ABSTRACT
In 1244 the friars assembled in General Chapter issued an appeal for material for a new Life of St Francis, to supplement Thomas of Celano’s Vita Prima. In 1246 three of Francis’s closest companions, Leo, Rufino and Angelo, delivered the material they had collected from their own memories and from other companions of the saint; and this formed the nucleus for the Vita Secunda of Celano, completed the next year. Not all scholars are agreed that these stories survive in approximately their original form; but this is the general view and I have defended it at length in the introduction to my edition (SL).
