The movement quickly spread, though in a somewhat disorganized fashion, with several monasteries of women devoted to the Franciscan ideal springing up elsewhere in Northern Italy. At this point Ugolino, Cardinal Bishop of
Ostia (the future
Pope Gregory IX), was given the task of overseeing all such monasteries and preparing a formal
Monastic Rule. Although monasteries at Monticello,
Perugia,
Siena, Gattajola and elsewhere adopted the new rule – which allowed for property to be held in trust by the papacy for the various communities – it was not adopted by Clare herself or her monastery at San Damiano. Clare herself resisted the Ugolino Rule, since it did not closely enough follow the ideal of complete poverty advocated by Francis. On 9 August 1253, she managed to obtain a
papal bull,
Solet annuere, establishing a rule of her own, more closely following that of the friars, which
forbade the possession of property either individually or as a community. Originally applying only to Clare's community at San Damiano, this rule was also adopted by many monasteries. The situation was further complicated a century later when
Colette of Corbie restored the primitive rule of strict poverty to 17 French monasteries. Her followers came to be called the
Colettine Poor Clares (PCC). Two further branches, the
Capuchin Poor Clares (OSCCap) and the
Alcantarines, also followed the strict observance.
King Philip IV and
Queen Joan founded a monastery at Moncel in the Beauvais diocese. Plagues such as the Black Death alone would kill up to 20 million people in Europe. In addition, there would be many different military conflicts that would also affect the Poor Clares, such as The Hundred Years’ War that would start in 1337 and go to 1453. Due to the extreme loss of life from both sickness and war, many religious communities were forced to rebuild and recruit more people to the order. The Poor Clares were a part of this and would have to redefine who they were and who they would let into the order as they were eager to build it back up. For example, prior to both The Hundred Years’ War and the Black Plague in 1330, The Poor Clares had around 80 women who were a part of the order in Toulouse, France. However, by 1370, The Poor Clares’ would only have four women who were still a part of the order. This would lead them to evacuate to local towns and start recruiting individuals to the order. Not all the people who were recruited by the Poor Clares during this time were willing to embrace vows of abstinence, poverty, or obedience. This would bring conflict within the order as there wasn’t unity in the standards that were once the foundation of what the Poor Clares stood for. In medieval England, where the nuns were known as "minoresses", their principal monastery was located near
Aldgate, known as the
Abbey of the Order of St Clare. The order gave its name to the still-extant street known as
Minories on the eastern boundary of the
City of London. After the
dissolution of the monasteries under King
Henry VIII, several religious communities formed in
continental Europe for
English Catholics. One such was a
Poor Clare monastery founded in 1609 at
Gravelines by
Mary Ward. The convent was completed in 1609 and provided a permanent place for the nuns to live until 1626 when a fire destroyed most of the building and forced the nuns to seek temporary shelter until it was repaired. Disaster struck again in 1654 when an explosion destroyed almost all of the town, including the convent. Later expelled from their monastery by the
French Revolutionary Army in 1795, the community eventually relocated to
England. They settled first in Northumberland, and then in 1857 built a monastery in
Darlington, eventually establishing communities in, e.g.,
Notting Hill (1857, which was forced to relocate by the local council in the 1960s, and settled in the village of
Arkley in 1969),
Woodchester (1860–2011),
Levenshulme (1863),
Much Birch (1880),
Arundel (1886),
Lynton (founded from
Rennes, France, 1904–2010s),
Woodford Green (1920–1969),
York (1865–2015) and
Nottingham (1927–2023). The community in
Luton was founded in 1976 to meet a shortage of teachers for local Catholic schools. It was originally based at 18 London Road in a large Edwardian house. In 1996, the community refocused on a ministry of social work and prayer, and moved to a smaller, modern home at Abigail Close, Wardown Park.
