Saint Dominic was a Spanish priest, founder of a Roman Catholic order of friars popularly known as the Dominicans.
Background
Saint Dominic was born on 8 August 1170 at Calaruega, Spain. According to tradition he was the son of a knight of Visigothic blood, Felix de Guzmán, the commandant of a fortress on the borders of Moorish Spain. His mother, Jane of Aza, was a member of the Old Castilian nobility. It was at her pleading that the boy was permitted to join his two elder brothers in studying for the priesthood rather than to follow his father's military career.
Education
Dominic began his training with an uncle who was a priest in Gumiel d'Izan. Later he studied at the University of Palencia.
Career
After he was ordained a priest, he joined the cathedral canons of the city of Osma, who lived a community life under the rule of St. Augustine. When he was about 30, Dominic accompanied his bishop on several diplomatic missions in northern Europe. In the course of these travels he became aware of the religious ideas of the Albigensians, a Manichaean movement in southern France. This sect believed that the soul is good and the body is evil and that man must be purified and must not indulge in any physical pleasures.
The Pope had sent legates to counteract the movement, but with their sumptuous clothes, fine horses, and numerous attendants they only succeeded in reinforcing the Albigensians' beliefs. Dominic saw that the only way to preach orthodox doctrine effectively to these people was to be as poor as they were and to be thoroughly knowledgeable in Christian theology. He stayed in southern France for several years and, together with a small group of like-minded men, tried to put his ideas into practice by preaching, studying, praying, and living in poverty. After a papal crusade crushed the heretics, in 1215 Dominic and his group of 16 were welcomed by the bishop of Toulouse and established as the official preachers of that diocese. Dominic then went to Rome, where he obtained Pope Innocent III's approval for the establishment of a religious order dedicated to preaching and based on a deep knowledge of the Scriptures and Christian truth.
Until this time religious orders had been associated with monasteries, where men lived apart from the world and spent their time in prayer and physical work. But Dominic conceived of a group of men who would be dedicated primarily to preaching and thus to helping people in the mainstream of life. Living together in a city house, where they would pray and study, these men would be able to go wherever they were needed and would substitute study for the traditional manual labor of monks. In 1217 Dominic showed his confidence in the men who shared his ideal and scattered the little group of 16 around Europe. He sent some to Paris to study theology, some to Bologna to study law, and others to Rome and Madrid. Two stayed behind in Toulouse and two more in nearby Prouille.
Wherever they went, these men attracted others, and soon there were hundreds of followers of Dominic's ideal, many of them students and masters at universities. During the next 2 years Dominic traveled over 3,000 miles on foot, visiting and encouraging his men in Toulouse, Paris, Milan, Rome, and in Spain.
In 1220 the first meeting or general chapter of the friars took place in Bologna, and there it was decided that the order would have a representational system of government, with the friars in each house electing their superiors for fixed terms. These representatives met again in 1221 and divided the order geographically into provinces.
Shortly after this meeting Dominic died in Bologna in 1221.
Politics
Dominic's was one of the first democratic organizations in the Western world, basing its authority upon the vote; its rule was flexible enough to allow for situations unforeseeable in the 13th century.
Views
Around 1205, Dominic along Diego de Acebo began a program in the south of France, to convert the Cathars, a Christian religious sect with gnostic and dualistic beliefs, which the Roman Catholic Church deemed heretical. As part of this, Catholic-Cathar public debates were held at Verfeil, Servian, Pamiers, Montréal and elsewhere. Dominic concluded that only preachers who displayed real sanctity, humility and asceticism could win over convinced Cathar believers. However, even Dominic managed only a few converts among the Cathars.
What part Dominic personally had in the proceedings of the Medieval Inquisition has been disputed for centuries. The historical sources from Dominic’s own time period reveal nothing about his involvement in the Inquisition.
As one recent historian states, "Was Dominic the first of the inquisitors? The answer is categorically: By no means! Simple chronology suffices to resolve the problem: Dominic died in 1221, and the office of the Inquisition was not established until 1231 in Lombardy and 1234 in Languedoc." In fact, several early Dominicans did become inquisitors. But later on, the difference between Dominic and some of his early followers would be obscured. For example, in the 15th century, the Spanish Inquisition commissioned the artist Pedro Berruguete to depict Dominic presiding at an auto da fé. Thus, the Spanish inquisitors promoted a historical legend for the sake of auto-justification.
Reacting against the Spanish tribunals, 16th- and 17th-century Protestant polemicists gladly developed and perpetuated the legend of Dominic the Inquisitor. This image gave German Protestant critics of the Catholic Church an argument against the Dominican Order whose preaching had proven to be a formidable opponent in the lands of the Reformation. As Edward Peters notes, “In Protestant historiography of the sixteenth century a kind of anti-cult of St. Dominic grew up.”
Thus we see how Dominic the Inquisitor, the invention of Catholic and Protestant polemicists, became one of the most famous figures in the Black Legend.
Quotations:
"A man who governs his passions is master of his world. We must either command them or be enslaved by them. It is better to be a hammer than an anvil."
"One day, through the Rosary and the Scapular, Our Lady will save the world."
"Do not weep, for I shall be more useful to you after my death and I shall help you then more effectively than during my life."
"We must sow the seed, not hoard it."
Personality
Dominic's genius had several ingredients. He was a charismatic leader, able to evaluate a situation and act decisively. He had confidence in his own ideals and in the people who shared them. His mind was sharpened by study, but before he wrote, lectured, or preached, he turned to God in prayer.
Saint Dominic is the patron saint of astronomers, the Dominican Republic, and the innocent who are falsely accused of crimes. He is commonly depicted in icons with a dog, or lilies, holding a book. His hair always appears cut with a tonsure.
Quotes from others about the person
"Dominic loved everyone, so everyone loved him."