Clare and Francis

In his excellent work Francis of Assisi: A New Biography, Dominican scholar Augustine Thompson gives great insight into how we should understand the relationship between Clare and Francis. Clare was cousin to one of Francis' closest confidants and followers, Brother Rufino. Clare di Favarone di Offredicio was her name and it was Rufino who approached Francis to tell him about his cousin who was interested in his movement. The year was 1212; Francis was about 30 and Clare just about 18.

A meeting was arranged unbeknownst to Clare’s parents; she would come escorted by a chaperon, Bona di Guelfuccio, while Francis would come with his current socius, Brother Philip Longo of Arti. Lady Bona eventually accompanied Clare to a good number of clandestine meetings, during which Francis urged the young woman to take up a life of penance. (Thompson 46)

Although Clare's meetings were contrary to the wishes of her parents, the Gospel admonition to set Christ above relationship with one's parents did not extend into an excuse to neglect healthy boundaries and companionship on the part of both Francis and Clare. On the fateful night of Palm Sunday 1212, when Clare departed from her parents' house via a back door (which was blocked and usually unused), Lady Bona's absence was again no excuse for Clare to come alone. She brought one of her sisters, Pacifica, to the Porziuncula.

Clare and her sister arrived at the Porziuncula during the night. They found Francis and the community waiting for her in prayer before the candlelit altar. Francis cut the young woman’s hair and gave her a habit like that of the brothers, but with a veil. Before the ceremony, as Clare later recounted herself, she made profession of religious obedience for life directly to Francis. Francis, like other religious leaders of the time, considered it normal that those entering monastic life make a vowed life commitment before they entered. There was nothing unusual about Clare’s profession, except that there was absolutely no provision for a woman to live at the Porziuncula. Francis now faced a new problem: what to do with his first female disciple. As on several other occasions of need, he turned to the Benedictines. He placed Clare among the nuns of San Paolo of Bastia, which was about two and a half miles outside of Assisi on the road to Perugia. Their party arrived at the nunnery late at night, because Clare could not stay till morning at Santa Maria degli Angeli. This arrangement must have been planned well ahead of time, but it was, at best, a temporary expedient. Clare’s family soon found her at San Paolo and challenged her decision. She warned off her father and uncles by showing them her shaven head. They seem to have acquiesced in the decision without further protest. (Thompson 47)

Clare was soon moved to a different Benedictine monastery on the other side of Assisi, Sant'Angelo of Panzo, and there Clare was joined by her younger sister Caterina (later Agnes). Perhaps they had been willing to lose one daughter, but two was too many (especially one even younger), so the family came armed to forcibly removed the two women. The family left empty-handed, once again convinced God supported their daughters' decision.

Francis then arrived publicly to perform Agnes’s vestition and take her profession of vows. Francis’s next move strongly suggests that Bishop Guido had been in on the plan from the beginning. Within a couple of months, Francis settled the two women on their own at the cathedral chapter’s church of San Damiano. It became the first convent of the female Franciscan movement. With episcopal protection, the women could live in peace" (Thompson 47–48).

Once they were settled into their new home at San Damiano (where one can still visit the room of Clare's death), Thompson notes that Francis was asked to prepare for the sisters a rule of life aimed at Gospel perfection.

Strangely, from this point until his last illness, Clare completely disappears from Francis’s life. We understand that they exchanged letters, and that, in his last illness, Francis returned to San Damiano to see the sisters, but there is no evidence of any other visits. Francis had bowed to her request to do penance, professed her as a nun, and given her a rule of life. Then he left, romantic elaborations in modern biographies notwithstanding. Supervising the growth of the Poor Ladies of San Damiano and defending their call to live a life of absolute poverty would become Clare’s responsibility alone. (Thompson 48)

Thompson qualifies this statement only a little, noting Clare's single quotation of Francis' apparently-later instructions on keeping the Lenten fast all year, with exceptions for Sundays and feasts, and for the sick. This suggests Francis remained involved, at a distance, in certain matters of the rule of life for the sisters. Thompson notes that Francis seems to have delayed travel for the months, perhaps a year, that it took to receive the sisters' vows, find them a home, and give them a rule. Near the end of 1212 or the beginning of 1213 he set off through Spain to preach to the Almohad Caliph (a North African Muslim dynasty), facing martyrdom if necessary. Illness, and perhaps the complex situation caused by the crusade (of Pope Innocent III and King Alfonso VIII), brought Francis back to Assisi by spring of 1213. It is striking to imagine the difference in Francis' hagiography if he had been martyred so soon after establishing the Poor Clares.

Anyway, it is clear that the Gospel call to perfection allowed for Clare and her sister to disregard their parents' wishes regarding their future (especially given what seems to be Bishop Guido's support of the matter). But, as Thompson notes, the genuine spiritual friendship which united Francis and Clare proceeded by entirely public means. In their "good number of clandestine meetings" (Thompson 46) did they ever speak alone? Perhaps there were things that Clare could only express to Francis, or that Francis meant solely for Clare, but these conversations never took place without the nearby protective presence of Bona, Pacifica, or Philip Longo. Rather than see this as old-fashioned, perhaps we can appreciate its wisdom—and note that Thompson also ascribes to Clare, as a result, a great amount of agency. After the period of discernment, testing, formation, and reception of the vows under Francis, to quote Thompson again: "[...] defending their call to live a life of absolute povery would become Clare's responsibility alone" (Thompson 48). Healthy boundaries in this case were certainly a matter of protecting chastity and reputation, giving no room for scandal, and they simultaneously allowed the well-formed and Spirit-filled Clare to set forth as a spiritual leader in her own right, among sisters of both natural and supernatural birth.