order for less than a year, became the fi rst provincial of
Lombardy. All convents within a province were to have
teachers of theology. Other constitutions were adopted
to supplement the Augustinian rule; some were adapted
from the constitutions of the Praemonstratensian can-
ons, who had been involved in public ministry early in
their history.
Dominic had suffered from occasional bouts of dys-
entery, but they had not discouraged him from traveling
extensively to preach and to visit his brethren. In 1221,
shortly after the second general chapter of the order,
he was overtaken by his fi nal illness, near Santa Maria
dei Monti outside Bologna. He was housed in the cell
of Moneta of Cremona and had to use Moneta’s spare
gown. On his deathbed, warning against the tempta-
tions of the fl esh, Dominic admitted that he had always
preferred speaking with young women rather than older
ones. According to Jordan’s account, Dominic also
promised to be of more use to the order after his death
than he had been in life. Later, the story was told that
at the moment of Dominic’s death, Guala, the prior of
Brescia, saw a friar being drawn up into heaven on a
ladder of gold. Dominic’s burial service was conducted
by Cardinal Hugolino (later Pope Gregory IX), who was
then visiting Bologna.
Shortly after Dominic’s death, stories of miraculous
cures began to circulate. The friars of Bologna soon
had to move the body to a more convenient place; they
reported that when the tomb was opened, a sweet odor
arose from the body. Early on, efforts were made to
secure Dominic’s canonization. Testimony was taken
in Bologna and then in France, and the results of the
inquiry were reported to Pope Gregory IX. After the
evidence had been winnowed, in July 1234, the pope
declared Dominic a saint. His feast day was fi xed as
5 August, the day before the anniversary of his death.
Throughout the later Middle Ages, Dominic would be
especially venerated by his order, together with Peter
Martyr and Thomas Aquinas.
Aside from the legends already mentioned, Dominic
left behind few colorful stories. In this regard he differed
from Francis; however, Dominic’s memory would soon
be paired with that of Francis, beginning with the story
of their meeting in Rome. In Paradiso, Dante, respond-
ing to tension between the adherents of the two saints,
has Thomas Aquinas praise Francis while Bonaventure,
the great Franciscan theologian, praises Dominic. In
art, Dominic was depicted with a light, on his forehead,
frequently as he clings to the foot of the cross. Panels
depicting Dominic’s life include scenes such as the trial
of theological writings by fi re. Not until much later,
in the paintings of Pedro Berruguete (d. 1504), would
Dominic be shown presiding at an auto-da-fé.
Dominic wrote little that has survived. There is one
authentic letter to the nuns in Madrid. The Nine Ways
of Prayer of Saint Dominic is a considerably later text
that probably attained its present form c. 1300; however,
it achieved a certain popularity. Recently, art historians
have discerned its infl uence in the paintings done by
Fra Angelico for the convent of Observant Dominicans
at San Marco in Florence.
See also Innocent III, PopeFurther Reading
Early Dominicans: Selected Writings, ed. Simon Tugwell. New
York: Paulist, 1982
Galbraith, G. R. The Constitution of the Dominican Order 1216
to 1360. Manchester: University Press, 1925.
Georges, Norbert. Blessed Diana and Blessed Jordan of the Order
of Preachers: The Story of a Holy Friendship and a Successful
Spiritual Direction. Somerset, Ohio: Rosary, 1933.
Hinnebusch, William A. The Dominicans: A Short History.
Dublin: Dominican Publications, 1985.
Hood, William. Fra Angelico at San Marco. New Haven, Conn.:
Yale University Press, 1993.
Jordan of Saxony. On the Beginnings of the Order of Preachers,
ed. Simon Tugwell. Dublin: Dominican Publications, 1982.
Koudelka, Vladimir. Dominic, trans. Consuelo Fissler and Simon
Tugwell, London: Darton, Longman, and Todd, 1997.
Moskowitz, Anita Fiderer. Nicola Pisano’s Arca di San Domenico
and Its Legacy. University Park: Pennsylvania State University
Press, 1964.
Thomas M. IzbickiDOUGLAS, GAVIN (CA. 1475–1522)
Scottish poet, churchman, and courtier best known for
his translation of Virgil’s Aeneid (Eneados, 1513). Other
works include a dream vision, The Palice of Honour
(1501), and possibly a brief poem on church corruption,
“Conscience” (after 1513). The allegory King Hart,
despite later attribution, is probably not by Douglas.
The Eneados survives in several manuscripts, of which
the early-16th-century Cambridge, Trinity College
1184, is the basis for the most recent scholarly edition
(Coldwell); no manuscript of The Palice of Honour is
extant, but it can be found in three 16th-century printed
editions.
A younger son of an earl of Angus, Douglas was
drawn to ambition and confl ict, both at church and court.
His poetic efforts were at least partly intended to attract
patronage. Educated at St. Andrews and possibly Paris,
he became bishop of Dunkeld in 1516, but the family
fortunes declined soon afterward. Douglas ended his
life in exile in England.
Douglas’s literary output refl ects his wide reading
in Scots and English vernacular writers, continental
poets, and Italian humanists. In both his major works
he is deeply proud of his Scottish language yet equally
aware of his ambition in introducing classical and con-
tinental forms into “rurell termes rude” (Palice 126).DOMINIC, SAINT