EN
DOMICELLUS : A canon who had not a seat and
a voice in chapter, but enjoyed certain incomes.
See Canon; and Chapter.
DOMINIC, SAINT, AND THE DOMINICAN ORDER.
St. Dominic (S 1). Achievements and Contro-
His New Order (S 2). versies (S 5).
Its Constitution (S 3). Present Condition (S 6).
Its Development (S 4). The Sisters (S 7).
Dominic was bom at Calaroga, a village of Old
Castile in the diocese of Osma, 1170; d. at Bologna
Aug. 6, 1221. That his father belonged to the
noble family of Guzman, as many Dominican wri-
ters assert, can not be proved. At seven he was
sent to his uncle, archpriest of Gumiel d'Izan, to
be educated, and at fourteen went to study phi-
losophy and theology at Palencia, where celebrated
teachers were already lecturing, though the imi-
versity was not founded until 1209.
z. St. He soon distinguished himself by his
Dominic, progress in study and by his devotion
and charity, selling his books to help
the poor. Between 1194 and 1199 he became a
canon and later subprior in the cathedral chapter
of Osma, which had been reformed under the Au-
gustinian rule. In 1203 he was taken by his bishop,
Diego de Azevedo, as companion on a journey,
probably to the court of Guy of Lusignan in south-
em France, on the commission of Alfonso VIII.,
to ask for a wife for his son Ferdinand. The em-
bassy went again to receive the princess and con-
duct her to Spain; but she died before their arrival.
Diego took Dominic with him to Rome, where the
latter requested Innocent III. to relieve him of his
bishopric that he might go as a missionary to the
Saracens. The pope refused; and on a third jour-
ney through southern France Diego and Dominic
met at Montpellier (1204) the Cistercian abbots,
Arnold of Ctteaux, Peter of Castelnau, and Raoul,
who had been entrusted by Innocent with the mis-
sion to the Albigenses. Diego urged that the
heretics should be converted by the preaching of
poor apostolic men, who should renounce all pomp
and luxury. This method, so different from the
Dominic
THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOa
480
one in vogue, was approved by the legates. Diego
and Dominic, and others, went out two by two,
barefoot, without retinue, to preach and dispute
in the nobles' castles, in the effort to win back the
Cathari and Albigenses to the Church. But heresy
was too wide-spread and deep-rooted in the south
of France for much impression to be made by these
few laborers in the Montpellier district alone. To
have a base for the work, Diego founded a convent
of nuns at Prouille, in the diocese of Toulouse, into
which in 1206 eleven high-bom ladies were re-
ceived, nine of them converts.
After Diego had returned to his diocese, where
he died in 1207, Dominic carried on the work with
zeal and energy. He introduced the rule of Au-
gustine and strict observances into the convent of
Prouille. In 1208 Peter of Castelnau was mur-
dered, and Innocent III. proclaimed a crusade
against the Albigenses (see New Manicheanb, II.).
Dominic apparently took no part in this, but con-
tinued his work in the old spirit, supported by the
higher clergy. He declined several bishoprics of-
fered to him, to remain true to his mission, feel-
ing called to devote his whole life to showing that
the Church had a heart still for the poor misled
folk who were alienated from its fold. In 1215
Bishop Fulco of Toulouse assigned one-sixth of the
diocesan tithes to the support of his work, and
took Dominic to Rome to the Lateran Council,
there to seek confirmation from the pope for the
foundation of a new order. The council had just
ruled against the multiplication of orders, and In-
nocent, while taking the convent of Prouille under
his protection, advised Dominic to choose some
established rule for his associates. After his re-
turn they talked the matter over and chose the
Augustinian rule with the institutions of the Pre-
monstratensians; the new brotherhood would thus
be a society not of monks, but of canons regular,
with the special purpose of defending the faith and
combating heresy by preaching (whence the official
name, ordo prcedi^atorum, " order of preachers ")•
Dominic recognized the necessity of learning for
this end, and sent his six companions, who had no
technical training, to the theological school at
Toulouse.
