Klöster im Hochmittelalter

Catherine of Siena as a Creative
Impulse for the German Dominican
Observance. The Vita, the Third
Order, and the Liturgy
Claire Taylor Jones

Catherine of Siena (1347-1380) is credited as the impetus for several changes and
innovations that had wide-ranging effects during the fifteenth century. During
her lifetime, she advocated for reform of the church and for the return of the
papacy to Rome, an event that resulted in the Great Western Schism.1 She be-
came the figurehead for the development and legitimation of the Dominican
Third Order, which introduced a greater level of formality and regulation to the
state of semi-religious in the world.2 Finally, she inspired the Observant reform
movement within the Dominican order.3 The historical Catherine of Siena pos-
sessed a personal magnetism that allowed her to promote her political and re-
formist goals through the force of her charisma and persuasiveness.

1 Blake Beattie, Catherine of Siena and the Papacy, in: A Companion to Catherine of Siena,
ed. by Carolyn MUESSIG/George FERZOCO/Beverly Mayne Kienzle (Brill's Companions
to the Christian Tradition 32), Leiden 2012, pp. 73-98.

2 See below and also, for example, the texts gathered in: Dominican Penitent Women, ed. by
Maiju LEHMIJOKI-GARDNER/Daniel Ethan Bornstein/E. Ann Matter, Mahwah 2005.
On the cycles of regularization, see Alison More, Dynamics of Regulation, Innovation, and
Invention, in: A Companion to Observant Reform in the Late Middle Ages and Beyond, ed.
by James D. MixsoN/Bert Roest (Brill's Companions to the Christian Tradition 59), Leiden
2015, pp. 85-110; Sylvie Duval, Comme des anges sur terre. Les moniales dominicaines et les
debuts de la reforme observante, 1385-1461 (Bibliotheque des Ecoles frangaises d'Athenes et
de Rome 366), Rome 2015, pp. 123-134.

3 Several of Catherine's followers would later become leading figures of the Italian Dominican
Observance in their own right: her confessor Raymond of Capua introduced the reform to the
order during his time as Master General, Chiara Gambacorta founded the first Observant Do-
minican convent in Pisa, and Giovanni Dominici and Tommaso Caffarini promoted and led the
Observance in Venice. See Duval, Comme des anges (as in note 2), pp. 144-159; Andre Vau-
chez, Catherine of Siena. A Life of Passion and Purpose, trans, by Michael F. Cusato, Mahwah
2018, pp. 142-153; Sabine von Heusinger, Catherine of Siena and the Dominican Order, in:
Siena e il suo Territorio nel Rinascimento, vol. 3, ed. by Mario Ascheri, Siena 2000, pp. 43-51.