Legenda Trium Sociorum

The Legend of the Three Companions is among the most precious and most debated of the early sources. In the Letter of Greccio of 1246 that introduces it, it presents itself as the work of Leo, Rufino, and Angelo — three of the friars who had lived longest at Francis's side — sent to the minister general in answer to the very appeal for recollections that gave rise to Celano's Memoriale.

The attribution is disputed. What is certain, however, is that the text offers an account of the Saint's life more intimate in tone, more restrained, and more biographical than the other early sources. It is especially rich in its telling of Francis's youth and conversion, which here is recounted in tones markedly different from Celano's first work.

The Francis of the Three Companions is a young man of good disposition, and though he appears prodigal and fond of revelry and the life of the world, he is not portrayed as dissolute. While the text confirms the persecution by his father Bernardone, Francis's family and the people of Assisi are shown in a far warmer and more human light than in the Vita prima — a sign of an intimacy that passes beyond the limits of these accounts, almost always polarized, to touch lived human experience.

If we accept the traditional attribution, the text of the Three Companions thus stands as a close and authentic testimony from those who spent years of daily life side by side with one of the greatest saints in history.