Dominic

Dominic, founder of the Order of Preachers or Black Friars, (c.1170–1221). Recent research, mainly by Czech and English Dominicans, has considerably modified traditional accounts of this saint.

Dominic was born at Caleruega (Castile), not far from the abbey of St. Dominic of Silos, after whom he was named. The youngest of four children of the devout warden of the town, he became an Austin Canon of Osma cathedral, conspicuous for zeal for study as well as helping the poor. The two interests had come into conflict during a famine, when Dominic had sold his books to help the needy and the dying. Devoted to the common life and monastic observance, Dominic was appointed sacristan in 1199 and subprior in 1201. In the same year a new bishop, Diego, was appointed, who took Dominic with him on a mission to Denmark to negotiate a marriage for the king's son. In the course of this journey Dominic saw the disastrous results of invasions by Cumans in Germany and became aware of the difficulties of the young churches in Scandinavia, both of whom were helped substantially by Dominicans before and after Dominic's death. The actual negotiations proved unsuccessful as the intended bride became a nun, but in passing Dominic stayed in a Cathar's house in Toulouse: he stayed up all night and converted him.

This is the traditional account of his first contact with Cathars, the cause of whose conversion was to occupy him over the next ten years. The strict Cathars were Christian only in name: they were dualists, believing in co-equal powers of good and evil; they regarded Christ as a teacher, not a redemptive Saviour; they rejected the Church and the sacraments, but had their own episcopal organization. Their one sacrament was the consolamentum, received by the ‘perfect’ inner circle at a normal adult age, but by most followers only just before death. Their austerity, commitment, and organization put to shame the ill-educated and relaxed local clergy. Another important element in their set-up was the role of aristocratic women found among the ‘perfect’, sometimes established in convents.

Bishop Diego and Dominic realized that new methods were needed to cope with this dangerous sect. Hitherto the Cistercians had been deputed to preach against them, but they were unsuitable for the task, being rural monks for the most part without higher education. Even the eloquent St. Bernard was unsuccessful in a preaching capacity in southern France. What was needed was a new policy with missioners travelling in poverty, but well equipped intellectually to deal with the errors in a charitable but effective way. Diego himself, as a bishop, led this expedition but was helped substantially by Dominic, who was in charge when Diego returned to his diocese. They also founded the nunnery of Prouille as a contemplative centre for devout women and as a useful base for the preachers. Debates were organized and the orthodox frequently won the argument, but there were examples of relapse.

In 1208 Cathars assassinated the papal legate, Pierre de Castelnau; Simon de Montfort, acting as the deputy of the King of France, initiated an armed invasion of the Midi, called the Albigensian Crusade, which was militarily successful. However it understandably aroused bitter resentment for the cruelty and slaughter, sometimes perpetrated when military leaders refused exile instead of death for the obdurate. Dominic himself took no part in the violence of the crusaders nor in the later Inquisition and realized that the long-term solution to the Cathar problem was to provide a better-trained clergy as well as itinerant preachers. Toulouse was the place where Dominic founded the Order of Preachers in 1215 and laid the foundations for a new University, based on the ideals and practice of Paris, where Dominic set up a foundation of his followers.

In the last six years of his life Dominic's ideal came to fruition. This was to provide for the Church as a whole, not only southern France, a body of trained religious who would be devoted to preaching, an activity usually reserved for bishops and their delegates. Liturgical prayer was retained, but executed more briefly than by the monks: study was given higher priority and poverty emphasized. The first step towards its stable realization was the bold one of dispersing his followers two by two into Italy, Spain, and elsewhere. The University town of Bologna was specially chosen and the support of two popes, Innocent III and Honorius III, was crucial. A recent writer has even said that Dominic was the ‘midwife’ of his Order, so important were the contributions of the other friars, the bishops of Osma and Toulouse, and above all of the papacy. An important feature was the democratic rule with short-term superiors and the Constitutions agreed by the general chapter. The basic rule was the flexible one of St. Augustine.

Dominic spent his last years in journeys to Rome, Bologna, Spain, and France, keeping in touch with his followers. He sometimes promoted recent recruits with exceptional gifts to important office, emphasizing the Order's close links with the Universities, where they taught and preached and from where many novices joined them. At Rome the popes gave him the churches of S. Sabina for the friars and S. Sisto for the nuns. In 1220 Dominic, encouraged by the presence at Bologna of novices from Hungary and Scandinavia, started a preaching tour in Hungary to convert the Cumans. He sent others to start a foundation in Denmark and in England. He died at Bologna in 1221, exhausted by his austerities, overwork, and travel, not to mention the extreme heat. He preached a last sermon to his community in a borrowed habit from a bed which was not his own. He was a saint with gifts of organization, who realized the extreme importance of personal contact, delegated responsibility, and the views of others. Towards the end of his life he declared that he had always been a virgin, but that he had taken more pleasure in the company of young women than of older ones. Popular devotion arose soon after his death and he was canonised in 1234. His tomb at Bologna was built thirty years later by Nicolas Pisano and later embellished by Michelangelo and others. An early portrait by an anonymous Sienese primitive is in the Fogg Art Museum of Harvard University and there are fine cycles of his life by Fra Angelico at Fiesole and Florence. His usual emblems are a lily and a black and white dog (a punning reference to Domini canes, dogs of the Lord), holding a torch as herald of truth. Later artists depicted him with a rosary, which he was erroneously believed to have invented. Feast: 8 August. His Order multiplied exceedingly in the time soon after his death: renewed in recent years, it contributes powerfully to teaching, preaching, and missionary work.

Bibliography
Click here for a list of abbreviations used in this bibliography.

• Primary documents edited by M.H. Laurent (1933–5); French tr. by M. H. Vicaire (1955) and English tr. by E.C. Lehner (1964). Lives by B. Jarrett (1924), P. Mandonnet (1937, Eng. tr. 1944) and M. H. Vicaire (2 vols. 1983. Eng. tr. of earlier edition 1964), S. Tugwell (1995), V. Koudelka (1997). See also W. A. Hinnebusch, The History of the Dominican Order (1966); H.S.S.C. v, 112–23