His legend was therefore very slow to be formed, although nothing forbade it to blossom freely; but neither the zeal of Gregory IX.

for his memory nor the learning of his disciples were able to do for the _Hammer of heretics_ that which the love of the people did for the _Father of the poor_.

His legend has the two defects which so soon weary the readers of hagiographical writings, when the question is of the saints whose worship the Church has commanded.[1] It is encumbered with a spurious supernaturalism, and with incidents borrowed right and left from earlier legends.

The Italian people, who hailed in Francis the angel of all their hopes, and who showed themselves so greedy for his relics, did not so much as dream of taking up the corpse of the founder of the Order of Preaching Friars, and allowed him to wait twelve years for the glories of canonization.[2] We have already seen the efforts of Cardinal Ugolini to unite the two Orders, and the reasons he had for this course.

He went to the Whitsunday chapter-general which met at Portiuncula (June 3, 1218), to which came also St.Dominic with several of his disciples.