DOMINIC, Saint. - Founder of the Order of Friars Preachers and of the Dominican Sisters, b. at Caleruega (Spain) ca. 1170.
I. YOUTH AND STUDIES
A descendant of the ancient lineage of the Guzmán, he was born to Felix and Joan of Aza, who, having died at Caleruega, was buried at Peñafiel, and her cult as blessed was confirmed by Leo XII on 1 October 1824. Of his two elder brothers, the first, Anthony, was a priest and founded a hospice for the poor, and the other, Manes, in 1215 entered the Dominican Order, and his cult as blessed was confirmed by Gregory XVI on 2 June 1834.
He was given the name Dominic, after St. Dominic, abbot of Silos, to whose tomb his mother, then pregnant, had made a devout pilgrimage. There is talk of heavenly portents that preceded his birth: his mother dreamed that she carried in her womb a little dog with a burning torch in its mouth that set the whole world aflame; and Blessed Jordan of Saxony speaks of a star that is said to have appeared on the child's forehead at the moment of Baptism. At the age of 7 he was entrusted to the care of his maternal uncle, archpriest of Gumiel de Izán; then at Palencia he devoted himself to philosophy and theology. In a time of famine, in order to help the starving, he sold his books and all his equipment, thus setting an example to the other theologians and masters.
II. THE CANON REGULAR
After being ordained a priest, D. joined the canons of his diocese of Osma, who had recently been reformed into Regular Canons by Bishop Martin Bazan, and became one of the most fervent among them. Despite his youth he was elected sub-prior of the Chapter.
As a regular canon D., besides observing the common life, devoted himself to the care of souls. Diego de Azevedo, prior of the Chapter, elected bishop of Osma in 1201, wanted the sub-prior D. as his traveling companion: thus, for example, in 1204, when the bishop went to the Marca with the mission, entrusted to him by King Alfonso, of seeking a bride for his son Ferdinand, and probably, according to Scheeben, when the same bishop went to Rome to obtain from the Pope the approval of his intention to go to the missions while leaving the episcopate. When (1206) they reached Toulouse, they realized that their host, like the greater part of the people of those regions, was a heretic; D., by arguing with him, succeeded in convincing him of his error and bringing him back to the faith.
III. PREACHER AMONG THE HERETICS
In Rome Innocent III did not accept Diego's resignation from the bishopric, and required him to return to his diocese. At Montpellier they met the abbot of Cîteaux, Arnald, with the monks Peter of Castelnau and Rudolf of Fontfroide, papal legates charged with combating heresy in the south of France, but discouraged by their failures. Diego did not approve of the method followed by the legates and, in order to make the preaching of the true faith more effective, proposed to them that they set aside all outward display and prelatical pomp, so as to imitate in everything the apostolic manner.
To the counsel he added example. He sent back to Osma his entire retinue, keeping D. with him; and together with Peter of Castelnau and Rudolf, in the summer of 1206, as simple and poor preachers they held disputations at Servian, Béziers, Carcassonne and Montréal. Soon abandoned by Peter of Castelnau, Diego with D. and Rudolf continued to preach, also planning a foundation at Prouille. Having met with 12 Cistercian abbots who accompanied Abbot Arnald, Diego and D. instructed them on how to conduct themselves in the mission. But the imminent war of the Albigensians prevented the work of peaceful conversion. Diego meanwhile wished to return to his diocese to settle some of his affairs and to procure the money needed for the new house at Prouille, and at the end of 1207 he left France hoping to return there with the definitive approval of the Pope in order to organize there a group of able preachers against the heresy, but he died on 30 Dec. 1207. Rodolfo had preceded him in the tomb, and Peter of Castelnau was killed on 14 Jan. 1208. These deaths did not dishearten D., who multiplied his zeal precisely during the crusade against the heretics (1209-13).
He gave every support to the missionary station of Prouille and consolidated it with fixed revenues, which he obtained in part from his benefactor Count Simon of Montfort, the head of the army. At Prouille a congregation of "converted" women had established itself, which D. undertook to direct. The sisters added to the obligations of the regular life the instruction of young girls in the faith: Prouille thus had the appearance of a "double" monastery. D. did not tire of seeking revenues and protectors for it. In a period of difficult years and without notable outward successes, D. also held the "cure" in the dioceses of Toulouse, Carcassonne and Béziers; indeed, between 1213-14 he was vicar general of Carcassonne. Twice he declined the episcopal dignity offered to him.
IV. DIOCESAN PREACHER
After 14 September 1213 and the capture of Toulouse, he made that city the first center of the work of preaching which he sustained and promoted with such zeal (1214-15), favored by Bishop Foulques. From April 1215 he began to form in the apostolic spirit the companions who joined him, and he established the first convent of the Preachers. Bishop Foulques appointed D. and his companions diocesan preachers and had assigned to them the sixth part of all the tithes of his diocese to provide them "with books and sustenance."
When the Fourth Lateran Council was convened (1215), Bishop Foulques took D. with him to Rome. Having gathered his companions (1216), he chose with them the Rule of St. Augustine, and consequently the friars Preachers became part of the family of the Canons Regular. To D. and his companions was entrusted the church of S. Romano, free from parochial obligations and rights. In the month of August 1216 a humble dwelling near that church was accepted and the convent was formally erected, the relations of the Preachers toward the diocese remaining unchanged.
V. FOUNDER OF THE FRIARS PREACHERS
When Honorius III was elected, D. went at once to him to plead the cause of his Order, and on 22 Dec. 1216 the Pope, with the bull Religiosam vitam eligentibus, approved the canonical Order established at St. Romanus of Toulouse, without however alluding to its apostolic purpose, which was instead expressed in the bull Gratiarum omnium of 21 Jan. 1217 addressed "praedicatoribus in partibus tolosanis".