Germany With the Reformation, nuns in catholic monasteries in Germany would be forced to leave their convents and return to family or other networks
. Ireland The Poor Clares Order is the longest-surviving female religious community in Ireland. As of 2024, the Poor Clares celebrated their 382nd anniversary of being in Ireland. In
Ireland there are seven monasteries of the Colettine Observance. The community with the oldest historical roots is the monastery on
Nuns' Island in
Galway, which traces its history back to the monastery in Gravelines. The community has a rare book collection which is the most comprehensive single collection of early-modern Clarissan material in English in the world. It was an English woman, popularly known as the Venerable Mary Ward, who founded a convent of English Poor Clares in Gravelines France in the 17th century. Women from different countries would come and seek admission there. One of them was a young woman, known as Marianna Cheevers, who sought admission into the abbey in 1619. Marianna was a young Irish woman from Wexford, and she became the first Irish Poor Clare since the Reformation. She was professed in December of 1620 and was followed by four other woman from Ireland. Two of the women who joined her were daughters of Viscount Dillon, one of whom was Cisly Dillon, and the other two were Alse Nugent from Westmeath and Mary Doudal from Dublin. By May of 1625, all five of them would be professed and become the first five Poor Clares from Ireland since the Reformation. The five women were determined to start a convent that was exclusively Irish and selected Cisly Dillon, daughter of
Theobald Dillon, 1st Viscount Dillon, to be their abbess, even though she was only 22 at the time. On May 20, 1625, they would arrive at the town of Dunkirk, which was only 14 miles from Gravelines, As the Irish fought in almost all the Spanish wars as mercenaries from 1587 to 1814, in fact, in 1585, Queen Elizabeth pledged to help the protestant Dutch fight for their independence from the Spanish Catholics and sent over 500 Irish Catholics to fight. When the Irish and their English Colonel William Stanley, who was also catholic, found out that they had been sent to fight the Spanish Catholics, they quickly changed sides in the conflict and paved the way for thousands of other Irish people to come and fight for the Spanish. would have been around the Low Countries at this time. Other Irish men like Owen, grew up in places like the Spanish Netherlands and the Low Countries (located north of France) and would not return to Ireland unless brought back by fellow insurgents or family members still living in Ireland. In other words, the Low Countries and the Spanish Netherlands were full of Irish Catholics. As all five of the women had connections among Irish officers, it is unsurprising that they wanted to form a convent in the Low Countries. What is surprising is the courage they exercised as they had no money. They hoped to survive on the money they received with alms, but their alms were not enough. Unable to make the high rent, they were forced to leave after eighteen short months and moved to a town called Nieuport, which was just further up the coast close to Ostend. Since most of their donations came from Ireland and the war was going on, they had little to nothing to etch out a living. Since Charles the 1st was now king, they wondered if they should return to Ireland. Communities that had been shut down after the Reformation were being restored by the Irish Franciscans. In June of 1629, the Poor Clares finally arrived in Ireland, and the five nuns settled in Dublin. They set up a convent on Merchants’ Quay Many of them took refuge in Dublin and eventually formed a convent there and that community would become one of the oldest communities in Ireland. they moved to
Dublin in 1629, the first monastic community in Ireland for a century. The first Abbess was
Cisly Dillon, a daughter of
Theobald Dillon, 1st Viscount Dillon. Later monasteries were founded in 1906 in both
Carlow and
Dublin. From these, foundations were established in
Cork (1914) and
Ennis (1958). In 1973, an
enclosed community of nuns of the
Franciscan Third Order Regular in
Drumshanbo, founded in England in 1852 and established there in 1864, transferred to the
Second Order, under this Observance. There is Poor Clares monastery in
Faughart,
County Louth.
Continental Europe dedicated to Poor Clare saints Currently there are communities of Colettine Poor Clares in
Bruges,
Belgium, as well as in
Eindhoven, the
Netherlands, and in
Larvik,
Norway. There are several monasteries in
Hungary,
Lithuania and
Poland of the Urbanist and Capuchin Observances. There are notable Clarissine churches in
Bamberg,
Bratislava,
Brixen, and
Nuremberg. There also is a small community in
Münster,
Germany, and a Capuchin monastery in
Sigolsheim, France. The last six Poor Clare nuns from a convent in Belgium were able to sell their convent by selling luxury vehicles, and move to the South of France. The
Convent of Saint Clare is located in Burgos,
Spain. A Poor Clares convent in
Belorado ran into conflicts with the Vatican in the 2020s, and ten of their members were excommunicated.
France There would be six different attempts at establishments in Toulouse, a city in France, as people kept reforming the order. After the Black Plague and different wars in Europe, the Poor Clares in Toulouse went from a group of around 80 women to a group of 4. There eventually came a Tordesillas reform, which was spearheaded by Juan 1st. This reform gained traction, and other monasteries ended up combining with it and forming the Santa Maria la Real or Santa Clara de Tordesillas. Eventually, though, they would be brought under the review of the Observant provincial vicar, and some would be forced to comply with violence. It is because of this dissent that the Colettine Reform movement happened. Colette was born in 1381, and when her parents died when she was seventeen, she sold all her possessions and took personal vows of poverty. People such as Jean Pinet and Henry of Baume would point her toward the Franciscan order. Colette would later record receiving visions about the need to restore the vows of poverty to the Franciscan order.
