UMBERTO of ROMANS. - Fifth Master General of the Dominicans (from 1254 to 1263), born in Romans near Valence (Dauphiné) c. 1200, died in the convent of Valence on 14 July 1277.
He studied in Paris from 1215; already a master of arts, he entered the Dominicans in 1224. Lecturer in theology at the convent school in Lyon (1226), prior of the same convent (1236-39), he became provincial of Rome (1238-1242). Elected Master General of the Preachers in 1254, Umberto directed the Order during its golden age of preaching, foreign missions, conventual and university teaching, and the Inquisition; he presided over the Chapters of Buda, Milan, Paris, Florence, Toulouse, Valenciennes, Strasbourg, Barcelona, Bologna, and London. After the struggle waged against the Mendicants at the University of Paris (1252-56), a *ratio studiorum* for the Dominicans was established in 1259. Leaving the office of Master General in 1263, Umberto devoted the rest of his life to piety and spiritual and literary activity.
A particular glory of his generalship is the drafting of the unified Dominican liturgy, collected in the monumental *Ecclesiasticum Officium*, written in Paris (1254-61) on 500 sheets of parchment and preserved since 1841 in the Curia of the Order in Rome; the prototype consists of 14 liturgical books, as indicated on the title page. A portable and incomplete liturgical codex of Humbertian style is preserved in the British Museum in London.
Notable are Umberto’s commentaries on the Rule of St Augustine and on the early Dominican constitutions; the epistle on the three religious vows and the instructions on offices in the Order (ed. Berthier, *Opera*, vols. I-II). Around 1270 he composed a work on homiletic theory and sermons, by which he is esteemed the greatest homiletician of the 13th century (ed. in *Bibl. max.*, vol. XXV, Lyon 1677, pp. 426-567 [sermons]; Berthier, *Opera*, vol. II, pp. 373-484 [*De eruditione praedicatorum*]). Of great importance is his *Opus tripartitum*, a memorial for the work of the Second Council of Lyon in 1274, with proposals concerning Christendom and the Saracens and concerning ecclesiastical union and reform, based on observation and responsibility, valuable for the general and cultural history of the period (ed. P. Crabbe, *Concilia omnia*, vol. II, Cologne 1551, pp. 967-1003).
A learned man, Umberto possessed great qualities of governance and outstanding organizational gifts; he is also called Blessed.