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After successfully accomplishing their mission in the north, Diego and Dominic returned home. But almost immediately they were sent off again, with a larger retinue, to fetch the princess to consummate the marriage.

It seems that the princess had changed her mind in the meantime and become a nun, posing tricky problems of law and tact for the archbishop of Lund, who refused to make any decision without consulting the Pope. It is quite likely that Diego himself was asked to take the bishop’s letter to the Pope about the whole affair. 

In any case, instead of returning immediately to Osma, Diego and his companions set off for Rome, and there Diego asked to be allowed to resign his see, so that he could go and preach to the pagans. Presumably Dominic was included in his plans. It is probable that they had become interested in a missionary venture along the Baltic coast that was being planned by the Danish archbishop, and wanted to join it. To the end of his life, Dominic remained haunted by the desire to become a missionary in pagan lands, and, though he never realized this dream himself, he had sent some of his followers to the pagans before he died. 

The Pope refused Diego’s request and told him to return to his diocese. And this Diego did, but not without a major adventure on the way. While he and his party were passing through France, they met the three Cistercians who had been appointed by the Pope to combat heresy in the south of France. These unfortunate monks had met with nothing but failure, and they were wondering whether they should not abandon their mission altogether, or at least abandon their preaching to concentrate on trying to reform the clergy, whose bad example was one of the major assets of the heretics. While they were gloomily debating like this at Montpellier, in late March or early April 1205, Diego arrived, and they asked his advice. 

To their amazement, Diego (who had perhaps already discussed the situation with the Pope) proposed that, far from abandoning their preaching, they should concentrate on it exclusively. And, to combat the propaganda of the heretics, they should reform, not the clergy, but themselves. They should adopt a style of life in exact imitation of the apostles which would, of course, mean also adopting a style of life in imitation of the heretics. Diego realized at once the immense advantage that the heretical preachers had, simply by virtue of their austere, evangelical appearance. The best way to resist them would be by showing that the Catholics could be just as austere and evangelical as the heretics. They too could travel about on foot, in poverty and humility, begging their bread from door to door, spreading the true gospel of Jesus Christ. Why not?

There were, of course, plenty of reasons why not, in the eyes of the three Cistercians. It was, for one thing, considered most improper for senior churchmen to beg. It was also considered most improper for Cistercians to beg --only the very next year a Swiss monastery was threatened with closure if it monks could not support themselves without begging. And the whole enterprise of itinerant, mendicant preaching smacked of heresy in the eyes of many Church leaders. Still, the three papal envoys agreed that they would give the new method a try, provided that someone respectable gave them a lead. 

Diego accepted the challenge without hesitation. He sent his retinue home, keeping only Dominic with him, and set off to preach, not only on foot, but bare-footed, walking round the district proclaiming the gospel.

Diego probably did not remain there very long; he was certainly back in his diocese by the end of April. But his bold gesture had its effect. A new style of Catholic preaching had been launched, with Dominic playing an increasingly prominent part in it, and later Dominican writers were surely not wrong to see this as one important beginning of the Order. 

Various preachers came and went, but Dominic persevered through ten long years, preaching up and down what is now called Languedoc. There were some spectacular successes, and many less spectacular. The Catholic preachers organized several public disputations with the heretics, and after one of these we are told that 150 people returned to the Church. One participant commented afterward that he had never imagined that the Catholics had such strong arguments in support of their position, which shows how ignorant people were of Catholic doctrine. We also know of several individual conversions which occurred as a result of the preaching during this period, and there were probably many more which have left no mark on history.

But the preaching was not allowed to develop in peace for very long. At the end of 1207 Diego died, and less than a month later, one of the papal envoys was assassinated by the heretics. It was suspected that the Count of Toulouse was implicated in the crime. 

The death of Diego meant that Dominic came to be effectively the leader of the preaching mission, and he became the official custodian of a community which Diego had established at Prouille, not far from Carcassonne, for women converted from heresy. This community evolved later into a convent of Dominican nuns. 

The consequences of the assassination of the papal legate were far more drastic. Pope Innocent III decided that the time had come to resort to more forceful methods to restore order and orthodoxy in the region. He appealed to the King of France, who, ultimately, had authority over most of the district, and called for a crusade. And so, the following year, began the long and ugly war which achieved little except bloodshed and resentment, and petered out after the death of Simon de Montfort, the head of the crusading army (he was the father of the Simon de Montfort famous in English history), leaving a long job of political and religious pacification. 

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