of preachers had settled at Toulouse. They assumed the Rule of St. Augustine and were
confirmed as an order by Pope Honorius III on December 22, 1216. The following year,
Dominic split up his small community, sending two groups northward to Paris, another to
Spain, leaving a remnant at Toulouse and traveling himself to Rome. Dominic thus
transformed his local order of regular canons into an international order.
Between 1217 and 1221, papal bulls came to define Dominic’s followers as an order
of preachers, whose apostolate concerned “preaching and the salvation of souls,” that is,
pastoral care administered through preaching and its corollary, hearing confessions. The
last two years of Dominic’s life were given over to outlining the order’s institutional form
at its first two General Chapters (1220, 1221).
The pattern of Dominican life and mission was to be formed by a number of
legislative sources. In the first place, there was the Rule of St. Augustine. Second, there
were the customs of the order, drawn in large measure from the Premonstratensians.
Third, there were the constitutions created for the order at its General Chapters. A species
within the genus of regular, or Augustinian, canons, the Dominicans combined an
internal life of communal prayer, weekly chapters, perpetual fast, and the common life
with an external apostolate among the faithful centered upon the acts of preaching and
hearing confession. Unlike other Augustinian canons, Dominicans were not bound to a
single house or community and embraced communal as well as individual poverty, at
least after the General Chapter of 1220. This radical approach to poverty associated them
with other new orders of the day, the Franciscans above all, but also the Carmelites,
Augustinian Hermits, Order of the Sack, and even smaller groups. Finally, Dominicans
did away with manual labor as an integral component of their religious life. Manual labor
was given over to lay brothers (conversi) so that the clerical brothers would be free for
the two most important of their communal enterprises, prayer and study in preparation for
their external apostolate.
The basic unit of the order was the convent. No Dominican convent could have fewer
than twelve clerical brothers. Of these, one was required to function as prior and received
this post by election. Another was required to function as lector or teacher and was
appointed by the provincial prior. Groups of convents were organized into provinces. By
1221, what we now call France was divided into two provinces: France, roughly
coterminus with the langue d’oïl, and Provence, roughly coterminus with the langue
d’oc. Each was administered by a provincial prior elected by the province’s conventual
priors and two delegates from each convent. The provincial prior was charged with
confirming the election of conventual priors, appointing lectors, visiting the province to
ensure the maintenance of the constitutions and ordinances of the order, and presiding
over the annual provincial chapters.
The provinces of the order together constituted the order as such. At its head was a
Master General, elected by the provincial priors and two delegates from each province.
Until the 14th century, the Master General had no fixed abode; later, he tended to reside
at Rome. His responsibility was to visit the order as a whole, maintain its laws, correct
abuses, and preside over the General Chapter, the order’s legislative body.
This basic structure applies to the male First Order. A female Second Order was
constituted not by convents but by monasteries of strictly enclosed nuns. Living by the
same rule and customs, they claimed spiritual direction by their confreres. The
constitutions stipulated that a community of at least six brothers should live within and
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