Dominic founded the Dominican Order in 1215. Dominic established a religious community in
Toulouse in 1214, to be governed by the
rule of Saint Augustine and statutes to govern the life of the friars, including the Primitive Constitution. The founding documents establish that the order was founded for two purposes: preaching and the salvation of souls.
Henri-Dominique Lacordaire noted that the statutes had similarities with the constitutions of the
Premonstratensians, indicating that Dominic had drawn inspiration from the reform of Prémontré.
Middle Ages In July 1215, with the approbation of
Bishop Foulques of Toulouse, Dominic ordered his followers into an institutional life. Its purpose was revolutionary in the pastoral ministry of the Catholic Church. These priests were organized and well trained in religious studies. Dominic needed a framework—a rule—to organize these components. The Rule of Saint Augustine was an obvious choice for the Dominican Order, according to Dominic's successor Jordan of Saxony, in the
Libellus de principiis, because it lent itself to the "salvation of souls through preaching". By this choice, however, the Dominican brothers designated themselves not monks, but
canons regular. They could practice ministry and common life while existing in individual poverty. , in
Toulouse, is considered the place where the order was born. The Order of Preachers was approved in December 1216 and January 1217 by
Pope Honorius III in the
papal bulls and . On January 21, 1217, Honorius issued the bull recognizing Dominic's followers as an order dedicated to study and universally authorized to preach, a power formerly reserved to local episcopal authorization. Along with charity, the other concept that most defines the work and spirituality of the order is study, the method most used by the Dominicans in working to defend the church against the perils it faced. In Dominic's thinking, it was impossible for men to preach what they did not or could not understand. On August 15, 1217, Dominic dispatched seven of his followers to the great university center of Paris to establish a
priory focused on study and preaching. The Convent of St. Jacques would eventually become the order's first . Dominic was to establish similar foundations at other university towns of the day,
Bologna in 1218,
Palencia and
Montpellier in 1220, and
Oxford just before his death in 1221. The women of the order also established schools for the children of the local gentry. , Poland In 1219, Pope Honorius III invited Dominic and his companions to take up residence at the ancient Roman
basilica of
Santa Sabina, which they did by early 1220. Before that time the friars had only a temporary residence in Rome at the convent of
San Sisto Vecchio which Honorius III had given to Dominic circa 1218 intending it to become a convent for a reformation of nuns at Rome under Dominic's guidance. In May 1220 at Bologna the order's first
General Chapter mandated that each new priory of the order maintain its own , thus laying the foundation of the Dominican tradition of sponsoring widespread institutions of learning. The official foundation of the Dominican convent at Santa Sabina with its occurred with the legal transfer of property from Honorius III to the Order of Preachers on June 5, 1222. This was transformed into the order's first by
Thomas Aquinas in 1265. Part of the curriculum of this was relocated in 1288 at the of
Santa Maria sopra Minerva which in the 16th century world be transformed into the College of Saint Thomas (). In the 20th century the college would be relocated to the convent of
Saints Dominic and Sixtus and would be transformed into the
Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas, Angelicum. The Dominican friars quickly spread, including to England, where they appeared in
Oxford in 1221. In the 13th century the order reached all classes of Christian society, fought
heresy,
schism, and
paganism by word and book, and by its missions to the north of Europe, to Africa, and Asia passed beyond the frontiers of
Christendom. Its schools spread throughout the entire church; its doctors wrote monumental works in all branches of knowledge, including the extremely important
Albertus Magnus and
Thomas Aquinas. Its members included popes, cardinals, bishops, legates, inquisitors, confessors of princes, ambassadors, and (enforcers of the peace decreed by popes or councils). (1225–1274), considered by many Catholics to be the greatest Catholic theologian, is girded by angels with a mystical belt of purity after his
proof of chastity. The order's origins in battling heterodoxy influenced its later development and reputation. Many later Dominicans battled heresy as part of their apostolate; many years after Dominic reacted to the Cathars, the first
Grand Inquistor of Spain,
Tomás de Torquemada, would be drawn from the Dominican Order. The order was appointed by
Pope Gregory IX the duty to carry out the
Inquisition. Torture was not regarded as a mode of punishment, but as a means of eliciting the truth. In his papal bull of 1252, Pope Innocent IV authorised the Dominicans' use of torture under prescribed circumstances. The expansion of the order produced changes. A smaller emphasis on doctrinal activity favoured the development here and there of the
ascetic and
contemplative life and there sprang up, especially in Germany and Italy, the mystical movement with which the names of
Meister Eckhart,
Heinrich Suso,
Johannes Tauler, and
Catherine of Siena are associated. (See
German mysticism, which has also been called "Dominican mysticism".) This movement was the prelude to the reforms undertaken, at the end of the century, by
Raymond of Capua, and continued in the following century. At the same time, the order found itself face to face with the
Renaissance. It struggled against pagan tendencies in
Renaissance humanism, in Italy through Dominici and Savonarola, in Germany through the theologians of
Cologne but it also furnished humanism with such advanced writers as
Francesco Colonna (probably the writer of the ) and
Matteo Bandello. Many Dominicans took part in the artistic activity of the age, the most prominent being
Fra Angelico and
Fra Bartolomeo.