He was in Rome from Sept., 1216, to Easter,
1217, and obtained from Honorius III. the confir-
mation of his new order. According to the bulls,
it was not originally a mendicant order, but ad-
hered to the older conception of the vow of pov-
erty, as forbidding only the possession
a. His New of property by the individual, not by
Order. the community. Nor was it at first dis-
tinguished from the old canons regular
by assuming a universal character; it was several
years before papal briefs instructed archbishops,
bishops, and other prelates to allow the brothers
to preach in their dioceses, assume the cure of
souls, and hear confessions. At the feast of the
Assumption, 1217, Dominic sent out his associates
in all directions. He fixed his eyes especially on
the three centers of intellectual life, Paris, Rome,
and Bologna. Matthew of Paris with seven broth-
ers went to the first-named, where they occupied
the monastery of Saint Jacques in 1218 (hence the
popular French name for the order, Jacobins}.
Dominic went to Rome with some of his younger
disciples, and sent two brothers thence to Bologna
in 1218. Two more were left behind at Prouille
and two at Toulouse; four went to Spain, where
they had little success — it was not until the founder
hiniself visited Spain (1218) that two houses, one
for men at Seville and one for women at Madrid,
came into existence. On a visit to Paris in 12 lU
he found thirty brothers ; five years later the num-
ber was 120. Toward the end of that year he wa.s
again in Rome, where the pope gave him the dif-
ficult commission of assembling in a convent all
the scattered nuns who were living uncloistered in
Rome. Supported by Cardinal Hugo of Ostia, the
later Gregory IX., he succeeded in his task, and
foimded the convent of San Sisto for them, while
he and his brothers occupied the monastery of
Santa Sabina near the pope's palace. This prox-
imity led to his noticing the careless lives of the
papal retainers, who spent their time in drinking
and dicing; he got them together and gave them
regular spiritual conferences. From this fact grew
the story that the pope appointed him moffisUr
sacri palaHi — an office the existence of which is
first demonstrable under Gregory IX., though later
it was regularly conferred on a Dominican; it ac-
quired great importance in the time of Leo X.,
when its holder was made the official censor of
books.
The first general chapter of the order was held at
Bologna in 1220, when it became a mendicant order
by the decision to renounce all property and fixed in-
comes. Although its founder died solemnly curshig
those who should bring temporal possessions into
his order, the vow of poverty was never pushed to
its extreme limit among them, and they thus es-
caped the dissensions which rent the Franciscan
order over this question. No objection was ever
raised against the possession of churches and con-
vents, though the oldest constitutions (1228) pre-
scribe that these shall be small and plain. A laxer
conception of poverty was not long in making its
way; though the later constitutions still formally
ruled out possessiones et reditu^ f the prohibition
was not observed, and Martin V. abrogated it in
1425 for certain houses, and Sixtus IV. in 1475 and
1477 for the whole order.
After a journey through northern Italy, Dom-
inic returned to Bologna, where he won for the
order Master Conrad, the first provincial of Ger-
many (see CoNRAn of Marburg). His last so-
journ in Rome was in the winter of 1220-21. The
second general chapter met in Bologna May, 122 1»
and decided that future meetings should take place
yearly, alternately in Bologna and Paris, a pro-
vision which fell into disuse. At this chapter,
if not before, the constitution was completed.
It distinguishes the order sharply
3. Its Con- from the older ones. It is organized
stitution. from the top, where stands a master-
general, of far more power than the
abbots-general of earlier organizations. In con-
formity with the universal character of its mission,
the vow of stabilUas loci is omitted, and that of
obedience is made immediately to the general. lie
481
Dominic
16 chosen for life by the general chapter, and se-
lects his own 8ocii, or counselors. Each province
is governed by a prior-provincial chosen for four
years by the provincial chapter, which also names
four definitors to assist him, as representatives of
the whole body. Each house chooses its own
head, called prior. The decisions of the general
chapter have the force of law when they have
been passed at two successive chapters. After the
chapter of 1221 Dominic undertook one more
journey through northern Italy, got as far as Ven-
ice, and returned to Bologna to die on Aug. 6, 1221.
