New Light on the 1230s: History, Hagiography, and Thomas of Celano’s The Life of Our Blessed Father Francis

Abstract

Jacques Dalarun’s “re-discovery” of The Life of Our Blessed Father Francis (or Vita brevior, Shorter Life) by Thomas of Celano is about as exciting a find as the field of medieval history is ever likely to provide. As André Vauchez remarked in Le Monde in January 2015, “There hasn’t been a discovery of this importance in half a century.” And indeed, there may never have been a major manuscript discovery for which the new text was made available in an impeccable Latin edition so quickly, translated into French and published in book-form almost before the initial announcement of the discovery had sunk in, and then translated into practically all the major European languages within the next year and a half, including now Timothy Johnson’s wonderful new rendering into English. Not only the discovery itself, but the way it has been published and publicized is unprecedented. Moreover, we are talking about the recovery of not only a text but a whole new manuscript, which is now BnF nouv. ac. lat. 3245. Again, the speed with which this new manuscript has generously been made available to the public (through Gallica.bnf.fr) in the form of very high quality digital images has been extraordinary. The team led by Jacques Dalarun (with Isabelle le Masne de Chermont, Dominique Poirel, Nicole Bériou and others) which is studying the rest of the manuscript will evidently have further discoveries to announce in the near future. In the meantime, because of the rapid and excellent digitization of the manuscript, any competent scholar can jump right in, right now, and examine it in detail for him or herself. In other words, the field has been thrown wide open for all kinds of new research. Following Jacques Dalarun’s presentation of the manuscript, which has given us a tantalizing glimpse of its other potential treasures, I will turn to the newly rediscovered Vita brevior itself. After a few words about chronology and audience, my intention is simply to suggest several of the most readily apparent lines of new research it opens up. In terms of chronology, this newly discovered life obviously falls between Thomas of Celano’s First Life (Vita prima) of Francis, finished