. Theresa Pfaender was born on this day in 1827. She became a religious Sister, taking the name of “Clara,” after St. Clare of Assisi. She founded the Franciscan Sisters of Salzkotten. December 6, 1194 – Birth of Emperor Frederick II, which occurred in Assisi as his mother was travelling and she realized that the baby was coming sooner than expected. His mother, Costanza, had been compelled to leave her monastery and to marry the Duke of Swabia, who later became the Emperor Henry VI. This political marriage finally produced a son nine years later, when Costanza was already in her forties. St. Francis would have been thirteen years old at the time and witnessed the festivities of the event. (Frederick’s grandfather had made Assisi an unwilling vassal of the Emperor, and would culminate in the Assisi Civil War in about 1207. Francis fought on the side against the Emperor.) Frederick was baptized in the same font as St. Francis and St. Clare, as all children born in Assisi are baptized in the font of the Cathedral of San Rufino. Clare, herself, had only been born a few months before. It was Saracen soldiers under orders from Frederick II who assaulted the monastery of San Damiano where St. Clare lived, and who fell back under the force of her prayers. Both Clare’s and Francis’ lives were intertwined with that of Frederick