Francis's First Biographer

Thomas of Celano is thought to have joined the Franciscan order not long after its founding, becoming one of Francis of Assisi's own companions during the saint's lifetime, though the details of his early life before joining the order are not well documented. His significance rests chiefly on what came after Francis's death in 1226: when Pope Gregory IX canonized Francis in 1228, he commissioned Thomas to write an official life, the Vita Prima Sancti Francisci, completed the same year, which became the foundational account of the saint's life for the wider church.

As the Franciscan order grew and its own internal understanding of Francis's legacy shifted and sometimes became contested in the following decades, Thomas was asked to produce a second, considerably expanded biography, the Vita Secunda, completed around 1247, drawing on testimony from companions who had known Francis personally and adding material the first life had not included. He also wrote a further short work on Francis's miracles. Together these texts, alongside other early Franciscan sources, form the core documentary basis on which nearly all later scholarship on Francis of Assisi depends, and Thomas of Celano's standing in Franciscan history rests securely on that achievement regardless of what is or is not settled about his authorship of other works later attributed to him.