At this time the order numbered sixty houses, di-
vided into eight provinces — ^Toulouse, Provence,
France, Rome, Lombardy, Spain, England, and
Germany. Dominic was buried in the church of
St. Nicholas at Bologna, in the presence of Car-
dinal Hugo of Ostia, who afterward, as Pope Greg-
ory IX., canonized him (1234). His tomb was
afterward beautified by Niccold Pisaflo and Mirhpl-
angelo.
It is difficult to arrive at a satisfactoiy charac-
terization of the man. He has left no written
works, and his biographies, while veiy full on his
miracles, make no attempt to reproduce the dis-
tinctive features of his personality. He was un-
doubtedly a noble character. Sincere piety and
equally sincere belief in the truth of the Church's
teaching and claims, gentle sympathy for all, here-
tics as well as orthodox, strictness in self-discipline,
and wonderful energy are traits which stand out
clearly in his life.
After Dominic's death his order spread with re-
markable rapidity. At the general chapter of 1228
four new provinces arose — Greece, Poland, Den-
mark, and Palestine. The four earliest successors
of the founder were skilful organizers who knew
how to develop and adapt to new con-
4. Its De- ditions the principles given to them.
velopment Jordanus, a Saxon (1222-37), codified
the constitutions for the first time in
1228; he traveled widely through all the provinces
of the order, and met his death by shipwreck after
a visit to Palestine. The third general was the
distinguished canonist Raymond of Pefiaforte, of
a noble Spanish family; he resigned his office in
1240, after revising and completing the constitu-
tions. The fourth was a North German, John of
Wildeshausen (1241-52), and the fifth a French-
man, Humbert of Romans (1254-64), who ren-
dered great services to the educational system of
the order. The purpose of its very existence be-
ing the combating of heresy and strengthening of
faith by means of preaching, study was insisted on
as a primary requisite. The Dominican order was
the first which required study as an essential means
to the attainment of its special end, and regulated
it minutely by rule. This, of course, was confined
to the priests, who found it possible to devote
themselves wholly to their ministry since the lay
brothers relieved them of household tasks. Eight
years were spent in this study after the completion
of the novitiate; its system followed that of the
University of Paris. After 1248 each province had
its own sivdium generale, or university. Theology
had naturally the first place, but the liberal arts
IU.-31
soon began to be taught; Raymond of Pefiaforte
paid special attention to the teaching of Greek, and
erected schools in the Spanish and North African
houses for the study of Hebrew and Arabic. The-
ology was first taught from the " Sentences " of
Peter Lombard, but by the end of the thirteenth
century the Summa of Thomas Aquinas was ta-
king their place, and the general chapter of 1315,
by requiring his works to be found in every monas-
tery, marked his final triumph.
The rapid growth of the order was due not alone
to its qualities, but also to the protection of power-
ful friends among the kings and nobles, and to the
lavish privileges which the popes coniferred upon
both them and the Franciscans. The Dominicans
had the advantage, however, in being preferred, if
not exclusively chosen, as inquisitors hoareticcB
pravitatis. When Gregory IX. began, in 1232, to
replace the episcopal inquisition by officials ap-
pointed directly by the pope, he usually chose the
Preaching Friars, on account of their theological
learning. When the secular arm was placed at the
disposition of the Church, Frederick II. offered his
protection in 1239 to the Dominicans as inquisitors,
and in 1255, at the request of Louis IX., Alex-
ander IV. named the Dominican provincial and
the Franciscan guardian as inquisitors-general for
France. (See iNQUismoN.)
The growth and privileges of the order aroused
enmity in more than one quarter. From the end
of the thirteenth century many of the cities in
which the mendicants, unlike the older orders,
built their houses, began to show hostility. Some
of the older orders, especially the Cistercians and
Carthusians, displayed a spirit that was anything
but brotherly toward them, and the higher secular
clergy resented their intrusion into
5. Achieve- the organized cure of souls, so that
ments and Innocent IV. was obliged in 1254 to
Contro- limit their privileges, allowing them
▼ersies. to preach and hear confessions only
with the assent of the parish priest.
