Privilege Of Poverty Research Articles

How Saint Clare of Assisi Guided Her Sisters. Impulses for the Today’s Leadership Context

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.

Poor Maternity: Clare of Assisi's letters to Agnes of Prague

During the first half of the thirteenth century, Clare of Assisi and Agnes of Prague sustained a long epistolary relationship. Clare's part of the correspondence is extant, and reveals much about the intersection of the language of gendered piety and political ambition in this period. This article seeks, in particular, to place Clare's use of maternal imagery within the context of her attempts to build patronage networks in order to support her ambitions to secure the ‘Privilege of Poverty’ for herself and her sisters, the right to live without landed endowments and claustration.

The Privilege of Poverty: Clare of Assisi, Agnes of Prague, and the Struggle for a Franciscan Rule for Women – By Joan Mueller

The Privilege of Poverty: Clare of Assisi, Agnes of Prague, and the Struggle for a Franciscan Rule for Women – By Joan Mueller

The Privilege of Poverty: Clare of Assisi, Agnes of Prague and the Struggle for a Franciscan Rule for Women

The Privilege of Poverty: Clare of Assisi, Agnes of Prague and the Struggle for a Franciscan Rule for Women

The Privilege of Poverty. Clare of Assisi, Agnes of Prague and the Struggle for a Franciscan Rule for Women – By Joan Mueller

The Privilege of Poverty. Clare of Assisi, Agnes of Prague and the Struggle for a Franciscan Rule for Women – By Joan Mueller

Joan Mueller, . The Privilege of Poverty: Clare of Assisi, Agnes of Prague and the Struggle for a Franciscan Rule for Women. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2006. 181 pp. $25.00 (paper).

Previous articleNext article No AccessBook ReviewJoan Mueller, . The Privilege of Poverty: Clare of Assisi, Agnes of Prague and the Struggle for a Franciscan Rule for Women. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2006. 181 pp. $25.00 (paper).Gerard Pieter FreemanGerard Pieter FreemanUniversity of Tilburg. Search for more articles by this author University of Tilburg.PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by The Journal of Religion Volume 89, Number 1January 2009 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/595899 Views: 21Total views on this site © 2009 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved. For permission to reuse, please contact [email protected]PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

:The Privilege of Poverty: Clare of Assisi, Agnes of Prague, and the Struggle for a Franciscan Rule for Women

:<i>The Privilege of Poverty: Clare of Assisi, Agnes of Prague, and the Struggle for a Franciscan Rule for Women</i>

The Privilege of Poverty: Clare of Assisi, Agnes of Prague, and the Struggle for a Franciscan Rule for Women * Women's Space: Patronage, Place and Gender in the Medieval Church

The Privilege of Poverty: Clare of Assisi, Agnes of Prague, and the Struggle for a Franciscan Rule for Women * Women's Space: Patronage, Place and Gender in the Medieval Church

The Privilege of Poverty: Clare of Assisi, Agnes of Prague, and the Struggle for a Franciscan Rule for Women By Joan Mueller

<i>The Privilege of Poverty: Clare of Assisi, Agnes of Prague, and the Struggle for a Franciscan Rule for Women</i> By Joan Mueller

The Privilege of Poverty: Clare of Assisi, Agnes of Prague, and the Struggle for a Franciscan Rule for Women. By JOAN MUELLER.

