In habits, tastes, demeanor, and personal appearance a marked contrast existed between the two most famous prelates of the fifteenth century. Mendoza was epicurean, Ximenes ascetic. The table of the Great Cardinal was furnished with every luxury. His garments were of the finest quality, as befitted his rank. Jewels sparkled upon his fingers. His cleanliness excited the wonder and often the disapprobation of the pious, as savoring of heresy. None but youths of distinguished birth were admitted to his household. His morals partook of the laxity of the time. The ladies honored with his attentions were members of the aristocracy, daughters of noble houses, maids of honor to the Queen. His three sons were legitimatized by Pope Innocent VIII. in 1486 and by Isabella in 1487. Through their matrimonial connections, the blood of this famous ecclesiastical grandee has been mingled with that of many of the proudest families of Castile. While the promotion of Mendoza to the highest offices of Church and State was due partly to his illustrious ancestry and partly to his eminent talents, that of Ximenes was derived entirely from his reputation for piety and wisdom. Honors were literally thrust upon him. With real or affected humility, he attempted to evade the search and disobey the commands of those who wished to raise him to absolute power. He loudly protested his unworthiness. He declared his preference for the duties and the seclusion of a private station. Even while at the height of his greatness, he never abandoned the habits of the monastery. He carried into the splendid archiepiscopal see of Toledo, the highest post in the ecclesiastical system of Europe, the practices of the penitent and the anchorite. Under his cardinal’s robes of scarlet and gold he wore constantly the cowl and knotted girdle of the Franciscan friars. A haircloth shirt, which was never changed, irritated his flesh. His diet was frugal to excess. “He only ate enough,” says his biographer, “to sustain the little life that penance had left him.” His food consisted principally of herbs, his only drink was water. His virtue was impregnable,--even St. Anthony himself might have envied him his constancy under temptation. To him was never imputed the reproach of frequent ablution, the stigma of the Moslem heretic. The constant use of a haircloth undergarment, while not conducive to personal purity, is readily productive of those physical conditions which, in the Middle Ages, were almost infallible signs of a good Christian.