Juana de Aza is the name gradually developed in hagiographical tradition for the mother of Saint Dominic.
Background
In the earliest biography of Dominic, by Jordan of Saxony, Dominic"s parents are not named, but the story is told that before his birth his mother dreamed that a dog leapt from her womb carrying a torch in its mouth and set the world aflame.
Career
In the final form of this tradition, she is said to have been born in 1135 in Haza and to have died at Caleruega (Dominic"s birthplace) on 4 August 1205. Juana de Aza was beatified in 1828. When the two older boys were grown, she went to the Abbey church at Silos to pray for another son.
She is said to have had a dream in which Saint Dominic of Silos told her that she would have a son, who would be a shining light to the Church.
She decided to name the child Dominic. The boy was christened probably after Saint Dominic of Silas whose nearby shrine was a favorite of his mother.
Membership
Nearly a century after Dominic"s birth, a local author asserts that Dominic"s father was vir venerabilis et dives in populo suo ("an honoured and wealthy man in his village"). Later hagiographers, elaborating on this, gradually developed identities for his father, said to be a member of the local noble family Guzmán and for his mother, who was eventually attached to the neighbouring noble Aza family.