Clare of Assisi governed her own community of women for over forty years, writing the first monastic rule authored entirely by a woman

Clare's Rule broke a centuries-long pattern in which even women's monastic communities had lived under rules written by men.

Clare of Assisi, drawn to religious life partly through hearing Francis of Assisi preach, founded the community that became known as the Poor Clares at San Damiano around 1212 and led it for over four decades. Every prior monastic rule recognized by the Church, including the Rule of Saint Benedict itself, had been written by men, even when governing women's communities; Clare's own Rule, which she fought to have formally approved, was the first the Church accepted as authored entirely by a woman, confirmed by Pope Innocent IV just two days before her death in 1253. She was notably insistent on what she called the privilege of poverty — the right of her community to own no property at all, even collectively — resisting pressure from multiple popes who thought this impractical for women's monasteries. Her forty-plus years governing San Damiano, combined with the Rule's approval, makes her one of the clearest documented cases of sustained female authority within medieval monastic structure.

Clare's Rule was approved by papal bull, Solet annuere, on August 9, 1253; she died two days later, on August 11.

Rule of the Poor Clares