not raise her bent body, but somehow dragged along tottering steps. On a certain Friday she caused herself to be carried to the tomb of St. Clare; where, pouring forth prayers to her most devoutly, she quickly obtained what she faithfully asked. For on the following Saturday, entire health being obtained, she returned on her own feet, who had been brought by others.

[66] Swellings of the throat, which in common speech they call scrofula ^f, a certain girl of Perugia had long borne with much pain. Twenty glands indeed were counted in her throat, so that the girl's very throat seemed much thicker than her head. Her mother often led her to the memorial of the virgin Clare, where they most devoutly implored the benefit of that Saint. And when the girl lay through a whole night before the sepulcher, a sweat breaking out, those swellings began to soften, and to be moved a little from their place. But in process of time, through the merits of St. Clare, they so vanished that no traces at all remained.

[67] A like evil one of the sisters, Andrea by name, who had implored the Saint's patronage, bore in her throat while the virgin Clare still remained in the flesh. Wonderful surely, that in the midst of glowing stones so cold a soul lay hid, and that among prudent virgins an imprudent one played the fool *. For she on a certain night so constricted her throat even to choking, that she might cast out that lump through her mouth, wishing of herself to overstep the divine will. But Clare knew this straightway by the spirit. Run, she said to one, run quickly to the lower house, and give to sister Andrea of Ferrara a warmed egg to sup, and come up with her together to me. She, hastening, found the said Andrea deprived of speech and, by the thrusting in of her own hand, near to suffocation. She lifts her up as she can, and leads her with her to the mother; to whom the handmaid of God said: Wretched one, confess to the Lord your thoughts, which I too have well known. Behold, what you wished to heal, the Lord Jesus Christ will heal. But change your life for the better, since from another infirmity, which you shall suffer, you will not rise. At which word she received the spirit of compunction, and changed her life quite excellently for the better. Therefore a little after, being healed of the scrofula, she passed away from another infirmity.

[68] The savage wildness of cruel wolves used to vex that district: and certain ones she snatched from the jaws of wolves which, rushing upon the very men, often fed on human flesh. A certain woman therefore, by name Bona, of Monte Galliano in the diocese of Assisi, having two sons, had scarcely finished the lamentation * for one whom the wolves had carried off, when behold they hasten with like ferocity to the second. For while the mother was standing in the house and doing some household matter, a wolf fixes his teeth in the boy walking outside, and, biting him through the neck, makes as quickly as he can for the wood with such booty. But the men who were in the vineyards, hearing the boy's shrieks, cry out to the mother, saying: See whether you have your son: since a little before we heard unwonted wailings. The mother, perceiving that her son had been snatched away by a wolf, lifts her cries on high, and, filling the air with howlings, invokes the virgin Clare, saying: Holy and glorious virgin Clare, give me back my wretched son. Give back, she says, give back her little one to an unhappy mother. But if you do not, I will drown myself in the waters. And so the neighbors, running after the wolf, find the little child left by the wolf in the wood, and a dog beside the boy licking his wounds. The wild beast had fixed its first bites in his neck: then, that it might carry its prey more lightly, it had filled its jaws with the boy's loins, and in both places had left the marks of no light touch. The woman, having obtained her wish, hastens with her neighbors to her helper, and, showing the boy's various wounds to all who wished to see them, pays abundant thanks to God and to St. Clare.

[69] she prodigiously delivered, A certain girl of the town of Cannara *, on a clear day was sitting in a field: in whose lap another woman had laid her head. And behold, a wolf ravenous of men urges on stealthy steps toward his prey. The girl indeed saw him: but because she believed him a dog, she was not afraid. And while the little girl was intent on the searching of the hair she had begun, the savage beast is made fierce against her, and, closing her face in his vast gape, was carrying his prey to the wood. The woman rises up straightway astounded, and, mindful of St. Clare, raises cries, saying: Help, holy Clare, help; to you in this hour I commend that girl. She at last, wonderful to tell, who was being carried in the wolf's teeth, inveighs against the wolf, saying: Will you, robber, carry me further, who am commended to so great a Virgin? Confounded by which rebuke, he straightway laid the girl gently on the ground and, like a robber caught, quickly departed.]

[70] and on account of these frequent miracles But when the most clement Prince the lord Alexander IV ^g was sitting on the seat of blessed Peter, a man the friend of all sanctity, who was both the protection of Religious and a firm pillar of Religious Orders, when the report of these wonders was running about, and from day to day the fame of the Virgin's virtues resounded more widely, the world itself was now awaiting with desire the canonization of so great a Virgin. And so the said Pontiff, stirred as by an unwonted thing * by the crowd of so many signs, began to hold a discussion concerning her canonization together with the Cardinals. The miracles are committed to solemn and discreet persons to be examined, the mighty deeds of her life also are handed over to be sifted. Clare is found, while she lived, most bright in the exercise of all the virtues; she is found, after her passing, admirable for true and approved wonders. For on the day appointed for this, when the assembly of Cardinals had come together, when a gathering of Archbishops and Bishops was present, when the concourse of the Clergy and of Religious, and a very great multitude also of the wise and the powerful stood by, the supreme Pontiff proposing that salutary business in their midst, and inquiring the judgment of the Prelates, all with ready favor assenting the more readily, say that Clare, whom God has made bright on high, must be made bright on earth.

[71] she is solemnly enrolled in the catalogue of the Saints. And when the day of her passing to the Lord was at hand, two years having run round from her death, the multitude of Prelates and of the whole Clergy being called together, a sermon also being first delivered, the happy Alexander, for whom this grace had been reserved by the Lord, with the very greatest solemnity reverently enrolled Clare in the catalogue of the Saints, and appointed her feast to be solemnly celebrated in the whole Church, and himself first celebrated it most solemnly with the whole Curia. Now these things were done at Anagni in the greater church, in the year of the Lord's Incarnation one thousand two hundred and fifty-five * ^h, in the first year of the Pontificate of the Lord Alexander: to the praise of our Lord Jesus Christ, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns for ever and ever. Amen.

ANNOTATIONS.

Rinaldi in the Ecclesiastical Annals at the year of Christ 1253, number 14, narrates the same matter from this biographer.

* Corsendonk manuscript: "George"

* Böddeken manuscript: "shattered"

* Böddeken manuscript: "Varnium"

* Böddeken manuscript: "you can, Jacobellus"

* Böddeken manuscript adds: "Martini"

* Böddeken manuscript: "Bitonia"

* Böddeken manuscript: "bench"

* Corsendonk manuscript: "played the fool"

* Böddeken manuscript: "was bewailing"

* Böddeken manuscript: "Carnarium"

* Böddeken manuscript: "at an unwonted thing"

* Böddeken manuscript: "sixth"