72. St. Dominic and the Dominicans. (Chapter 8. The Monastic Orders.) (History of the Christian Church) (Schaff, Philip)

Literature. The earliest Life by Jordanus, Dominic's successor as head of the order: de principiis ordinis praedicatorum in Quetif-Echard, who gives five other early biographies (Bartholomew of Trent, 1244-1251, Humbert de Romanis, 1250, etc.), and ed. by J. J. Berthier, Freib., i. Schw., 1892. H. D. Lacordaire, d. 1861: Vie de S. Dominique, Paris, 1840, 8th ed. 1882. Also Hist. Studies of the Order of S. Dom. 1170-1221, Engl. trans., N. Y., 1869. E. Caro: S. Dom. et les Dominicains, Paris, 1853. A. T. Drane: Hist. of St. Dom., Founder of the Friar Preachers, London, 1891. Balme et Lelaidier: Cartulaire ou hist. diplomatique de S. Dom., Paris, 1892. J. Guiraud: S. Dom., Paris, 2d ed., 1899. For titles of about thirty lives, see Potthast, II. 1272. Quetif-Echard: Script. ord. Praedicatorum, 2 vols. Paris, 1719-1721. Ripoll and Bermond: Bullarium ord. Praed., 8 vols. Rome, 1737 sqq. Mamachi: Annal. ord. Praed., Rome, 1756. Monumenta ord. fratrum Praed. hist., ed. by B. M. Reichert, Louvaine and Rome, 10 vols., 1897-1901. Vol. III. gives the acts of the general chapters of the order, 1220-1308. A. Danzas: Etudes sur les temps primitifs de l'ordre de S. Dom., Paris, 1873-1885. *Denifle: Die Constitutionen des Predigerordens vom Jahre 1228, and Die Constitutionen des Raymunds von Peñaforte 1238-1241 in Archiv fuer Lit. und Kirchengesch., 1885, pp. 165-227 and 1889, 530-565. Helyot: Bel. Orders. Lea: Hist. of Inquisition, I. 242-304, etc. Wetzer-Welte, art. Dominicus, III. 1931-1945. W. Lescher: St. Dominic and the Rosary, London, 1902. H. Holzapfel: S. Dom. und der Rosenkranz, Munich, 1903.

The Spaniard, Dominic, founder of the order of preachers, usually called the Dominicans, lacks the genial personal element of the saint of Assisi, and his career has little to correspond to the romantic features of his contemporary's career. Dominic was of resolute purpose, zealous for propagating the orthodox faith, and devoted to the Church and hierarchy. His influence has been through the organization he created, and not through his personal experiences and contact with the people of his age. This accounts for the small number of biographies of him as compared with the large number of Francis.

Domingo, or Dominic, was born 1170 at Calaroga, Spain, and died Aug. 6, 1121, in Bologna. His mother, Juana of Aza, is worshipped as a saint in the Dominican ritual. At seven the son passed under the priestly instruction of an uncle. Ten years were subsequently spent at Palencia in the study of philosophy and theology, and he is said to have excelled as a student. About 1195, he was made canon at Osma, which gives its name to the episcopal diocese, within whose bounds he was born. In 1203 he accompanied his bishop, Diego d'Azeveda, to France on a mission to secure a bride for the son of Alfonzo VIII. of Castile. This and subsequent journeys across the Pyrenees brought him into contact with the Albigenses and the legates despatched by Innocent III. to take measures to suppress heresy in Southern France. Dominic threw himself into the movement for suppressing heresy and started upon a tour of preaching. At Prouille in the diocese of Toulouse, he erected an asylum for girls to offset the schools established by the Albigenses, for the training of the daughters of impoverished noblemen. He was on intimate terms with Simon de Montfort, but, so far as is known, he took no active part in the Albigensian crusade except as a spiritual adviser. His attempt to establish a mission for the conversion of heretics received the support of Fulke, bishop of Toulouse, who in 1215 granted him one-sixth of the tithes of his diocese. Among the first to ally themselves to Dominic was Peter Cellani, a citizen of Toulouse, who gave him a house.

An epoch in Dominic's career was his visit in Rome during the sessions of the Fourth Lateran Council, when he received encouragement from Innocent III. who declined to assent to the proposal of a new order and bade him adopt one of the existing monastic constitutions. Dominic chose the rule of the canons regular of St. Augustine, adopted the black dress of the Augustinians, and built the convent of St. Romanus at Toulouse. He was again in Rome from September, 1216, to Easter, 1217. Honorius II. in 1216 approved the organization, and confirmed it in the possession of goods and houses. An unreliable tradition states that Honorius also conferred upon Dominic the important office of Master of the Palace, magister palatii. The office cannot be traced far beyond Gregory IX.

The legendary accounts of his life represent the saint at this time as engaged in endless scourgings and other most rigorous asceticisms. Miracles, even to the raising of the dead, were ascribed to him.

In 1217 Dominic sent out monks to start colonies. The order took quick root in large cities, Paris, Bologna, and Rome, the famous professor of canon law at Paris, Reginald, taking its vows. Dominic himself in 1218 established two convents in Spain, one for women in Madrid and one for men at Seville. The first Dominican house in Paris, the convent of St. Jacques, gave the name Jacobins to the Dominicans in France and Jacobites to the party in the French Revolution which held its meetings there. In 1224 St. Jacques had one hundred and twenty inmates. The order had a strong French element and included in its prayers a prayer for the French king. From France, the Dominicans went into Germany. Jordanus and other inmates of St. Jacques were Germans. They quickly established themselves, in spite of episcopal prohibitions and opposition from other orders, in Cologne, Worms, Strassburg, Basel, and other German cities. In 1221 the order was introduced into England, and at once settled in Oxford. The Blackfriars Bridge, London, carries in its name the memory of their great friary in that city.