Joan Mueller analyses the significance of poverty in the spirituality of Clare of Assisi and Agnes of Prague, and traces the process of the struggle they had to undertake in order to ensure the life of their communities under a Franciscan rule with poverty at its centre. She draws on various different types of sources, including hagiography, papal letters, and other documents. She provides background information on the religious movements of the period, on political history, and on the history of the Franciscan Order for those readers who would otherwise not be familiar with the broader historical context. The strength of the book is its good analysis of the process of negotiations with the Papacy, and especially of the alliance between Clare and Agnes. Mueller demonstrates that Agnes, the sister of King Wenceslas I of Bohemia, had significant political clout because the Papacy needed the alliance of the ruler of Bohemia in its fight against the emperor. This political leverage was absolutely necessary, as Mueller clearly shows, because both Gregory IX (already as Cardinal Ugolino and then as pope) and Innocent IV had their own vision of the type of life these enclosed women should lead. They placed the emphasis on enclosure and obedience, and tried to put an end to the radical poverty of women's monasteries by endowing them with landed properties. It was only under pressure that the popes granted the privilege of poverty and the form of life prescribed by Francis for the women. Mueller highlights the differences between those communities that were endowed and those that clung to the original ideal of absolute poverty. The tensions and problems between the friars and the sisters are also brought to bear on the unfolding of the women's struggle. As the role of the friars evolved, the spiritual care of the female communities as well as begging for them became a contested issue. Mueller firmly places the story of the privilege of poverty granted to Clare and Agnes in the political context of the time, and convincingly weaves together religious and political history. She also includes a close examination of Clare's letters to Agnes, with particular attention to the significance of the terminology, as she traces the close alliance that sprung up between the two women who fought for the right to continue living in absolute poverty.

The Privilege of Poverty: Clare of Assisi, Agnes of Prague, and the Struggle for a Franciscan Rule for Women (review)

The Privilege of Poverty: Clare of Assisi, Agnes of Prague, and the Struggle for a Franciscan Rule for Women (review)

The Privilege of Poverty: Clare of Assisi, Agnes of Prague, and the Struggle for a Franciscan Rule for Women, by Joan Mueller

<i>The Privilege of Poverty: Clare of Assisi, Agnes of Prague, and the Struggle for a Franciscan Rule for Women</i>, by Joan Mueller

The Privilege of Poverty: Clare of Assisi, Agnes of Prague, and the Struggle for a Franciscan Rule for Women. By Joan Mueller. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2006. x + 192 pp. $40.00 cloth.

The Privilege of Poverty: Clare of Assisi, Agnes of Prague, and the Struggle for a Franciscan Rule for Women. By Joan Mueller. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2006. x + 192 pp. $40.00 cloth.

The Privilege of Poverty: Clare of Assisi, Agnes of Prague, and the Struggle for a Franciscan Rule for Women (review)

The Privilege of Poverty: Clare of Assisi, Agnes of Prague, and the Struggle for a Franciscan Rule for Women. By Joan Mueller. (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press. 2006. Pp. x, 182. $40.00.) With Clare ofAssisi, it is practically obligatory to identify as the first woman to write a monastic rule for other women. This achievement, the culmination of a decades-long battle with the papal curia to secure the right for a female monastic community to live without endowments, is Joan Mueller's subject. As a Franciscan herself, Mueller writes sensitively about what it meant for these women to choose radical poverty following the model of the Poor Christ. For historians, main contribution is that of bringing Clare together with the Bohemian princess, Agnes of Prague, to show how some women could negotiate effectively with the papacy to define how their institutions developed. When Francis ofAssisi died in 1226, Clare realized that community at San Damiano needed ecclesiastical recognition of their commitment to radical poverty. However, papal efforts to monasticize San Damiano and likeminded communities with endowments provoked a crisis. Mueller characterizes Pope Gregory IX as moving from sympathetic regard for the sisters' evangelical vocation, to an adversarial role in which the commitment to radical poverty became mere rhetoric (p. 36) and pious flourishes (p. 48). Apparent victories, such as the Privilege of Poverty granted to San Damiano in 1228 (and a few other houses at later times), were rather temporary compromises offered in the hope that the women eventually would accept possessions. By 1230, Clare and the pope were at loggerheads, and Mueller asserts rather dramatically that her soul, identity, and the quality of the monastery were at stake (pp. 51-52). Enter Agnes of Prague, whom Mueller casts as Clare's collaborator and soul mate. These chapters, drawing on earlier studies, represent the book's most original contribution. The women and their allies used diplomacy to achieve their goals, while invoking spiritual authorities for their commitment to evangelical poverty. Agnes also secured exemptions that allowed community to live without possessions, but the papacy remained determined to secure their welfare. In 1247 Pope Innocent IV issued a new rule designed to unify standards within female Franciscan communities. It required endowments, a situation that was not unwelcome to many houses. …

