CHIARA da Montefalco, Saint. — Augustinian,
b. at Montefalco (Province of Perugia) in 1268, d. there
on 17 Aug. 1308. At the age of six she entered the hermitage
founded and directed by her elder sister Giovanna
under the Rule of St. Augustine, which had been received from the
Bishop of Spoleto in 1290. After Giovanna’s death in 1291, C.
succeeded her as abbess. Endowed with supernatural charisms,
she wisely governed the community, which she also preserved from
the contagion of a Quietist sect, known as the Spirit of Freedom,
whose leaders were discovered and denounced by the Saint. After
her death, the emblems of the Passion were found in her heart;
her body is still preserved incorrupt. Following a diocesan process,
John XXII in 1317 ordered an apostolic process for her canonization.
But it was only in 1742 that her beatification took place, and on
8 Dec. 1881 her canonization. The Roman Martyrology commemorates
her on 17 Aug.
CHIARA DA MONTEFALCO, SANTA
Bibl.: Contemporary Life by Berengario di s. Africano,
ed. by M. Faloci Pulignani in Arch. storico per le Marche e l’Umbria,
1 (1884), pp. 557-625; 2 (1885), pp. 193-266; by P. F. Töth,
Storia di s. C. da M., Siena 1908 (with Italian version); and in
Analecta augustiniana, 17 (1939-40), in seven installments; Antonio
da Montefalco in the 15th cent. adapted it into dialogue form in the
vernacular: Vita di s. C. da M., Perugia 1882. Cf. then B. Pier-
gili, Vita della b. C. da M., Foligno 1642; A. N. Merlin, St.
Claire de la Croix de Montefalco, Paris 1930; L. Oliger, De secta
Spiritus libertatis, Rome 1943, pp. 9-27, 91-126 and passim; G. Aba-
te, La casa paterna di s. C., Assisi 1946.