century. Their calling in some sense forced them to become colporters of
ideas. What else could they do, on arriving in a country, but answer
those who asked for news? And the news most eagerly looked for was
religious news, for men's minds were turned upon very different subjects
then from now. They accommodated themselves to the popular wish,
observing, hearkening everywhere, keeping eyes and ears open, glad to
find anything to tell; and little by little many of them became active
propagandists of ideas concerning which at first they had been simply
curious.

The importance of the part thus played by the merchants as they came
and went, everywhere sowing the new ideas which they had gathered up in
their travels, has not been put in a clear enough light; they were
often, unconsciously and quite involuntarily, the carriers of ideas of
all kinds, especially of heresy and rebellion. It was they who made the
success of the Waldenses, the Albigenses, the Humiliati, and many other
sects.

Thus Bernardone, without dreaming of such a thing, became the artisan of
his son's religious vocation. The tales which he brought home from his
travels seemed at first, perhaps, not to have aroused the child's
attention, but they were like germs a long time buried, which suddenly,
under a warm ray of sunlight, bring forth unlooked-for fruit.

The boy's education was not carried very far;[9] the school was in
those days overshadowed by the church. The priests of San Giorgio were
his teachers,[10] and taught him a little Latin. This language was
spoken in Umbria until toward the middle of the thirteenth century;
every one understood it and spoke it a little; it was still the language
of sermons and of political deliberations.[11]