In this, as in so much else, any one seemed able to get from the Holy See whatever he wanted and Paul reversed himself, in 1538, when the convent of San Pablo of Córdova represented that, in most of the colleges of the Order, descendants of Conversos were not received or, if admitted in error, were ejected, and it desired the same concession to its college, as necessary for its preservation and the peace of the house. Paul promptly acceded to this request and ordered the inquisitors and the dean of Córdova to defend the convent in these privileges, even to calling in the aid of the secular arm.[842] This was followed by a more general measure, in 1542, when, by command of Paul, Cardinal Juan de Toledo, Bishop of Burgos, prohibited the Dominicans of Aragon from receiving into the Order descendants of Jews or of convicts of the Inquisition to the fourth generation. It is not likely that this was confined to Aragon and, in the next year, we find the Suprema addressing the provincial and the definitors urging that no Conversos be allowed to enter.[843] Charles V was as inconsistent as Paul III. In 1537 he issued a decree reciting that as, in some colleges of the universities, admittance was refused to New Christians he ordered that the constitutions of the founders be observed.[844] Yet when the chapter of Córdova, in 1530, adopted a statute of limpieza applicable to all the ministrants of the cathedral, and was unable to obtain papal confirmation, he ordered its observance and contributed by his influence to induce Paul IV, in 1555, to confirm it.[845] The movement was one which was constantly gaining momentum. In 1548, Archbishop Siliceo of Toledo enumerates, among the bodies refusing admission to all except Old Christians, the three great military Orders of Santiago, Calatrava and Alcántara, membership in which was the object of ambition to almost every Spanish layman of gentle birth. In all the Spanish colleges, including that of Bologna founded by Cardinal Albornoz, none but Old Christians were received and from these colleges were drawn the members of councils and chancelleries and other judicial officials. It was the same with the Minims, by express statute of the founder St. Francis de Paula, and in other Orders and monasteries of both men and women. Cathedral chapters were beginning to adopt it, such as those of Córdova and Jaen; numerous confraternities were based upon it, and many _mayorazgos_, or entailed estates were conditioned on it.[846] Thus the mania for absolute purity of blood was spreading irresistibly and, while it would be impossible now to enumerate accurately the bodies which made it a condition precedent of membership, it is safe to say that the avenues of distinction, and even of livelihood, in public life and in the Church, were rapidly closing to all who bore the fatal _mancha_ or stain. In time even admission to holy orders required proof of limpieza.[847] [Sidenote: _SILICEO'S TOLEDO STATUTE_]