The first General Chapter was held 1220 in Bologna. Dominic preached with much zeal in Northern Italy. He died, lying on ashes, at Bologna, Aug. 6, 1221, and lies buried there in the convent of St. Nicholas, which has been adorned by the art of Nicholas of Pisa and Michael Angelo. As compared with the speedy papal recognition of Francis and Anthony of Padua, the canonization of the Spanish saint followed tardily, thirteen years after his death, July 13, 1234.

At the time of Dominic's death, the preaching friars had sixty convents scattered in the provinces of Provence, Northern France, Spain, Lombardy, Italy, England, Germany, and Hungary, each of which held its own chapter yearly. To these eight provinces, by 1228, four others had been added, Poland, Denmark, Greece, and Jerusalem. Combined they made up the General Chapter. Each of the provinces was presided over by a provincial or provincial prior, and the convents by a prior or sub prior. The title and dignity of abbot were not assumed. At the head of the whole body stands a grand-master. Privilege after privilege was conferred by the Holy See, including the important right to preach anywhere and every where. The constitutions of 1228 are the earliest we possess, but they are not the oldest. They were revised under Raymund de Peñaforte, the third general.

Mendicancy was made the rule of the order at the first General Chapter, 1220. The example of St. Francis was followed, and the order, as well as the individual monk, renounced all right to possess property. The mendicant feature was, however, never emphasized as among the Franciscans. It was not a matter of conscience with the Dominicans, and the order was never involved in divisions over the question of holding property. The obligation of corporate poverty was wholly removed by Sixtus IV., 1477. Dominic's last exhortation to his followers was that, they should have love, do humble service, and live in voluntary poverty. But the precept never seems to have been taken much to heart by them.

Unlike the man of Assisi, Dominic did not combine manual labor with the other employments of his monks. For work with their hands he substituted study and preaching. The Dominicans were the first monastics to adopt definite rules of study. When Dominic founded St. Jacques in Paris, and sent seventeen of his order to man that convent, he instructed them to study and preach. Cells were constructed at Toulouse for study. A theological course of four years in philosophy and theology was required before a license was given to preach, and three years more of theological study followed it.

Preaching and the saving of souls were defined as the chief aim of the order. Humbert de Romanis, its fifth general, declared that the end of the order was not study, but that study was most necessary for preaching and the salvation of souls. Study, said another, is ordained for preaching, and preaching for the salvation of men, and this is the final end. No one was permitted to preach outside the cloister until he was twenty-five. And for preaching they were not to receive money or other gifts, except food. As Vincent Ferrer and Savonarola were the most renowned of the Dominican preachers of the Middle Ages, so Lacordaire was their most renowned orator in the nineteenth century. The mission of the Dominicans was predominantly with the upper classes. They represented the patrician element among the orders.

The annals of the Inquisition give to the Dominican order large space. The Dominicans were the most prominent and zealous, inquisitors of heretical depravity. Dante had this in mind when he characterized Dominic as Good to his friends, dreadful, to his enemies, Benigno ai suoi ed ai nimici crudo.

In 1232 the conduct of the Inquisition was largely committed to their care. Northern France, Spain, and Germany fell to their lot. The stern Torquemada was a Dominican, and the atrocious measures which were afterwards employed to spy out and punish ecclesiastical dissent, have left an indelible blot upon the name of the order. The student of history must regard those efforts to maintain the orthodox faith as heartless, even though it may not have occurred to the participants to so consider them. The order's device, given by Honorius, was a dog bearing a lighted torch in his mouth, the dog to watch, the torch to illuminate the world. The picture in their convent S. Maria Novella, at Florence, represents the place the order came to occupy as hunters of heretics. It portrays dogs dressed in the Dominican colors, black and white, chasing away foxes, which stand for heretics, while pope and emperor, enthroned and surrounded by counsellors, look on with satisfaction at the scene. It was in connection with his effort to exterminate heresy that Dominic founded, in 1220, the soldiery of Christ, composed of men and women, married and unmarried. Later, the order called itself the Brothers and Sisters of Penitence, or the Third Order, or Tertiaries of St. Dominic. As was the case with the Franciscan Tertiaries, some of them lived a conventual life.

The rosary also had a prominent place in the history of the Dominicans. An untrustworthy tradition assigns to Dominic its first use. During the crusades against the Albigenses, Mary, so the story runs, appeared to Dominic, and bade him use the rosary as a means for the conversion of the heretics. It consists of fifteen pater nosters and one hundred and fifty ave Marias, told off in beads. The Dominicans early became devotees of the rosary, but soon had rivals in the Carmelites for the honor of being the first to introduce it. The notorious Dominican inquisitor and hunter of witches, Jacob Sprenger, founded the first confraternity of the rosary. Pius V. ascribed the victory of Lepanto, 157l, to its use. In recent times Pius IX. and Leo XIII. have been ardent devotees of the rosary. Leo, in his encyclical of Sept. 1, 1883, ascribed its introduction to the great Dominic, as a balm for the wounds of his contemporaries. This encyclical represents Mary as placed on the highest summit of power and glory in heaven who is to be besought that, by her intercession, her devout Son may be appeased and softened as to the evils which afflict us.

Leo XIII. paid highest honor to the Dominicans when he pronounced Thomas Aquinas the authoritative teacher of Catholic theology and morals, and the patron of Catholic schools.