At the advanced age of thirty-seven, he intended to pursue a degree at the university. Iñigo enrolled in the Collège de Montaigu, where he remained for a year before transferring to the Collège Sainte-Barbe. At Sainte-Barbe he shared lodgings with two much younger students, Pierre Favre and Francisco Xavier. Friendships formed among them and then expanded to include four more students—Diego Laínez, Alfonso Salmerón, Nicolás Bobadilla, and Simão Rodrigues. At this time Iñigo began to refer to himself as Ignacio or Ignatius, the name by which he has been known ever since. Inspired by Ignatius, these “friends in the Lord,” as they described themselves, vowed in the summer of 1534 to travel together to the Holy Land to live at least for a while where Jesus lived and to work for “the good of souls.” However, if because of the disturbed political situation in the Mediterranean they could not get passage, they would offer themselves to the pope for whatever ministries he thought best.
