This newcomer was a Spaniard, Diego (or Didacus), Bishop of Osma in the Upper Douro valley in Castille. He had been much employed in diplomatic business by his king, and was now returning from Rome whither he had been refused permission from the Pope to go as a missionary to the savage heathen Tartars of the Ukraine steppes. At the head of Bishop Diego’s suite was his sub-prior, Domingo de Guzman, later to be known as St. Dominic, the founder of the Order of Preachers which bears his name, then a young man in the middle thirties, slender, fair-haired, dressed in the white habit and surplice worn by Augustinian canons regular. He was a gentleman born and bred who had taken his university course at Palencia, had been made canon and then sub-prior at Osma, and was Bishop Diego’s constant companion. Three years before, while accompanying his patron on one of the latter’s diplomatic trips, he had passed through Toulouse. Being lodged in the house of a heretic, he had sat up all night with the man, until by dint of prayer, exhortation, and argument he persuaded him to turn from the error of his ways. Now he was admitted, with Diego, into the council chamber of the legates. No one else who comes directly into our story has set in motion such a force as did St. Dominic. He and St. Francis more than any men since the conversion of the Roman Empire, were to give to the Catholic Church new power over men’s thoughts and affections. Perhaps he would loom larger in our sight were he not so often considered together with St. Francis. It is true that his personality has not the same extraordinary poetry, simplicity and charm as that of the “Poverello” of Assisi. But in his consuming zeal for the faith he was Francis’s equal, while in organizing ability and statesmanlike adaptation of means to ends, he was by far Francis’s superior. He was an extraordinary man. For the time being, he was merely the chief of Bishop Diego’s suite, and there is no evidence that he even spoke in the council. It was Diego who advised the legates to put all their energy into preaching, and (that their pomp and retinue might no longer be contrasted with the simplicity and self-denying asceticism of the heretical chiefs) he further suggested that the legates rid themselves of guards, servants, horses, and even of shoes and sandals. They were to go forth barefoot, in perfect apostolic poverty, having neither purse nor scrip like the original twelve. Luchaire thinks[30] it improbable that a mere passing bishop, on his own responsibility, would have presumed to urge upon men in the official position of the legates so startling a departure; and that, had he done so, his counsel would almost certainly not have been accepted. He therefore infers that Diego was acting under orders from Innocent. As there is no mention in any of the chroniclers of direction from Innocent at this time, the idea remains mere inference, although probable enough.