ANGELUS CLARENUS

Franciscan author, co-founder of the Clareni; b. Peter, at Fossombrone (Pesaro), March of Ancona, Italy; d. S. Maria d'Aspro, Basilicata, Italy, June 15, 1337. After joining the franciscans at Cingoli, Italy, c. 1270, he became a partisan of the Franciscan spirituals, and after the Council of lyons (1274) was on this account condemned to life imprisonment in 1275. When freed c. 1289 by the minister general Raymond Gaufridi, he and other Franciscan Spirituals from Ancona went to Lesser Armenia, but the hostility of the Franciscans of the Syrian province forced the group back to Ancona (early 1294), where they were not welcome. Consequently, Friar Peter of Macerata, together with Peter, went to Pope celestine v and obtained permission for their group to leave the Franciscan First Order and become celestines. Peter of Macerata took the name of Liberatus: Peter of Fossombrone, that of Angelus (the Clarenus or Chiarino was added later). boniface viii, however, voided the authorization granted these Franciscan Celestines, or more properly clareni, and they migrated to one of the islands of Achaia, to southern Thessaly, and back to Italy in 1304–05. When Liberatus died, Angelus succeeded him (1307) as head of the group. In 1311 he attempted to obtain papal recognition for the Clareni, but he was received by the pope only in 1317. john xxii acknowledged Angelus's personal innocence, but the Franciscan minister general, michael of cesena, would not tolerate a separate group in the order, and Angelus agreed to receive the habit of the Benedictine Celestines—despite their opposition—under Abbot Bartholomew II of Subiaco. Angelus moved to the lands of Subiaco and devoted himself to his followers. His main writings date from this time. His extremist Apologia reached Friar Alvaro Paez in October 1331 and on November 22, John XXII ordered inquisitorial proceedings against Angelus, but the inquisitor died. In February 1334 came new pontifical orders; Angelus fled to Basilicata where he died. His cause for beatification was studied c. 1808 but rejected. His works included translations from the Greek of the Rule of St. Basil and of the Scala of John Climacus. He wrote an Expositio of the Franciscan Rule c. 1321, Historia septem tribulationum in 1323, and two ascetical treatises. His abundant correspondence, almost entirely unedited, is at Florence (B. N. Magliab. xxxix, 75).

Bibliography: l. von auw, ed., Epistole (Rome 1980). g. l. potestÀ, Angelo Clareno: dai poveri eremiti ai fraticelli (Rome 1990). b. mcginn, "Apocalyptic Traditions and Spiritual Identity in Thirteenth-Century Religious Life," in Spirituality of Western Christendom, II (Kalamazoo, MI 1984), 1–26. l. von auw, Angelo Clareno et les spirituels italiens (Rome 1979). e. r. daniel, "Spirituality and Poverty: Angelo da Clareno and Ubertino da Casale," in Medieval et Humanistica (Denton, TX 1973), 89–98.

[j. campbell]