1212 · Assisi, Duchy of Spoleto (modern Assisi, Italy)
Clare of Assisi Founds the Poor Clares
In 1212, the eighteen-year-old Clare of Assisi left her wealthy family to follow Francis of Assisi's radical call to poverty, eventually founding the Order of Poor Ladies — later called the Poor Clares — the first religious order for women to receive its own written rule authored by a woman.
Clare was born into a noble family in Assisi around 1194. She heard Francis preach during Lent of 1212 and was moved to leave everything — wealth, security, marriage prospects — to follow his way of radical Gospel poverty. On Palm Sunday night, she slipped out of her family's house and met Francis and his brothers at the Portiuncula chapel, where Francis cut her hair and gave her a rough habit. Her family was furious. They came to drag her back, but she clung to the altar cloth and showed them her shorn head. She was not coming home. Francis placed her first in a Benedictine convent, then established her in the small church of San Damiano outside Assisi, where she was joined by her sister Agnes and eventually by dozens of other women. Clare spent forty years at San Damiano, never leaving its enclosure. She insisted on absolute poverty — not just personal poverty, which was common for nuns, but corporate poverty. The community would own nothing, not even property. This was radical. Every other women's religious community held property for its own support. Popes repeatedly tried to impose more conventional arrangements. Clare fought them for decades. She wrote her own rule — the first rule for a religious order written by a woman — and received papal approval for it just two days before her death in 1253. Her Privilege of Poverty, guaranteed by Gregory IX, allowed the Poor Clares to live entirely on alms. The order she founded spread across Europe and still exists today, with communities on every continent.
Why it matters
Founded the first women's religious order with its own rule written by a woman, established the principle of corporate poverty for women's communities, and created one of the most enduring contemplative orders in the Church.
What Happened
On Palm Sunday 1212, eighteen-year-old Clare of Assisi fled her noble family to embrace Francis's vision of radical poverty. Established at San Damiano, she spent forty years building a community of women dedicated to prayer and total poverty — owning nothing, not even communal property. She fought popes for decades to maintain this vision and wrote her own rule, approved two days before her death in 1253.
Why It Still Matters
Clare proved that women could lead religious communities on their own terms, writing their own rules and defending their vision against institutional pressure. The Poor Clares still exist on every continent. Clare was also the first woman to write a rule for a religious order, a fact that matters for understanding women's roles in Church history — they were never merely passive recipients of male decisions.