ure for election to
bishoprics and royal abbeys, generally considered to state the terms of
the settlement made between Henry I. and Anselm in 1107.

AUTHORITIES.--J.C. Robertson, _Materials for History of Thomas
Becket_, Rolls Series (1875-1885); Sir F. Pollock and F.W. Maitland,
_History of English Law before the Time of Ed. I._ (Cambridge, 1898),
and F.W. Maitland, _Roman Canon Law in the Church of England_ (1898);
the text of the Constitutions is printed by W. Stubbs in _Select
Charters_ (Oxford, 1895). (G.J.T.)

CLARES, POOR, otherwise _Clarisses_, Franciscan nuns, so called from
their foundress, St Clara (q.v.). She was professed by St Francis in the
Portiuncula in 1212, and two years later she and her first companions
were established in the convent of St Damian's at Assisi. The nuns
formed the "Second Order of St Francis," the friars being the "First
Order," and the Tertiaries (q.v.) the "Third." Before Clara's death in
1253, the Second Order had spread all over Italy and into Spain, France
and Germany; in England they were introduced c. 1293 and established in
London, outside Aldgate, where their name of Minoresses survives in the
Minories; there were only two other English houses before the
Dissolution. St Francis gave the nuns no rule, but only a "Form of Life"
and a "Last Will," each only five lines long, and coming to no more than
an inculcation of his idea of evangelical poverty. Something more than
this became necessary as soon as the institute began to spread; and
during Francis's absence in the East, 1219, his supporter Cardinal
Hugolino composed a rule which made the Franciscan nuns practically a
species of unduly strict Benedictines, St Francis's special
characteristics being eliminated. St Clara made it her life work to have
this rule altered, and to get the Franciscan character of the Second
Order restored; in 1247 a "Second Rule" was approved which went a long
way towards satisfying her desires, and finally in 1253 a "Third,"
which practically gave what she wanted. This rule has come to be known
as the "Rule of the Clares"; it is one of great poverty, seclusion and
austerity of life. Most of the convents adopted it, but several clung to
that of 1247. To bring about conformity, St Bonaventura, while general
(1264), obtained papal permission to modify the rule of 1253, somewhat
mitigating its austerities and allowing the convents to have fixed
incomes,--thus assimilating them to th