Cæsar of Speyer offers a brilliant example of those suffering souls
athirst for the ideal, so numerous in the thirteenth century, who
everywhere went up and down, seeking first in learning, then in the
religious life, that which should assuage the mysterious thirst which
tortured them. Disciple of the scholastic Conrad, he had felt himself
overpowered with the desire to reform the Church; while still a layman
he had preached his ideas, not without some success, since a certain
number of ladies of Speyer had begun to lead a new life; but their
husbands disapproving, he was obliged to escape their vengeance by
taking refuge at Paris, and thence he went to the East, where in the
preaching of the Brothers Minor he found again his hopes and his dreams.
This instance shows how general was the waiting condition of souls when
the Franciscan gospel blazed forth, and how its way had been everywhere
prepared.

But it is time to return to the chapter of 1217: the friars who went to
Germany under conduct of Giovanni di Penna were far from having the
success of Elias and his companions; they were completely ignorant of
the language of the country which they had undertaken to evangelize.
Perhaps Francis had not taken into account the fact that though Italian
might, in case of need, suffice in all the countries bathed by the
Mediterranean, this could not be the case in Central Europe.[16]

The lot of the party going to Hungary was not more happy. Very often it
came to pass that the missionaries were fain to give up their very
garments in the effort to appease the peasants and shepherds who
maltreated them. But no less incapable of understanding what was said to
them than of making themselves understood, they were soon obliged to
think of returning to Italy. We may thank the Franciscan authors for
preserving for us the memory of these checks, and not attempting to