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Saint Clare and leadership? A lot of research on her person has been done in recent years. However, her importance for today’s management has not been taken into account. In this article, we will look more closely at her understanding of leadership and how the medieval saint led the community of her sisters. To do this, we first look at biographical reports and written testimonies (about and written by her) that characterize her leadership actions and behavior. First and foremost, it was her endeavor to lead a life according to Jesus Christ under the privilege of poverty. In this presentation, the excerpts from the canonization process and passages of her order rule are of central importance. These testimonies provide valuable information on her understanding and her leadership style. Her biography, her leadership, and the values that shape her actions provide valuable insights into today’s leadership challenges. Through her example, St. Clare can help us to train ourselves as authentic leaders and to reflect on our own leadership and values. She can sensitize people to cultivate an appreciative inner attitude in dealing with others and thus develop our own effect as (leadership) personalities.

A new English-language resource on Clare and the Poor Ladies of San Damiano. Alberzoni provides a careful, contextual reading of the sources surrounding the foundation of the group living with Clare in the decades of change after the death of Francis.

Bringing together the best of international research, Clare of Assisi: Life, Writings and Spirituality examines Clare's history and hagiography and offers critical translations and literary analyses of her Forma Vitae and her four letters to Agnes of Prague.

A certain Lady Clare died in San Damiano near Assisi on 10 August 1253. She did not know that seven centuries later she would become the patron saint of television. All she wanted in her adult life was to live according to the Gospel of Jesus Christ like her fellow Assisian and friend, Francis. It took Clare her lifetime to obtain the recognition she wanted: the papal written approval of the life of the Poor Sisters of San Damiano. When the long awaited papal bull arrived on 9 August 1253, she had done what she wanted to do; she passed away two days later. In tribute to the 750th anniversary of her death, Franciscan Institute Publications offers this volume of essays on Clare.

Drawing upon the writings of medieval women, this book distinguishes the historical figure of Clare of Assisi from the uses made of her spiritual legacy in debates over the role of women in the Franciscan Order in later medieval Italy.

The places that trace Clare's footsteps are sacred places, not just because they record her life-story, but because they hold the poten-tial to be thresholds for our own transcendent experiences. A sacred place recalls past events of God's revelation at that site. Pilgrims visit such places to recall the history and to experience the spirit of the Holy that is specific to the place. At the same time, a sacred place holds the promise of future encounters with the Holy. Visiting sa-cred places in order to tap into their spiritual energies sensitizes our soul to a form of contemplative historical consciousness, the mysti-cism of the historical event. At a sacred place, we recall its history not just as a memory-event, but as a movement toward a felt-expe-rience of revelation at the site. To enter into the event of the past in such a way as to open ourselves to relive the encounter with God impels us toward the threshold of further revelation in the present moment, a new Epiphany. In the Footsteps of Saint Clare invites us to walk with Clare, who leads the way to a deeper intimacy with our Lord Jesus Christ.

This article examines the notion of “rhetorical androgyny” in medieval and contemporary Franciscan hagiography. Rhetorical androgyny is androgyny that exists as spiritual motivation in religious texts but finds no corollary in everyday life due to social constraints. Depictions of St. Francis of Assisi's transformation stress his assumption of feminine characteristics, but even as androgynous existence is upheld as the epitome of pious achievement, the very definition of androgyny is problematized. A demonstration of feminine qualities enhances the male saint while the woman saint closest to him, Clare of Assisi, may not assimilate masculinity. Nevertheless, the female saint achieves a higher state of androgyny in medieval sources than she does in modern representation due to a foregrounding of the tension between social constraints and spiritual ideals in religious texts of the Middle Ages.

The early modern iconographie representations of St. Clare of Assisi (1193-1253) often show her carrying the monstrance with the Eucharist. This act refers to the episode of September 1240, when the Saracen mercenaries of Emperor Federick II attacked the unprotected small monastery of the Poor Ladies of San Damiano. The weak and sick Clare is often portrayed as lifting up the monstrance while standing at the dormitory door and striking the Saracen troops below with the brilliance of the Eucharist. The target of this essay is to trace the evolution of this enigmatic scene in Italian art in connection with the Franciscan religious literature, particularly as expressed in sermons. The article will focus on the later phase of the popularity of this scene in early modern Italy. The story gains new meanings over the years; ultimately, St. Clare becomes a Crusade heroine defending Christianity against infidels and an emblem of Tridentine Catholic theology and its admiration for the Host.

Jeanne de Jussie (1503–61) experienced the Protestant Reformation from within the walls of the Convent of Saint Clare in Geneva. In her impassioned and engaging Short Chronicle, she offers a singular account of the Reformation, reporting not only on the larger clashes between Protestants and Catholics but also on events in her convent—devious city councilmen who lied to trusting nuns, lecherous soldiers who tried to kiss them, and iconoclastic intruders who smashed statues and burned paintings. Throughout her tale, Jussie highlights women’s roles on both sides of the conflict, from the Reformed women who came to her convent in an attempt to convert the nuns to the Catholic women who ransacked the shop of a Reformed apothecary. Above all, she stresses the Poor Clares’ faithfulness and the good men and women who came to them in their time of need, ending her story with the nuns’ arduous journey by foot from Reformed Geneva to Catholic Annecy. First published in French in 1611, Jussie’s Short Chronicle is translated here for an English-speaking audience for the first time, providing a fresh perspective on struggles for religious and political power in sixteenth-century Geneva and a rare glimpse at early modern monastic life.

Falar de Clara de Assis não é tão simples quanto parece, até porque ela foi uma mulher entre tantas outras que, a seu modo, rompeu com o discurso hegemônico imposto pela sociedade e pela Igreja, defendendo suas decisões e pontos de vista. Clara de Assis era uma jovem da nobreza do século XIII, e era normal que sua família já tivesse planejado um futuro casamento para ela, através do qual, daria prosseguimento à sua linhagem. Entretanto, Clara frustrou os planos de seus familiares, recusando as propostas naquele sentido. O que a impulsionou a tal decisão? Através da análise das quatro cartas de Clara de Assis para Inês de Braga, podemos inferir que ela preferiu lutar para viver sua espiritualidade, seguindo os ensinamentos de Francisco de Assis, levando uma vida em pobreza e em virgindade.