Women Although Dominic and the early brethren had instituted female Dominican houses at Prouille and other places by 1227, houses of women attached to the Order became so popular that some of the friars had misgivings about the increasing demands of female religious establishments on their time and resources. Nonetheless, women's houses dotted the countryside throughout Europe. There were 74 Dominican female houses in Germany, 42 in Italy, 9 in France, 8 in Spain, 6 in Bohemia, 3 in Hungary, and 3 in Poland. Many of the German religious houses that lodged women had been home to communities of women, such as
Beguines, that became Dominican once they were taught by the traveling preachers and put under the jurisdiction of the Dominican authoritative structure. A number of these houses became centers of study and mystical spirituality in the 14th century, as expressed in works such as the
sister-books. There were 157 nunneries in the order by 1358. After that year, the number lessened considerably due to the Black Death. In places besides Germany, convents were founded as retreats from the world for women of the upper classes. These were original projects funded by wealthy patrons. Among these was Countess Margaret of Flanders who established the monastery of Lille, while
Val-Duchesse at Oudergem near Brussels was built with the wealth of Adelaide of Burgundy, Duchess of Brabant (1262). s of the
lord') since the
Inquisition in the 13th century, on a corner of a former Dominican monastery (before the Reformation), Old University,
Marburg, Germany Female houses differed from male Dominican houses in that they were enclosed. The sisters chanted the
Divine Office and kept all the monastic observances. The nuns lived under the authority of the general and provincial chapters of the order. They shared in all the applicable privileges of the order. The friars served as their confessors, priests, teachers and spiritual mentors. Women could be professed to the Dominican religious life at the age of 13. The formula for profession contained in the Constitutions of Montargis Priory (1250) requires that nuns pledge obedience to God, the Blessed Virgin, their prioress and her successors according to the Rule of Saint Augustine and the institute of the order, until death. The clothing of the sisters consisted of a white tunic and scapular, a leather belt, a black mantle, and a black veil. Candidates to profession were questioned to reveal whether they were actually married women who had merely separated from their husbands. Their intellectual abilities were also tested. Nuns were to be silent in places of prayer, the cloister, the dormitory, and refectory. Silence was maintained unless the prioress granted an exception for a specific cause. Speaking was allowed in the common parlor, but it was subordinate to strict rules, and the prioress, subprioress or other senior nun had to be present. As well as sewing, embroidery and other genteel pursuits, the nuns participated in a number of intellectual activities, including reading and discussing pious literature. In the Strassburg monastery of Saint Margaret, some of the nuns could converse fluently in Latin. Learning still had an elevated place in the lives of these religious. In fact, Margarette Reglerin, a daughter of a wealthy Nuremberg family, was dismissed from a convent because she did not have the ability or will to learn.
