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Clement of Osimo - 01

St Augustine : Clement of Osimo O.S.A., the third Prior General
Clement of Osimo O.S.A.,
the third Prior General

Clement (c. 1235 - 1291), is called Osimo, after his place of birth in Italy, or else called Clement of Sant' Elpidio, after the place where he joined the Order of St Augustine.
 
He was in charge of the Augustinian Province of the Marches of Ancona in 1269.
 
It is likely that he already belonged to the Congregation of Hermits of Brettino when this group joined with several others to form the Augustinian Order at the Grand Union in 1256.
 
This was the geographical region of the Augustinian Order which produced Saint Nicholas of Tolentino.
 
On Pentecost Sunday 1271, Clement was elected the third Prior_General of the Order of Sant Augustine.
 
During his term of office he visited many houses of the Augustinian Order, not only in Italy but also in France.
 
He participated in the Second Council of Lyons in 1274, which gave the Order a fear of suppression in the following decades.  At the general chapter held that same year he resigned from office.
 
In 1284, however, he was once again elected Prior_General and continued as such until his death in 1291. This is the only case in medieval Augustinian history of anyone's being re-elected as Prior General of the Order after spending an inverval out of office.
 
It was at the chapter of 1284 that Clement was given the task of overseeing a revision of the Augustinian Order's Constitutions, or book of laws.
 
In this task he relied on the assistance of Blessed Augustine of Tarano O.S.A., with whom his name has been associated ever since.
 
The results of their combined efforts were the Constitutions of Ratisbon, (a town now called Regensburg, Germany) which guided the Augustinian Order in its legislation until the Council of Trent in 1545-1563.
 
Clement was a great promoter of studies in the Augustinian Order, and did much to foster a spirit of unity and universality among the still newly united congregations.
 
He paid attention to the studium generale (international house for Augustinians taking higher studies) in Paris, having to establish rules for admission in response to an excess in the number of applications that could then be accepted. 
 
To alleviate this lack of Augustinian space in Paris, he purchased the second site of the three locations that the studium generale occupied in its five centuries of existence. This site was inside the walls near the monastery of Saint Victor.
 
He also was Prior General who was in office when in 1272 land was donated for the first community of Augustinians at San Gimignano, a site at Racciano about five kilometres away from their second site atop the old city walls, where Augustinians still live.
 
Clement wrote to the Tuscan benefactor a letter of thanks, which still exists.
 
He was described thus by Henry of Friemar, a contemporary Augustinian who knew Clement personally: "[Clement was] a man of admirable clemency, piety, prudence, and holiness of life through whom God worked many miracles in the chapter of Ratisbon, at which I was present." 
 
He was noted for his moderate style of exercising authority.
 
The author known simply as the Anonymous Augustinian (who was probably the Augustinian Prior of Santo Spirito in Florence about the year 1336) claimed that Clement undertook his travels by foot.
 
This meant that he walked from Rome to Lyons and back in 1274, and from Rome to Ratisbon (Regensberg, Germany) and back in 1290.
 
On both occasions en route, he would have visited numerous Augustinian houses. When also including shorter visits he undoubtedly made to Augustinian communities in many parts of Italy, it is possible to state that Clement travelled more than any of the other Augustinian Priors General in the Order's first hundred years.
 
Clement died at Orvieto on 8th April 1291. The fame of his sanctity and the extraordinary numbers of people who came to pay their respects caused Pope Nicholas IV to order that his funeral be delayed for several weeks so that people could come and pay their final respects.
 
(Continued on the next page.)
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