JACOBUS JANUENSIS, also known as Jacobus de Voragine, was born c. 1128 or 1230 in Varaggio, not far from Genoa. He entered the Order of Preachers in 1244 and became Father Provincial of Lombardy in 1267. In 1288 he was elected archbishop of Genoa, but he refused the office. Again in 1292 he was elected, and this time he consented to take office. He died in 1298 and was buried in Genoa. He called his collection of saints' lives Legenda sanctorum, but by Caxton's time the title had become Legenda aurea (The Golden Legend). The stories tell of saints who have died heroic deaths. Caxton translated and printed the collection in 1483.

Chaucer gives the etymologies of St. Cecilia's name from Jacobus Januensis, Legenda, SNT 85-112, taken from Legenda aurea CLXIX. G.H. Gerould suggests that the differences between Chaucer's version and that of de Voragine may indicate that Chaucer had a fuller version or a different version of the saint's life. Chaucer may also have used the Passio S. Caeciliae, which exists in several texts. [Cecile]