English Province The English
Province and the Hungarian Province both date back to the second general chapter of the Dominican Order, held in Bologna during the spring of 1221. Dominic dispatched 12 friars to England under the guidance of their English prior, Gilbert of Fresney, and they landed in
Dover on August 5, 1221. The province officially came into being at its first provincial chapter in 1230. The English Province was a component of the international order from which it obtained its laws, direction, and instructions. It was also, however, a group of Englishmen. Its direct supervisors were from England, and the members of the English Province dwelt and labored in English cities, towns, villages, and roadways. English and European ingredients constantly came in contact. The international side of the province's existence influenced the national, and the national responded to, adapted, and sometimes constrained the international. The first Dominican site in England was at Oxford, in the parishes of St. Edward and St. Adelaide. The friars built an oratory to the Blessed Virgin Mary and by 1265, the brethren, in keeping with their devotion to study, began erecting a school. The Dominican brothers likely began a school immediately after their arrival, as priories were legally schools. Information about the schools of the English Province is limited, but a few facts are known. Much of the information available is taken from visitation records. The "visitation" was an inspection of the province by which visitors to each priory could describe the state of its religious life and its studies at the next chapter. There were four such visits in England and Wales—Oxford, London, Cambridge and York. All Dominican students were required to learn grammar, old and new logic, natural philosophy and theology. Of all of the curricular areas, however, theology was the most important.
Dartford Priory was established long after the primary period of monastic foundation in England had ended. It emulated, then, the monasteries found in Europe—mainly France and Germany-as well as the monastic traditions of their English Dominican brothers. The first nuns to inhabit Dartford were sent from the in France. Even on the eve of the
Dissolution, Prioress Jane Vane wrote to Cromwell on behalf of a postulant, saying that though she had not actually been professed, she was professed in her heart and in the eyes of God. Profession in Dartford Priory seems, then, to have been made based on personal commitment, and one's personal association with God. As heirs of the Dominican priory of Poissy in France, the nuns of Dartford Priory in England were also heirs to a tradition of profound learning and piety. Strict discipline and plain living were characteristic of the monastery throughout its existence.
From the Reformation to the French Revolution ()
Bartolomé de Las Casas, as a settler in the
New World, was galvanized by witnessing the brutal torture and genocide of the
Native Americans by the Spanish colonists. He became famous for his advocacy of the rights of Native Americans, whose cultures, especially in the
Caribbean, he describes with care.
Gaspar da Cruz (), who worked all over the Portuguese colonial empire in Asia, was probably the first Christian missionary to preach (unsuccessfully) in
Cambodia. After a (similarly unsuccessful) stint, in 1556, in
Guangzhou, China, he eventually returned to Portugal and became the first European to publish a book devoted exclusively to China in 1569/1570. The beginning of the 16th century confronted the order with the upheavals of Reformation. The spread of Protestantism cost it six or seven provinces and several hundreds of
convents, but the discovery of the
New World opened up a fresh field of activity. In the 18th century, there were numerous attempts at reform, accompanied by a reduction in the number of devotees. The French Revolution ruined the order in France, and crises that more or less rapidly followed considerably lessened or wholly destroyed numerous provinces.