Taking leave of Card. Ugolino, who had become his special protector, D. left Rome in Feb. 1217 to return to Toulouse, where the brethren reported to him on the instability of the political situation in the South. In the uncertainty of Toulouse's public affairs, D. set about spreading the Order in various parts of Christendom. Therefore on 15 Aug. 1217 D. disposed of his friars: he sent 4 of them to Spain, 7 to Paris, for the care of souls and to make contact there with the university milieu, he left 2 at Toulouse and assigned 2 to Prouille. With a companion he returned to Rome to settle various points of the Order's constitutions at the Curia. First of all he sought to obtain for his work, already spread through Europe, the general confirmation, which he obtained on 11 Feb. 1218, in a bull in which the name of friars of the Order of Preachers appears for the first time.
In Feb. 1218 he sent his first friars to Bologna, and on the 30th of the following month he procured for the monastery of Prouille a "privilege" identical to the one previously granted to the convent of Toulouse.
Among his many successes D. also knew bitterness: 2 friars sent to Spain returned to him discouraged, and those of Paris and Bologna likewise found themselves in great difficulties. Furnished with letters of recommendation, on 26 Apr. 1218 D., passing through Bologna, went to Spain. In July 1219 he went on to Paris, where he admitted Henry the Elder of Cologne into the Order; then, with Friar William of Monserrat, he returned to the papal Curia, then at Viterbo. During the journey he fell ill. At Viterbo, at Rome and then again at Viterbo, from Feb. to Apr. 1220 he dispatched several matters concerning Paris and the revision of the constitutions. Probably in that year he met Francis of Assisi and Raymond of Peñafort at the Roman Curia. Honorius III entrusted him with the reform of certain nuns at Rome, and at the beginning of Dec. 1219 the same Pope gave D. the church and the building of St. Sixtus to receive the nuns to be reformed; there the Saint's first disciples lived temporarily, until they received the church of St. Sabina.
At Bologna, in the same year 1220, he held the General Chapter he had convoked, in which he restored the concept of poverty as he had understood it in the foundation of Toulouse in 1215, and abolished the title of abbot for superiors. The habit was reduced to a simpler form. New foundations were proposed. In the period between this Chapter and that of the following year 1221, D., with Friar Ventura of Verona, traveled through Lombardy, always attending to the ministry of the divine word.
In 1221 he was at Rome to finish there the reform of the nuns of St. Sixtus; for Pentecost (30 May) he took part at Bologna in the II General Chapter.
There he fell ill and, his condition worsening, he was carried to a fellow friar's cell, since he had none of his own. He refused the bed, preferring a straw pallet. So that he might breathe purer air, at the beginning of Aug. he was taken from St. Nicholas to the sanctuary of St. Mary of the Mount, where, having summoned his friars around him, he exhorted them one last time and wished to give them his spiritual testament. After the last Sacraments had been administered to him, the friars brought D. back into the city, where on Friday 6 Aug. 1221 he passed away serenely, promising his friars that he would be more useful to them after death than in life.
Card. Legate Ugolino performed the office of burial in the presence of many prelates gathered around him. His body was entombed behind the high altar, where it remained for some years almost forgotten. In 1233 the solemn translation took place, and various miracles occurred. After the apostolic process on his virtues and miracles, Gregory IX, on 3 July 1234, at Rieti, canonized the father of the Preachers, documenting this act in the bull Fons sapientiae. On 5 June 1267 the body of the holy founder was entombed in the artistic ark, still preserved today in St. Dominic's.
St. D. was distinguished not only by a rare lucidity of spirit, but also by a great organizational capacity which in a few years led him to give life to an institute and a movement that had very great weight in the internal and external affairs of the Church. The witnesses of the canonization process and the biographers, beginning with Bl. Jordan, affirm his fervor in preaching in churches, in communities and during travel, in sending preachers among the faithful and the infidel. Zeal for souls is the dominant note of the person and work of St. D. Dante weaves a sublime eulogy of him (Par., XII, 31-111).
Bibliography16 works
Angelo Walz
VI. ICONOGRAPHY
The image of the Saint, often depicted with a beard and in the habit of the Friars Preachers, is characterized by a star on his forehead, by a book sometimes open, and by a lily. He is often accompanied by a dog carrying a lighted torch in its mouth. The dog and the star are to be connected with the miraculous visions of his mother and his nurse.
The oldest representations of the Saint date back to the 13th century; we can point to examples on his tomb, in the Bolognese church dedicated to him, the work of Fra Guglielmo and Nicola Pisano (1265-67), in the mosaics of the basilica of St. Mark in Venice, and finally in a panel that is in Naples in S. Domenico Maggiore. Andrea da Firenze depicted him in the frescoes of the Cappellone degli Spagnoli in S. Maria Novella in Florence, and Beato Angelico in those of the chapter hall of the convent of S. Marco. His image is also very frequent in Renaissance sculpture, and Niccolò dell'Arca gave a veristic representation of him in polychrome terracotta in the church of S. Domenico in Bologna. Often represented together with the major saints of the Dominican Order, he also appears at the foot of the Virgin's throne in images of the Madonna of the Rosary, among which the most famous is that of Sassoferrato in S. Sabina in Rome, or in the act of assisting at the mystical marriage of St. Catherine. - See plates CVIII-CIX.
Bibliography2 works
Emilio Lavagnino