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The Medieval Church · approved 1253
The Rule
Clare of Assisi · 1194–1253
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What it is
A rule for her own community insisting on the privilege of poverty — the right to own nothing at all — approved two days before she died.
Why it lasted
The first rule for women known to be written by a woman, and the end of a forty-year campaign against churchmen who kept trying to give her property.
Where to read it
Public domain and free to read in full, though not held here. The archives below have it.
These open a search on each archive rather than a direct link, which is the honest way to point at an edition nobody here has checked line by line.
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