Art and poetry have done well in inseparably associating St. Dominic and
St. Francis; the glory of the first is only a reflection of that of the
second, and it is in placing them side by side that we succeed best in
understanding the genius of the Poverello. If Francis is the man of
inspiration, Dominic is that of obedience to orders; one may say that
his life was passed on the road to Rome, whither he continually went to
ask for instructions. His legend was therefore very slow to be formed,
although nothing forbade it to blossom freely; but neither the zeal of
Gregory IX. for his memory nor the learning of his disciples were able
to do for the _Hammer of heretics_ that which the love of the people did
for the _Father of the poor_. His legend has the two defects which so
soon weary the readers of hagiographical writings, when the question is
of the saints whose worship the Church has commanded.[1] It is
encumbered with a spurious supernaturalism, and with incidents borrowed
right and left from earlier legends. The Italian people, who hailed in
Francis the angel of all their hopes, and who showed themselves so
greedy for his relics, did not so much as dream of taking up the corpse
of the founder of the Order of Preaching Friars, and allowed him to wait
twelve years for the glories of canonization.[2]

We have already seen the efforts of Cardinal Ugolini to unite the two
Orders, and the reasons he had for this course. He went to the
Whitsunday chapter-general which met at Portiuncula (June 3, 1218), to
which came also St. Dominic with several of his disciples. The
ceremonial of these solemnities appears to have been always about the
same since 1216; the Brothers Minor went in procession to meet the
cardinal, who immediately dismounted from his horse and lavished
expressions of affection upon them. An altar was set up in the open air,
at which he said mass, Francis performing the functions of deacon.[3]