Scandinavia Americas United States ,
Boston After an abortive attempt to establish the order in the United States in the early 1800s by three nuns who were refugees of
Revolutionary France, the Poor Clares were not permanently established in the country until the late 1870s. A small group of Colettine nuns arrived from
Düsseldorf, Germany, seeking a refuge for the community which had been expelled from their monastery by the government policies of the
Kulturkampf. They found a welcome in the
Diocese of Cleveland, and in 1877 established a monastery in that city. At the urging of
Mary Ignatius Hayes in 1875
Pope Pius IX had already authorized the sending of nuns to establish a monastery of Poor Clares of the Primitive Observance from San Damiano in Assisi. After the reluctance on the part of many bishops to accept them, due to their reliance upon donations for their maintenance, a community was finally established in
Omaha,
Nebraska, in 1878. Currently there are also monasteries in (among other places):
Alexandria, Virginia (PCC);
Andover, Massachusetts;
Belleville, Illinois (PCC);
Bordentown, New Jersey;
Boston, Massachusetts;
Brenham, Texas;
Chicago, Illinois;
Cincinnati, Ohio;
Cleveland, Ohio (OSC, PCC and PCPA);
Fort Wayne, Indiana;
Evansville, Indiana;
Kokomo, Indiana;
Los Altos Hills, California;
Memphis, Tennessee;
metropolitan Richmond, Virginia;
New Orleans, Louisiana;
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania;
Phoenix, Arizona; Rockford, Illinois (PCC);
Roswell, New Mexico (PCC);
Saginaw, Michigan;
Spokane, Washington;/
Travelers Rest, South Carolina;
Washington D.C.; and
Wappingers Falls, New York. Additionally there are monasteries in
Alabama (PCPA),
California,
Florida,
Missouri,
Montana and
Tennessee. Since the 1980s, the nuns of New York City have formed small satellite communities in
Connecticut and
New Jersey. There is one monastery of the Capuchin Observance in
Denver, Colorado, founded from Mexico in 1988.
Canada There are three monasteries of the order in Canada:
St. Clare's Monastery at
Duncan, British Columbia; and at
Mission, British Columbia; and a
French-speaking community in
Valleyfield, Quebec. A monastery was founded in
Huehuetenango,
Guatemala, by nuns from the community in
Memphis, Tennessee, in November 1981, in the early days of a bloody
civil war which ravaged that country; as of 2011, it consisted of seven nuns; five Guatemalans and two
Salvadorans.
Asia The Poor Clares were massacred at
Acre during the reconquest of
Palestine after the
Crusades. They returned to
Nazareth in 1884 and in 1888.
StCharles de Foucauld served both communities between 1897 and 1900. These French Clarissians were expelled from the
Ottoman Empire at the onset of
World War I; the communities were subsequently reestablished in 1949 amid the
creation of Israel.
Philippines The Poor Clare in the
Philippines was led by
Jeronima of the Assumption who was authorized by the King of Spain and the
Minister General of the
Order of Friars Minor to go there to found a monastery. She was from
Toledo, Spain and left Madrid in April 1620 in her 60s and arrived in
Manila on 5 August 1621 with other 14 sisters. They are the first contemplative nuns who arrived in the Philippine archipelago to support the active works of evangelization of the
Franciscans working in the country through their life of contemplation, penance, poverty, and enclosure. Together with the Alcantarine Friars who came to the Philippines in 1578 and strive to live the ideals of
Francis of Assisi in a very rigorous way, the Poor Clare sisters also professed the Rule and life of
Clare of Assisi. They heightened their witnessing of the "privilege of poverty" of Clare by not having a permanent income but rather opened their gates of the Divine Providence through alms and the generosity of the people. Their Monastery in
Intramuros was severely devastated by an earthquake. However, through the efforts of the people around, it was rebuilt and has a larger space compared to the former monastery. During the war for independence in the year 1945, the monastery was destroyed again and the sisters were forced to evacuate the place. For the meantime, they were sheltered at the Minor Seminary of the Franciscans in San Francisco del Monte, Quezon City for 5 years. The present location of the Monastery is at Aurora Boulevard, C5, Katipunan, Quezon City. Because of the zeal for the contemplative life, the founder's cause is ongoing for beatification. Apart from the said monastery, it also expand its presence from the different parts of the country. The country has 27 monasteries in total:
Sariaya Quezon (1957);
Calbayog, Samar (1965); Betis and
Guagua, Pampanga (1968);
Cabuyao, Laguna and Tayud,
Cebu (1975):
Maria, Siquijor and
Isabela, Basilan in (1986); Josefina, Zamboanga del Sur, (1989);
Kidapawan, North Cotabato,
Balanga Bataan,
Lopez (Quezon Province), and Cabid-an, Sorsogon (1990); Guibang, Isabela,
Mondragon, Northern Samar and
Naval, Biliran (1991); Iguig, Tuguegarao (1992);
Bolinao, Pangasinan and
Cantilan, Surigao del Sur (1993);
Boac, Marinduque and
Polomolok, South Cotabato (1998);
Aritao, Nueva Vizcaya (1999); Tabon-tabon,
Albay and
San Jose, Antique (2004);
Borongan, Eastern Samar and
Malasiqui Pangasinan (2011) and
Tabuk, Kalinga (2017). The Poor Clare Monastery in Palawan province is founded by the Monastery from China. Furthermore, their expansion does not only limit in the Philippine archipelago but also helped the aging communities in
Tahiti,
France,
Italy,
England,
Germany,
Egypt, USA. They were able to found new monasteries in abroad such as in
Malaysia,
Papua New Guinea,
Taiwan,
Hongkong. There are also monastery from
Kiryū, Gunma,
Japan, which was founded from the monastery in Boston in 1965. == Saints, Blesseds, Venerables, and Servants of God ==