future Gregory IX., he at this epoch confided the
most delicate missions (for example, in 1209, they were named
legates to Otho IV.). This embassy shows in what importance the
pope held the affairs of Assisi, though it was a very small
city.

[33] Not once do we find him fighting heretics. The early
Dominicans, on the contrary, are incessantly occupied with
arguing. See 2 Cel., 3, 46.

[34] It need not be said that I do not assert that no trace of
it is to be found after the ministry of St. Francis, but it was
no longer a force, and no longer endangered the very existence
of the Church.

[35] This strange personality will charm historians and
philosophers for a long while to come. I know nothing more
learned or more luminous than M. Felice Tocco's fine study in
his _Eresia nel medio evo_, Florence, 1884, 1 vol., 12mo, pp.
261-409.

[36] A. SS., Sept., t. vii., p. 283 ff.

[37] A. SS., Maii, vii.; Vincent de Beauvais, _Speculum
historiale_, _lib._ 29, _cap._ 40. La Sila is a wooded mountain,
situated eastward from Cosenza, which the peasants call _Monte
Nero_. The summits are nearly 2,000 metres above the sea.

[38] Toward 1195. Gioacchino died there, March 30, 1202.

[39] A whole apochryphal literature has blossomed out around
Gioacchino; certain hypercritics have tried to prove that he
never wrote anything. These are exaggerations. Three large works
are certainly authentic: _The Agreement of the Old and New
Testaments_, _The Commentary on the Apocalypse_, and _The
Psaltery of Ten Strings_, published in Venice, the first in
1517, the two others in 1527. His prophecies were so well known,
even in his lifetime, that an English Cistercian, Rudolph, Abbot
of Coggeshall ([Cross] 1228), coming to Rome in 1195, sought a
conference with him and has left us an interesting account of
it. Martene, _Amplissima Collectio_, t. v., p. 839.

[40] _Comm. in apoc._, folio 78, b. 2.

[41] _Qui vere monachus est nihil reputat esse suum nisi
citharam:_ Apoc., ib., folio 183. a. 2.

[42] E. Roth, _Die Visionen der heiligen Elisabeth von Schoenau_:
Bruenn, 1884, pp. 115-117.

* * * * *

CHAPTER IV

STRUGGLES AND TRIUMPH

Spring of 1206-February 24, 1209

The biographies o