The universities were at first unfriendly, and tried
to bar out the Preaching Friars. The famous con-
test in Paris was terminated in favor of the Domin-
icans in 1259, and it was not long before they occu-
pied the theological chairs in Bologna, Padua,
Vienna, Cologne, Prague, Oxford, and Salamanca.
The greatest of the scholastics, Thomas Aquinas,
and his many-sided teacher, Albertus Magnus, are
but two out of many distinguished theologians
produced by the order in the later Middle Ages.
It did not confine itself to the cultivation of learn-
ing, but did much for the religious training of the
common people. One of the most popular preach-
ers of a little later day was the Spanish Dominican
Vincent Ferrer (q.v.). They were active in the
missionary field, appearing at the court of Kubla
Khan in 1272, and accomplishing much in the still
heathen parts of Europe; the conversion of the Lith-
uanians, completed in 1386, was their work. Their
services to art were very considerable. Two of
them designed the church of Santa Maria Novella
in Florence, the purest and most beautiful exam-
ple of Tuscan Gothic. Here, at San Marco, and at
Santa Caterina in Pisa pamting was cultivated
Bomlnio
Domlziis
482
with great suocefls in the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries; the last flowering, under mystical illu-
mination, of the school of Giotto was seen in the
work of Giovanni da Fiesole, better known as Fra
Angeiico (d 1455).
The mendicant orders had at first stood together
against the monks, the secular clergy, and the uni-
versities; but before the end of the thirteenth cen-
tury jealousy brought discord. The partizans of
Thomas Aquinas on one side and Duns Scotus on
the other made the controversy between Thomists
and Scotists traditional (see Immaculatb Concep-
tion). The Dominicans themselves were divided in
the great Western Schism (see Schibm), and only
reunited by Martin V. in 1418. Worldliness made
its inroads, and theological subtlety was pushed
to absurd extremes The conflict of the humanist
Reuchlin with the Cologjie inquisitor Jakob von
Hoogstraten and the EpistoUe obscurarum virorum
(q .V.) show how the order had declined from its early
zeal for learning by the beginning of the sixteenth
oentury. The Counterreformation owed its re-
sults not to the Preaching Friars, but to the new
order of the Jesuits, whom the Dominicans stead-
ily opposed on several questions of internal policy
and belief. In the great controversy about grace
(1588-1611) they stood for a moderate Augustin-
ianism against the Semi-Pelagianism of the Jesuit
Molina. In the moral controversy the two orders
became theological parties, the Jesuits at the end
of the sixteenth and beginning of the seventeenth
centuries almost always defending Probabilism
(q.v.), while the Dominicans adopted probabilior-
ism as their view. The most violent conflict, how-
ever, arose in the mission- field. The Jesuits had
had it almost to themselves in the era of the Goun-
terreformation, except in America, where the
Preaching Friars had been active, and one of the
noblest of missionaries. Las Casas (d. 1566), had
not only sought the conversion of the Indians of
Mexico, but protected them from the greed and
cruelty of the Spaniards. They came to China
after the Jesuits had already occupied the field;
they opposed and soon denounced at Rome the
" acconunodation " (q.v.) of the rival order, and
after a long struggle won the victory in 1782 —
though the downfall of Christianity in China fol-
lowed almost inunediately.
The secularizing policy of Joseph II. (d. 1790)
diminished still further the number of convents
which the Reformation had spared; the same thing
took place in Germany, and the Revolution sup-
pressed the order in France, until it was restored
by the eloquent advocacy of Lacordaire in 1840.
Great progress was made under the generalship of
Alexander Vincent Jandel, a Frenchman (d. 1872),
who published a revised constitution in 1872, the
most important change being the
6. Present limitation of the general's term, which
Condition. Pius VII. in 1804 fixed at six years
and Pius IX. in 1862 at twelve. The
general has resided since 1272 at Santa Maria sopra
Minerva in Rome. Fifty-two provinces are named
in the new constitutions, but several of these are
merely nominal. There are about 300 houses,
with some 3,000 members. Under Pope Leo XIII.,
a great admirer of Thomas Aquinas, the order once
more assumed importance by its influence on theo-
logical learning. There have been four Dominican
popes: Innocent V. (d. 1276), Benedict XI. (d.
