However, papal decrees and anathemas notwithstanding, self-interest might have prevailed over religious fanaticism, and the sovereigns who had hitherto sold their connivance to the Jews might have continued to shield them. In fact, the Duke of Toulouse and the barons, despite the oath which they had been obliged to take, continued to invest the Jews with public dignities, and in Spain the Pope’s commands were strenuously ignored. But there now came into being a power of persecution, even more formidable than Papacy itself. The pan-Catholic enthusiasm, which had inspired Innocent’s anti-Jewish policy was bequeathed to two bodies of apostles, through whose organised zeal it was destined to spread far and wide, and, like a poisonous breath, to blight many a noble flower in the bud. The age of stationary and corpulent monks was succeeded by the age of lean and wandering friars. ♦1223♦ A few years after Innocent’s death were instituted the Order of Dominic and the Order of Francis, the precursors of the stakes and scaffolds of the Inquisition. The latter order had been called into existence with the special object of stamping out the Albigensian heresy. But an essential part of the mission of both bodies was to hunt out dissent, to root out free-thought, and to realise the bigot’s ideal of spiritual peace by means of intellectual starvation. Uniformity was their idol, and to that idol they were prepared to sacrifice the moral sense of mankind and the lives of their fellow-creatures. The Jews supplied them with a splendid field for the exercise of their missionary ardour: numerous, obstinate, rich and unpopular, they offered a prey as tempting as it was safe. The friars were in some ways an undoubted power for good; but the Jews experienced none of this better side of their activity. In 1227 a Council at Narbonne confirmed the canonical ordinances against the Jews, and many ancient decrees of the Merovingian kings were revived. Not only were the Jews forbidden to take interest on money and compelled to wear the badge and to pay taxes to the Church, but they were again prohibited from stirring abroad during Easter. ♦1231♦ Shortly afterwards two other Councils at Rouen and Tours re-enacted and enlarged the anti-Jewish statutes of the Council of Rome.