222 Dominic de Guzmán, Saint
When he was about 30, Dominic accompanied his
bishop on several diplomatic missions in northern
Europe. During these travels he became aware of the
religious ideas of the ALBIGENSIANS, a heretical dualist
movement in southern FRANCE.INNOCENTIII sent legates
to counteract the movement, but with their luxurious
clothes, fine horses, and numerous servants they suc-
ceeded only in reinforcing the Albigensians’ beliefs about
the material corruption of the clergy. Dominic saw that
the only way to preach effectively to these heretics was to
be poor and to be knowledgeable in Christian THEOLOGY.
He stayed in southern France for several years and,
together with a small group of followers, tried to put his
ideas into practice by PREACHING, studying, praying, and
living in POVERTY.
ESTABLISHMENT OF THE ORDERAfter the Albigensian Crusade crushed the heretics, in
1215 Dominic and his group were welcomed by the
bishop of Toulouse and established as the official preach-
ers of that diocese. Dominic then went to ROME, where
he obtained Pope Innocent III’s approval for the establish-
ment of a religious order dedicated to preaching and
based on the study of the Scriptures and the defense of
Christian truth and belief. Dominic, however, conceived
of an order living in the world who would be dedicated
primarily to preaching. Living together in an urban con-
vent they would be able to go wherever they were needed
and would substitute disciplined theological study for the
traditional manual labor of monks.
In 1217 Dominic sent some of his friars to PARIS
to study theology, some to BOLOGNAto study LAW, and
others to Rome. Wherever they went, they attracted
others, and soon there were hundreds of followers of
Dominic’s ideal, many of them students and masters at
universities.
During the next two years Dominic himself traveled
more than 3,000 miles on foot, visiting and encouraging
his friars in Toulouse, Paris, MILAN, Rome, and Spain. In
1220 the first meeting or general chapter of the friars
took place in Bologna, where they decided that the order
would have a representational system of government,
with the friars in each house electing their superiors for
fixed terms. These representatives met again in 1221 and
divided the order geographically into provinces. Shortly
after this meeting the charismatic Dominic died and was
buried in Bologna on August 6, 1221, and was canonized
in 1234.
Further reading:Jordan of Saxony, On the Beginnings
of the Order of Preachers, ed. Simon Tugwell (Dublin:
Dominican Publications, 1982); Bede Jarrett, The Life of
St. Dominic(Westminster, Md.: The Newman Press, 1947);
Vladimir Koudelka, Dominic, trans. Consuelo Fissler
and Simon Tugwell (London: Longman and Todd, 1997);
Marie Humbert Vicaire, Saint Dominic and His Times,trans.
Kathleen Pond (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1964).
Dominic de Guzmán, Carlo Crivelli, 15th century(Courtesy
Library of Congress)