ABSTRACT
Female followers of Francis of Assisi (d. 1226) and his female friend and disciple Clare (d. 1253) began to found communities of Clarissan nuns from early in the thirteenth century. Unlike the men’s houses of the order, those of women by 1219 were strictly enclosed, with outsiders excluded and its nuns rarely, if ever, leaving the monastic complex. Such enclosure was of course unthinkable for the mendicant brothers, whose mission lay precisely in their involvement with the lay community and in living as the poorest of the poor, begging for sustenance. Indeed, it had been generally honored in the breach for most monastic men and women up through the twelfth century. But the challenge presented by the new mendicant orders led to the imposition of new strictures, especially for women religious, which separated them from the clerics, lay-brothers, and secular business agents who served the practical needs of the community. The new regulations, imposed with particular force first upon the female branch of the Franciscan Order and later on all women religious, had a direct impact upon the administration of the sacraments, which were offered through a series of architectural divisions and barriers. Older buildings were modified to include turnstiles, grilles, screens, curtains, and chambered gates into which provisions were placed so that there was no visual contact between the lay-brothers or clergy and the female community. The strict enclosure of women also had specific consequences for religious women’s visual relationship to the Mass, for here too screens, walls, and barriers were imposed between the monastic community and the altar. These consequences were not recognized before the 1992 publication of this selection.
