were to be welcomed back to the fold, that souls were to be won by gentleness and mercy, and commanding them not to insist on trifles. In vain he even conceded to Duran that secular members of his society should not be required to join in war against Christians, or to take oaths in secular matters, in so far as was compatible with justice and with the rights of their suzerains. The passions and the prejudices which he had unchained in Languedoc had grown beyond his control, and the Poor Catholics disappeared in the tumult. After 1212 we hear little more of them. We find Gregory IX., in 1237, ordering the Dominican Provincial of Tarragona to reform them and let them select one of the approved Rules under which to live. A mandate of Innocent IV., in 1247, to the Archbishop of Narbonne and Bishop of Elne to restrain them from preaching shows that when they attempted to perform the function for which the order had been established they were promptly silenced. It was left to other hands to develop the enormous possibilities of the scheme which Duran had devised.[1]
Far different were the results achieved by Domingo de Guzman, whom the Latin Church reverences as the greatest and most successful of its champions.
" Delia fede Christiana santo atleta,
Benigno a' suoi, et a' nemici crudo —
— E negli sterpi eretici percosse
L'impeto suo piii vivamente quivi
Dove le resistenze eran piu grosse."
Born at Calaruega, in Old Castile, in 1170, of a stock which his brethren love to connect with the royal house, his saintliness was so penetrating that it reflected back upon his mother, who is reverenced as St. Juana de Aga, and at one time there was danger that even his father might be drawn into the saintly circle. Both parents were buried in the convent of San Pedro de Gumiel, until, about 1320, the Infante Juan Manuel of Castile obtained the body of Juana to enrich the Dominican convent of San Pablo de Penafiel which he had founded ; when Fray Geronymo Orozco, the Abbot of Gumiel, prudently transferred the remains of Don Felix de
- ↑ Innocent. PP. III. Regest. xi. 98 ; xii. 67, 69 ; xm. 63, 78, 94 ; xv. 90, 91, 92, 93, 96, 137, 146.— Ripoll. Bull. Ord. FF. Praedic. I. 96.— Berger, Registres d'Innoc. IV. No. 2752.