1304), St. Pius V. (d. 1572), and the learned Bene-
dict XIII. (d. 1730).
Two houses of the female branch of the order,
that of Prouille and San Sisto at Rome, arose in
the founder's lifetime. Their rule prescribed con-
finement to the cloister, ascetic practises, the con-
templative life, and employment of time as far as
possible analogous to that of the brothers; the ob-
ligation of poverty was for obvious
7. The reasons not as strictly imposed on
Sisten. them. New houses were at first
founded wherever the order spread,
and were under the direction of the provincial. As
their number grew, this produced difficulties and
interfered with the work of the friars, who got
themselves released from this charge in 1252,
though they were obh'ged to reassume it two years
later, as the female houses were suffering from the
separation. Only a few remained under episcopal
care. They followed in the main the fortunes of
the friars. At first wholly contemplative, they
devoted themselves later to the education of girls;
and their rule was correspondin^y mitigated. At
present there are about ninety houses of the " sec-
ond order," with some 1,500 inmates. For the
" third order," composed of confraternities of
people living in the world, see Tertiaiubs; Ook-
FRATERNITIBS, RSUQIOUS. (G. GrOTEMACH£R.)
Bibuoorapht: Eariy lives of Dominie are ooUected in
ASB, Aug., i. 358-668; aome of tbe aune, with otherj
not included, are in J. Qu<$tif, Scriplorea ordinia pradi-
catorum, ed. J. Echard, i. 1-56, Paris, 1719. The Vita,
by Dietrich of Apolda (c. 1296 a.d.). ed. A. Car6. Paris,
1887. Consult : E. Garo. SL Dominique et les Dontini-
caifu, Paris. 1853; J. B. H. Lacordaire, Vie de S. Domi-
nique, ib. 1882. Eng. transl.. London, 1883; A. T. Drane,
Hiet. of St. Dominie, ib. 1891; J. J. Berthier, Le Tertt-
ment de 3. Dominique, Freiburg. 1892; M. J. Rouaaet.
Der heiliife Dominicue, Freiburg, 1899; T. Alemany. Lift
of SL Dominic wOh Sketch of the Domimioan Order, Nev
York, n.d.
On the order, for souroes eonault: Momumenia ardinia
frairum pradieatorum kietariea, now in oourae of pub-
lication at Rome, 1896 sqq.; Ada oapitularum . . . pr«-
dieatorum, ed. G. Douais, Toulouse, 1894. Further: W.
Q. D. Fletcher. Black Friare of Oxford, Oxford, 1^2;
G. F. K. Palmer, NoUeea of the Friar Preaehere of the Eng.
Province, London, 1884; Friar Preaehere of Leiceater.
I^eicest^r. 1884; A. T. Drane, Hiel. of Catherine of Sitna
and her Companione, London, 1887; idem. Spirit of tU
Dominiean Order, ib. 1896; B. M. Reichert. in Hiaioriecht
JahrbQcher, 1897. ii. 363-374; B. A. A. WUberfortse. />-
minioan Miaaiona and Martyra in Japan, London, 1897:
M. D. Chapottn. Hiatoire dea Dominieaina de . . . France^
Rouen. 1898; Fransisca Raphael, Der Geiat dea Domtni-
eaner Ordena, Dulmen. 1901; J. Uerkleas. Franeaa and
Dominie and the Mendicant Ordera, New York. 1901;
E. Q. Gardner. Saint Catherine of Siena, London. 1907;
Heimbucher, Orden und Konoreoatitmen, i. 540 sqq.; Cur-
rier, Relioioua Ordera, pp. 271-283; Neaader. CkriaHan
Churdi, yoL iv. passim (valuable); Schaff, ChriaHe*
Church, y. 1., pp. 519 aqq.
