First Life of Saint Francis

Thomas of Celano joined the Friars Minor in Francis’s lifetime. He says in his preface that he writes at the bidding of Pope Gregory and sets down what he heard from Francis’s own mouth or learned from trustworthy witnesses. His translator dates the work between the canonization of Francis on 16 July 1228 and February 1229.

It is the work of a disciple, composed for a new saint’s cult and in the manner of a saint’s life: it tells of visions and miracles, counts years from Francis’s “conversion” and gives almost no calendar dates before the last two years. Its closeness to the events is its strength. For the journey to Rome, the first brothers, the stigmata and the death it is the earliest narrative there is, written while many who had known Francis were alive.