18th century A significant early modern account of the Order's development in Spain is the
Historia de la Provincia de España de la Orden de Predicadores, composed by Manuel Joseph de Medrano, a preacher general and official chronicler of the Order. Published in
Madrid in 1727, the work documents the establishment and expansion of Dominican foundations in Spain and records the lives of prominent members of the Order from the death of its founder,
Dominic de Guzmán, through the close of the 13th century. The history was formally dedicated to
Tomás Ripoll, then Master General of the Order, and presented through the authority of Fray Cristóbal de Miranda, Vicar General and elected provincial of the Spanish province. The work extends the institutional effort within the Dominican Order to preserve its origins, consolidate its historical memory, and emphasize the role of its members in shaping its religious and intellectual legacy. In addition to his historical works, Fr. Manuel Joseph de Medrano,
Predicador General and
Choronista of the Dominican Order, also played a major theological role in defending
Savonarola's reputation in the early 18th century. His
Vida de la admirable Virgen Santa Inés de Monte Policiano included a defense of Savonarola's sanctity and prophetic mission. Medrano's scholarship was recognized and discussed in the
Tertulia histórica y apologética (Zaragoza, c. 1730) by the jurist Doctor Jayme Ardanaz y Centellas, The province of France has produced many preachers. The conferences of Notre-Dame-de-Paris were inaugurated by Père Lacordaire. The Dominicans of the province of France furnished Lacordaire (1835–1836, 1843–1851),
Jacques Monsabré, and Joseph Ollivier. The pulpit of Notre Dame has been occupied by a succession of Dominicans. Père
Henri Didon (1840–1900) was a Dominican. The house of studies of the province of France publishes (founded 1859), (1907), and (1909). French Dominicans founded and administer the founded in 1890 by
Marie-Joseph Lagrange (1855–1938), one of the leading international centres for biblical research. It is at the that the famed
Jerusalem Bible (both editions) was prepared. Likewise Cardinal
Yves Congar was a product of the French province of the Order of Preachers. Doctrinal development has had an important place in the restoration of the Preachers. Several institutions, besides those already mentioned, played important parts. Such is the at
Jerusalem, open to the religious of the order and to secular clerics, which publishes the . The , the future
Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas () established in Rome in 1908 by Master
Hyacinth Cormier, opened its doors to regulars and seculars for the study of the sacred sciences. In addition to the reviews above are the , founded by Père Thomas Coconnier ( 1908), and the (1893). Among numerous writers of the order in this period are: Cardinals
Thomas Zigliara ( 1893) and Zephirin González ( 1894), two esteemed philosophers;
Alberto Guillelmotti ( 1893), historian of the Pontifical Navy, and historian
Heinrich Denifle ( 1905). During the Reformation, many of the convents of Dominican nuns were forced to close. One which managed to survive, and afterwards founded many new houses, was St Ursula's in Augsburg. In the 17th century, convents of Dominican women were often asked by their bishops to undertake apostolic work, particularly educating girls and visiting the sick. St Ursula's returned to an enclosed life in the 18th century, but in the 19th century, after Napoleon had closed many European convents,
King Louis I of Bavaria in 1828 restored the Religious Orders of women in his realm, provided that the nuns undertook some active work useful to the State (usually teaching or nursing). From this mission were founded many Third Order Regular congregations of Dominican sisters, with their own constitutions, though still following the Rule of Saint Augustine and affiliated to the Dominican Order. These include the Dominican Sisters of Oakford, KwazuluNatal (1881), the Dominican Missionary Sisters, Zimbabwe (1890) The Dominican Order has influenced the formation of other orders outside of the Catholic Church, such as the
Anglican Order of Preachers within the
Anglican Communion. Since not all members are obliged to take solemn or simple vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, it operates more like a
third order with a third order style structure, with no contemporary or canonical ties to the historical order founded by Dominic of Guzman.
Missions abroad The Pax Mongolica of the 13th and 14th centuries that united vast parts of the European-Asian continents enabled Western missionaries to travel east. "Dominican friars were preaching the Gospel on the Volga Steppes by 1225 (the year following the establishment of the Kipchak Khanate by Batu), and in 1240 Pope Gregory IX despatched others to Persia and Armenia." The most famous Dominican was
Jordanus de Severac who was sent first to Persia then in 1321, together with a companion (Nicolas of Pistoia) to India. Jordanus' work and observations are recorded in two letters he wrote to the friars of Armenia, and a book, , translated as
Wonders of the East. Another Dominican,
Ricold of Monte Croce, worked in Syria and Persia. His travels took him from Acre to Tabriz, and on to Baghdad. There "he was welcomed by the Dominican fathers already there, and with them entered into a disputation with the Nestorians." Although a number of Dominicans and Franciscans persevered against the growing faith of Islam throughout the region, all Christian missionaries were soon expelled with
Timur's death in 1405. By the 1850s, the Dominicans had half a million followers in the Philippines and well-established missions in the Chinese province of
Fujian and
Tonkin, Vietnam, performing thousands of baptisms each year. The Dominicans presence in the Philippines has become one of the leading proponents of education with the establishment of
Colegio de San Juan de Letran. ==Divisions==