FOOTNOTES
[1.] Easy as it is to seize the large outlines of her life, it is with difficulty that one makes a detailed and documentary study of it. There is nothing surprising in this, for the Clarisses felt the rebound of the struggles which divided and rapidly transformed the Order of the Brothers Minor. The greater number of the documents have disappeared; we give summary indication of those which will most often be cited: 1. Life of St. Clara by an anonymous author. A. SS., Aug., t. ii., pp. 739-768. 2. Her Will, given by Wadding (Annales, 1253, No. 5), but which does not appear to be free from alteration. (Compare, for example, the opening of this will with Chapter VI. of the Rule of the Damianites approved by Innocent IV., August 8, 1253.) 3. The bull of canonization, given September 26, 1255—that is to say, two years after Clara's death; it is much longer than these documents ordinarily are, and relates the principal incidents of her life. A. SS., loc. cit., p. 749; Potthast, 16,025. 4. Her correspondence. Unhappily we have only fragments of it; the Bollandists, without saying whence they drew them, have inserted four of her letters in the Acta of St. Agnes of Bohemia, to whom they were addressed. (A. SS., Martii, t. i., pp. 506-508.)
[2.] Reading the Chronicle of Fra Salimbeni, which represents the average Franciscan character about 1250, one sees with what reason the Rule had multiplied minute precautions for keeping the Brothers from all relations with women.
The desire of Celano to present the facts in the life of Francis as the norm of the acts of the friars appears still more in the chapters concerning St. Clara than in all the others. Vide 2 Cel., 3, 132: Non credatis, charissimi (dixit Franciscus), quodeas perfecte non diligam.... Sed exemplum do vobis, ut quemadmodum ego facio, ita et vos faciatis. Cf. ibid., 134.
[3.] 2 Cel., 3, 55. Fateor veritatem ... nullam me si aspicerem recogniturum in facie nisi duas. This chapter and the two following give us a sort of caricature, in which Francis is represented as so little sure of himself that he casts down his eyes for fear of yielding to desire. The stories of Francis and Jacqueline of Settesoli give a very different picture of the relations between the Brothers and the women in the origin of the Order from that which was given later. Bernard de Besse (Turin MS., fo. 113) relates at length the coming of Jacqueline to Portiuncula to be present at St. Francis's death. Cf. Spec., 107; 133; Bon., 112. Also Clara's repast at Portiuncula. Fior., 15; Spec., 139b.; A. SS. Aug. Vita Clar., No. 39 ff.
[4.] Isaiah, lxiii., 8 and 9 (Ségond's [French] translation). At the Mass on Holy Monday Isaiah lxiii. is read for the Epistle and Mark xiv. for the Gospel.
[5.] San Paolo on the Chiasco, near Bastia.
[6.] At the present day diocesan seminary of Assisi, "Seminarium seraphicum." In the thirteenth century the north gate of the city was there. The houses which lie between there and the Basilica form the new town, which is rapidly growing and will unite the city with Sacro Convento.
[7.] Nam steteramus in alio loco, licet parum. Test. Clar. It is truly strange that there is not a word here for the house where the first days of her religious life were passed. Cf. Vit., no. 10: S. Angelus de Panse ... ubi cum non plene mens ejus quiesceret.
[8.] Mittarelli, Annales Camaldulenses (Venice, 1755-1773, 9 vols., fo.), t. iv., app. 431 and 435. Cf. 156.