St. Clare of Assisi
Although she was the abbess she nursed the sick sisters herself and took the worst jobs, and from her sickbed she spun thread for more than a hundred altar cloths and sent them to the churches around Assisi.
Born 1193 · Died 1253 · Canonized 1255
TWO HELD DOCUMENTS DISAGREE ABOUT HER BIRTH YEAR AND ABOUT THE YEAR SHE LEFT HOME, AND THIS RECORD FOLLOWS BENEDICT XVI ON BOTH. He gives 'Born in 1193' and 'It was the evening of Palm Sunday in 1211', with her leaving 'at the age of 18'. The Catholic Encyclopedia gives 16 July 1194 and 'This was 20 March, 1212', while also calling her 'eighteen years of age' at the time. THE ENCYCLOPEDIA'S THREE FIGURES CANNOT ALL BE TRUE: 1194 to March 1212 is seventeen years, not eighteen. Benedict XVI's set is internally consistent, so it is the one carried. No age at death is recorded here: no document held states one, and with the birth year contested the arithmetic would give either 59 or 60. She died 11 August 1253, which both documents agree on.
A lifelong Catholic
Clare was born at Assisi in 1193 into a wealthy, aristocratic family, and her parents were arranging a marriage for her with someone important. She was eighteen when she heard Francis of Assisi preach the Lent sermons in the church of San Giorgio. She sought him out secretly and asked him to help her live, in her words, after the manner of the holy Gospel.
On the evening of Palm Sunday 1211 she left her father's house in secret and went down to the little chapel of the Porziuncola, where the friars met her carrying lighted torches. Francis cut off her hair and gave her a rough habit. Her father came after her and tried to drag her home by force; she held out, and he gave up. Her younger sister Agnes followed her sixteen days later, and in time so did her other sister, her aunt and her mother.
Francis settled her and her companions at San Damiano, the chapel he had rebuilt with his own hands. She was made superior there in 1215, much against her will, and stayed about forty years without once going beyond its walls. She was ill for much of that time and spent long stretches in bed. She was the first woman in the history of the Church to write a rule for religious life and have a pope approve it, and she spent much of her life defending one point in it: that her sisters would own nothing at all, in common or otherwise. Gregory IX granted her the Privilege of Poverty in 1228. Innocent IV later tried to soften the rule, and she talked him out of it — he confirmed her own rule two days before she died.
She died at San Damiano on 11 August 1253. Alexander IV canonized her two years later.
What they carried
She did it all from inside one building and mostly from a bed. The encyclopedia has her worn away at the end by illness and hard living, and brave and cheerful to the last in spite of long and painful sickness.
Patron of
- televisionformal
State of life
religious sister · abbess · Poor Clare
Themes
poverty · prayer · friendship · illness · courage under pressure · Eucharist · hidden work
Benedict XVI on Clare of Assisi (2010 General Audience)
- Benedict XVI, General Audience of 15 September 2010 — source of 'Born in 1193', the 'wealthy, aristocratic family', the marriage her parents were planning, her leaving 'at the age of 18' on 'the evening of Palm Sunday in 1211', Francis cutting off her hair while his companions held torches, the more than 40 years at San Damiano, the Privilegium Paupertatis, the canonization by Alexander IV 'in 1255, only two years after her death', and the line this record's holiness field is built on: 'Although she was the superior, she wanted to serve the sick sisters herself and joyfully subjected herself to the most menial tasks.' https://www.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/audiences/2010/documents/hf_ben-xvi_aud_20100915.html
- THE FIRST WOMAN TO WRITE A RULE — STATED BY A POPE, NOT INFERRED. Benedict XVI: 'it is useful to remember that Clare was the first woman in the Church's history who composed a written Rule, submitted for the Pope's approval, to ensure the preservation of Francis of Assisi's charism in all the communities of women.' Handled with the same care as Teresa of Ávila's 'first woman Doctor': a 'first' claim goes in only when a held document makes it.
- WHO WENT WITH HER THAT NIGHT — THE TWO DOCUMENTS NAME DIFFERENT PEOPLE. Benedict XVI: 'in the company of a friend, Bona di Guelfuccio'. Catholic Encyclopedia: 'accompanied by her aunt Bianca and another companion'. The summary says only that she left in secret and gives no name. Same treatment as Padre Pio's two sayings and Teresa of Ávila's mother's age.