The privilege of poverty. Clare of Assisi, Agnes of Prague, and the struggle for a Franciscan rule for women. By Joan Mueller. Pp. x+182 incl. frontispiece and 8 ills. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2006. $40. 0 271 02893 9

The privilege of poverty. Clare of Assisi, Agnes of Prague, and the struggle for a Franciscan rule for women. By Joan Mueller. Pp. x+182 incl. frontispiece and 8 ills. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2006. $40. 0 271 02893 9 - Volume 58 Issue 4

The privilege of poverty: Clare of Assisi, Agnes of Prague, and the struggle for a Franciscan rule for women

The privilege of poverty: Clare of Assisi, Agnes of Prague, and the struggle for a Franciscan rule for women

Clare’s Letters to Agnes: Texts and Sources , and: Light Shining Through a Veil: On Saint Clare’s Letters to Saint Agnes of Prague (review)

Clare's Letters to Agnes: Texts and Sources. By Joan Mueller. (St. Bonaventure, New York: Franciscan Institute. 2001. Pp. ix, 269. $21.95 paperback.) Light Shining Through a Veil: On Saint Clare's Letters to Saint Agnes of Prague. By Edith A. Van den Goorbergh, O.S.C., and Theodore H. Zweerman, O.F.M. Translated by Aline Looman-Graaskamp and Frances Teresa, O.C.S. (Leuven: Peeters. 2000. Pp. xi, 33.) Since the eighth centenary of her birth in 1993, Clare of Assisi has emerged from her cloister and into the limelight. Two recent full-length studies have made valuable contributions to an understanding of Clare in her context as a medieval woman and to the relevance of her message for our time. Joan Mueller's work, Clare's Letters to Agnes: Texts and Sources, provides an assessment of the of Clare's letters in the ancient Legend of Saint Agnes of Rome, the struggle of Agnes of Prague amidst the papal and royal correspondence of the Premysl dynasty, as well as her association with the early brothers. Mueller includes the Latin text of the letters, an English translation, and extensive footnotes commenting on the meaning of Clare's message in her time and ours. Clare's Letters to Agnes: Texts and Sources is simultaneously about Clare of Assisi, Agnes of Prague, and Agnes of Rome and how their histories intertwine. These are the major figures confronting contemporary readers who study Clare of Assisi's Letters as a source of early Franciscan spirituality, Agnes of Prague as an influential woman caught by the vision of Francis and his friars, or the ancient Christian legend of Agnes of Rome, popularly known for choosing martyrdom in order to preserve her virginity. In the introduction to Clare's Letters to Agnes, Mueller presents the manuscript tradition of Clare's four letters, brief biographies to illustrate the relationship of Clare and Agnes of Prague, and her intent to examine Clare's letters in their historical cultural context. Part One of Mueller's book provides the Latin texts of Clare's four letters, an English translation, and historical and philological guidance for reading and interpretation. extensive footnotes serve as a commentary to establish the background of Agnes of Prague, her royal family, and her place in the history of Bohemia. This approach led Mueller to identify the three substantial sources for Clare's letters which she treats in separate essays in the remainder of the book. Part Two begins with an essay elucidating The Legend of Saint Agnes of Rome as Source. Mueller argues that Clare seems to have known and improvised on the Legend of Saint Agnes, and that their dependence on the Legend cannot be fully traced through consulting only the antiphons and responsories of the January 21 Office of Saint Agnes. Mueller's second essay The Primitive Franciscan Climate as Source: Clare's Letters and the Early Brothers, demonstrates how the spirit of Clare's letters is comparable to the spirit of the early Franciscan brothers. Mueller demonstrates how Clare's theology helped to put a Franciscan stamp on the evolving penitential movement of the early thirteenth century. The Privilege of Poverty as Source: Clare's Letters amid Papal and Royal Correspondence, Mueller's third essay in Part Two, places the letters in the medieval ecclesiastical world, especially within the context of pertinent papal bulls. …

