Clare of Assisi and the Thirteenth-Century Church: Religious Women, Rules, and Resistance. Catherine M. Mooney. The Middle Ages Series. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016. xiv + 292 pp. $65.
gical unity. Carefully transcribed for our scrutiny are the contents of the five missals’ liturgical calendars, all of which provide us with insight into the ritual rhythm of certain Umbrian friaries. The tables containing this information are lucid and invaluable for the task of chapter 5. There Welch investigates whether these calendars reveal early Franciscan regulated uniformity or diversity. After considering themes like the rubrication of specific feasts, the inclusion/exclusion of other religious orders’ feasts (e.g., for the Cistercian Saint Bernard of Clairvaux), and the addition and absence of particular feasts (e.g., the Stigmata of Saint Francis), she shows that they in fact reflect plurality of Franciscan identities—even within a single region of Italy. Welch concludes persuasively that a uniform liturgy was not the principal means by which medieval Franciscans forged a common identity; rather, the friars’ textual and visual images of Saint Francis were. This illuminating case study is a welcome analysis of a subject that has for years merited far more academic attention, and serves as a long overdue corrective to previous scholarship. Welch’s thorough knowledge of the extensive manuscript evidence and her masterful interaction with the secondary literature are truly impressive. This monograph belongs on the shelves of all scholars interested in Franciscan history, liturgical history, medieval art history, and Umbrian religious and social history.