- Catholic Encyclopedia (Herbermann, 1907-1913), 'St. Clare of Assisi' — source of 'Cofoundress of the Order of Poor Ladies, or Clares, and first Abbess of San Damiano', her father Favorino Scifi and mother Bl. Ortolana (a detail the article itself hedges: 'Such at least is the traditional account'), the Lent sermons at San Giorgio, her father trying 'to drag her home by force', her sister Agnes joining 'some sixteen days after her own flight', the superiorship in 1215 'much against her will', 'There is no good reason to believe that she ever once went beyond the boundaries of San Damiano during all that time', her mother, sister Beatrix and aunt Bianca all entering later, the resistance to Gregory IX and then to Innocent IV, the definitive Rule confirmed two days before her death (Bull 'Solet Annuere', 9 August 1253), the corporals spun from her sickbed, and her death on 11 August 1253. NOTE: this article predates the 1969 reform and is not a source for the feast day. https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04004a.htm
- THE PRIVILEGE OF POVERTY, 17 SEPTEMBER 1228 — the Catholic Encyclopedia quotes Gregory IX's text in full and calls it 'the first one of its kind ever sought for, or ever issued by the Holy See', noting the original autograph is preserved at Santa Chiara in Assisi. The operative grant: 'we confirm by Apostolic favour your resolution of the loftiest poverty and by the authority of these present letters grant that you may not be constrained by anyone to receive possessions.'
- PATRONAGE OF TELEVISION — DECLARED, HELD, AND THE OPERATIVE CLAUSE IS INTACT. Pius XII, 'Lettre apostolique proclamant Ste Claire patronne céleste de la télévision'. FRENCH ONLY, and it is a translation from the Latin, as its own footnote says. It is NOT titled 'Clarius explendescit', the name usually given for it; that title appears nowhere in the Holy See's index. THE DATE NEEDS EXPLAINING RATHER THAN CORRECTING. The record cites 21 August 1958, which the document's own footnote gives as its Acta Apostolicae Sedis publication ('publiée dans les Acta Apostolica Sedis du 21 août 1958, vol. L, p. 512-513') and which is how the Holy See's index dates it. But the dateline printed on the document reads 'le 14 février 1957, de Notre Pontifical la 19éme année', and that cannot be right on the document's own evidence: it quotes the encyclical Miranda prorsus of 8 September 1957, which did not yet exist, and Pius XII's nineteenth pontifical year ran from March 1957 to March 1958. 14 February 1958 fits both. The reasoning is set down here rather than the date being silently changed. https://www.vatican.va/content/pius-xii/fr/apost_letters/documents/hf_p-xii_apl_21081958_st-claire.html
- Feast 11 August, memorial. Universal Calendar, Liturgy Office of the Bishops' Conference of England and Wales, which prints '11 St Clare, Virgin, — memorial'. https://www.liturgyoffice.org.uk/Calendar/Universal/AugUC.shtml
- TELEVISION IS THE ONLY PATRONAGE RECORDED. She is also widely called patron of eye disease, goldsmiths and laundry; no document held declares any of those, so they are absent. Same rule that left Anthony of Padua's lost things out.
- THE SEAM, REPAIRED 2026-08-17 — C6, AND THE ILLNESS WAS THE ONE ITEM OF THREE THAT NOTHING NARRATED. struggles said 'She was ill for years and spent long stretches in bed'; the father's fury and the fight with two popes are both in the summary, and the illness was in no narrative field at all. It surfaced only in the holiness line, as the four words 'from her sickbed', where a reader meets it as a stage direction for the corporals and cannot tell whether it means a final illness or a life. IT MEANS A LIFE, AND THE ENCYCLOPEDIA SHOWS IT TWICE, NINETEEN YEARS APART. In 1234, at the Saracen assault: 'Clare, CALMLY RISING FROM HER SICK BED, and taking the ciborium from the little chapel adjoining her cell, proceeded to face the invaders at an open window.' And at the end: 'wasted by illness and austerities, she drew towards her end. BRAVE AND CHEERFUL TO THE LAST, IN SPITE OF HER LONG AND PAINFUL INFIRMITIES, Clare caused herself to be raised in bed and, thus reclining ... she spun the finest thread ... more than one hundred corporals.' A sickbed in 1234 and long infirmities in 1253 is what supports 'much of that time' in the summary; neither sentence on its own would. struggles now carries what the summary cannot — that the whole of it happened inside one building and much of it in bed, and the encyclopedia's own two-word cause, 'illness AND AUSTERITIES', which puts part of the damage down to her.
- A NOTABLE ABSENCE FOUND WHILE DOING THAT, AND NOT FIXED HERE. THE 1234 SARACEN ASSAULT IS IN NO FIELD OF THIS RECORD. Both held documents carry it and disagree in temper. The encyclopedia attributes: 'IT IS RELATED THAT, as she raised the Blessed Sacrament on high, the soldiers who were about to enter the monastery fell backward as if dazzled'; and it says the episode is why 'St. Clare is generally represented in art bearing a ciborium'. Benedict XVI asserts: 'Her faith in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist was so great that TWICE A MIRACLE HAPPENED. Simply by showing to them the Most Blessed Sacrament distanced the Saracen mercenaries.' The second occasion, a later attack turned back after she and her sisters prayed and a storm scattered the tents, is in the encyclopedia only. It is left out for room — the summary is at 304 of 320 words and this would take about thirty with the attribution it needs — and it is recorded rather than left silent, because THE IMAGE A CANDIDATE IS MOST LIKELY TO HAVE SEEN OF THIS SAINT IS OF THE ONE EVENT HER RECORD DOES NOT MENTION. Whoever next opens this record should weigh it against the paragraph on the Rule.