withstanding that she was assoiled of the pope of the vow of poverty, and thereupon had received letters of the pope, much suddenly weeping, she wrote again saying: 'I will well be assoiled of my sins, but the vow of poverty I shall keep unto the death.' The eighth, how in necessity Jesu Christ visited her; it is read that, on a time that at the hour of dinner in the college of S. Clare was but one loaf of bread, ne there might no more be had. Then S. Clare took this loaf of the hand of the dispenser, and made then her prayer, and after, of that loaf made as many loaves and parts as there were sisters. And as soon as every each had received her part, how well it was but little, the divine grace multiplied it so much that every each left some and had enough. Ninthly, how in straitness S. Clare was ruled; this holy lady was content with one poor coat lined with a mantlet; she used never pendants ne furs of skins. Thrice in the week she fasted in this manner that she never tasted thing that was sodden. Item, every year she fasted two Lentens to bread and water only, save the Sunday she took a little wine. And shortly, she lived so straitly that she became so feeble that S. Francis commanded her by virtue of obedience that she should fail no day but that she should take for her refection an ounce and a half of bread. She was never without hair next her flesh, and for a pillow, she took a block or a great stone; she lay always on the bare ground, or for to take the better her rest she lay otherwhile upon the cuttings of vines, unto the time that S. Francis had commanded her, because that it
