uccessively the title and power of legates; and they went
preaching throughout the whole country, communicating with the princes
and laic lords, whom they requested to drive away the heretics from their
domains, and holding with the heretics themselves conferences which
frequently drew a numerous attendance. A knight "full of sagacity,"
according to a contemporary chronicler, "Pons d'Adhemar, of Rodelle, said
one day to Foulques, Bishop of Toulouse, one of the most zealous of the
pope's delegates, 'We could not have believed that Rome had so many
powerful arguments against these folk here.' 'See you not,' said the
bishop, 'how little force there is in their objections?' 'Certainly,'
answered the knight. 'Why, then, do you not expel them from your lands?'
'We cannot,' answered Pons; 'we have been brought up with them; we have
amongst them folk near and dear to us, and we see them living honestly.'"
Some of the legates, wearied at the little effect of their preaching,
showed an inclination to give up their mission. Peter de Castelnau
himself, the most zealous of all, and destined before long to pay for his
zeal with his life, wrote to the pope to beg for permission to return to
his monastery. Two Spanish priests, Diego Azebes, Bishop of Osma, and
his sub-prior Dominic, falling in with the Roman legates at Montpellier,
heard them express their disgust. "Give up," said they to the legates,
"your retinue, your horses, and your goings in state; proceed in all
humility, afoot and barefoot, without gold or silver, living and teaching
after the example of the Divine Master." "We dare not take on ourselves
such things," answered the pope's agents; "they would seem sort of
innovation; but if some person of sufficient authority consent to precede
us in such guise, we would follow him readily." The Bishop of Osma sent
away his retinue to Spain, and kept with him only his companion Dominic;
and they, taking with them two of the monks of Citeaux, Peter de
Castelnau and Raoul,--the most fervent of the delegates from Rome,--began
that course of austerity and of preaching amongst the people which was
ultimately to make of the sub-prior Dominic a saint and the founder of a
great religious order, to which has often, but wrongly, been attributed
the origin, though it certainly became the principal agent, of the
Inquisition. Whilst joining in humble and pious energy with the two
Spanish priests, the two monks of Citeaux, and Peter de