Agnes of Prague and the Juridical Implications of the Privilege of Poverty

Agnes of Prague and the Juridical Implications of the Privilege of Poverty

L'Ordre de Saint [sic!] Claire à Bordeaux avant la Révolution (1239-1580)

BOOK REVIEWS755 287-525) appended to the narrative is devoted to summaries (Regesten) of 434 documents concerning Konrad. The author rounds out his study with transcriptions of unpublished documents concerning Konrad (for the most part issued by him), a short discussion of the diplomatic of his documents (together with photographs of six representative pieces), a table of incipits ofhis legatine diplomas, an index of places and persons, and detachable fold-out genealogical tables indicating Konrad's relationship to those families and individuals who figured in his activities. Neininger's final appraisal rings true:while Konrad ofUrach was by no means an epochal figure of medieval history, a study of his life yields instructive glimpses of the various historical forces that enlivened the secular and ecclesiastical politics of his day. Robert C. Figueira Lander University L'Ordre de Saint [sic!] Claire à Bordeaux avant la Révolution (1239-1580). By Hugues Dedieu, O.F.M. [Editiones Archivum Franciscanum Historicum.] (Grottaferrata [Roma] : Collegio S. Bonaventura. 1996. Pp. 180. Paperback.) In a period in which the lives of women religious who are historical prototypes are being diligently researched, the history of the Clares of Bordeaux would appear to be a real discovery. It is, but in a vein far different from what one might expect, and therefore all the more interesting. Instead of being presented with a hagiographical ideal of the first fervor of a community imbued with the love of poverty, prayer, and community life, we are confronted with a rather cautionary tale. No preaching is necessary. The facts tell it as it is. Brother Hugues Dedieu gave himself the triple goal of presenting a historical synthesis of the monastery ofthe Clares of Bordeaux, together with data about its earliest occupants, and a careful detailing of its temporal possessions. It was a monastery, probably never larger than twenty nuns, and dating to the very time of St. Clare of Assist herself (1239). At the time of their arrival in the medieval city, the Damianites were just one of many, many religious houses, closely crowded together, and were popularly known as "les Menudes." For a while, they followed the Benedictine Rule, and eventually the Rule promulgated by Pope Urban IV (1263)· The nuns seem to have had no idea whatsoever of their foundress' desperate attempts to obtain "the privilege of poverty," not to mention her ideal of enclosure and love of the sacraments. These nuns had their possessions and also seem to have had little idea of enclosure . It certainly was no"ideal" for them. The story of the demise ofthe community in utter poverty, even disgrace, is not very edifying. The spiritual life was not nourished by any strong sacramental life, not to mention spiritual guidance under the aegis of the Conventual Friars or Cordeliers to whom they were sub- 756BOOK REVIEWS ject. Sociologically, there was a fairly large aristocratic recruitment, and the families of the abbesses intervened at will. Though their property list was much more extensive than one might expect, the paradox was that the nuns had grave financial problems for reasons of war, bad management, and tenant neglect . As a consequence, these concerns overly preoccupied the superiors to the detriment of healthy religious life. The community, deeply in need of reform , and long on the decline, underwent its death throes in the sixteenth century . When this spiritually and materially deficient community was offered hospitality by a generous community ofAnnonciade nuns, the latter had ample reason to regret their goodness. It did not help that a scandal with one of the abbesses erupted, when it became known that she had five or six children. The account ofa Canonical Visitation by the Provincial of the Franciscans in 1575 is especially interesting: the nuns are considered to be in a state of "real dissolution and public scandal, worthy of a strict prison and very rigorous penitence." In its whole history there is not one nun who stood out for her reputation for some sanctity. Three and a half centuries of existence terminated the decline. The death date of the last religious is unknown. Dedieu concludes that "Clares and Annonciades of Bordeaux did not seem to be aware of the spiritual riches infused into...