The
task of separating true history from legend is a daunting task when researching
medieval religious figures. Folklore is easily mixed with historical facts as
the life of a devout saint grows in importance to a spiritual community. The
life of Clare of Assisi is an excellent example of a medieval saint with a
biography supported by sources containing religious accounts that make
historical investigation difficult. Catherine Mooney takes up the challenge in
her work, Clare of Assisi and the Thirteenth-Century Church: Religious
Women, Rules, and Resistance. From the beginning, Mooney acknowledges the
difficulty in fully understanding the historical details of Clare’s life since
much of her life remains frozen through the lenses of faith.
For Mooney the challenge is to locate the
authentic Clare between “history” and “hagiography.”
(5) Eyewitness testimonies remain a challenge for the author as these hagiographic accounts were prepared for the process of
Clare’s canonization. Yet, these accounts remain meaningful because these
voices recorded soon after the death of Clare reflect important thoughts about
the period and the subject. Mooney takes the hagiographic stories recorded
close to Clare’s into account and compares them with surviving documents. The
author uses sources such as letters, religious rules, papal documents,
biographies, and hagiographic accounts to construct a bare-bones or minimalist
account of Clare of Assisi to avoid telling a life based on assumptions and
“unconscious circular reasoning.” (9) Mooney’s work is not a traditional
biography but she provides an exceptional example of the balance between a
historian using both traditional primary sources and hagiography while
providing contextualization and understanding of her subject and setting. While
providing a minimalist account of Clare, Mooney provides a picture
of a woman committed to her faith and vision. Clare remained a woman willing to
stand before papal pressure in her quest to fulfill her vow of poverty within
her community.
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| From Secular Franciscans |
Mooney divides her book into an
introduction discussing her sources and methodology along with nine chapters.
The first chapter offers evidence of Clare’s childhood and early life. Much of
the basis for this chapter derives from three hagiographic texts which offer a
sharp contrast to her later adult life. Especially important is the contact
with Francis of Assisi, whose example and guidance set the pattern for Clare’s
life. Chapter 2 deals with her first years in the community of San Damiano as
both Clare and her sisters found a home and a “form of life” (forma vitae) under the inspiration of Francis. The third and fourth chapters
center on recent scholarship that presents a clearer picture of Clare and the
penitent women within the Order of San Damiano and the leading role of Cardinal
Hugo (later Pope Gregory IX) in forming the order and his often difficult
relationship with Clare. The death of Francis of Assisi leaves Clare and the
sisters without a protector with Gregory IX working at rebranding San Damiano
into a leading house of a new order. Throughout this process, Clare remains
intent on preserving the original mission of her community.
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Agnes of Prague from Wikipedia |
Chapter 5 focuses on the spiritual guidance
Clare gives to Agnes of Prague using surviving letters that preserve Clare’s
voice and reveal the difficulties existing between Clare and the papacy. Chapter
6 continues an examination of the relationship between Pope Gregory and the
community at San Damiano as they chose to follow
the forma vitae laid down by Francis
ignoring the instructions of the papacy. The struggle continues in chapter 7 as
Pope Innocent IV issues a new forma vitae
that tied juridically the Order of San Damiano to the Lesser Brothers.
Innocent’s rules were not sincerely received and his forma vitae failed to take
hold. The eighth chapter examines the 1253 Forma
Vitae that attempted to include the desires of San Damiano with those of
the papacy. Numerous scholars believed that the 1253 document originated from
the hand of Clare but Mooney offers evidence that it was the composition of
Rainaldo of Jenne as the principal author. While Clare was not the primary
redactor of the 1253 rules, the Forma
Vitae reflects her desire to preserve the community and the contributions
of all the sisters. The attribution of the 1253 document to Clare alone derived
from “faulty manuscript analysis and weak scholarly conjecture.” (219) The
final chapter looks at Clare’s final years through her later letters to Agnes
of Prague. The letters reflect the intense intimacy between Clare and Agnes and
Clare’s strong desire to maintain a community that lived poorly and humbly. To
the very end of Clare’s life, it was evident that she desired to secure the
independence of her community within the ideal of poverty set forth by Francis of Assisi.
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| A Portrait of Saint Francis by Philip Fruytiers |
Mooney rejects the idea of Clare as a
“great woman” of history as she claims it distorts the image of Clare and
reduces the role of the community of women. In many ways, Mooney reduces the
role of Clare as the sole founder of a religious community, yet still
recognizes the role of Clare in her struggles with papal authority as a woman
of strength and perseverance. Clare was a “charismatic and determined leader,”
but she belonged to a strong network of women determined to set their own path.
(215) While Mooney’s work presents a challenge for the causal reader of
medieval religious history, her ingenious use of her sources presents a fine
illustration for historians who face similar obstacles when facing sources
derived from hagiographic accounts. The challenge of dealing authentically with
the issue of history and hagiography remains a task for all historians.
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