Dominicans, an order of preaching friars founded at Toulouse in 1215 by Dominic de Guzman. Dominic was born in 1170 at Calahorra in Old
Castile, and studied at Palencia. Here he acquired a great name for piety and learning; so much so that in his twenty-fourth year his diocesan, the Bishop of Osma, made him a canon of his cathedral, and relied mainly on Dominic's aid in his design of reforming the whole chapter according to the rule of St Augustine. The young man led a life of rigorous asceticism, and devoted himself at the same time to missionary labours among Mohammedans and 'heretics.' In 1204 he accompanied his bishop on a political mission, and had to pass three times through the south of France. That part of the country was almost entirely peopled by Albigenses (q.v.), and the labours of papal legates and Cistercian abbots for their conversion had been all in vain. The turning-point of Dominic's life had come. He undertook the care of the work; he substituted poverty for the pretentious pomp, love for force. He travelled from place to place on foot, bearing St Paul's epistles in his hands and preaching everywhere. He continued his labours for ten years, gathered like-minded companions round him, whom he trained after his own heart, and for whom he founded the first house of his order at Toulouse. He also set up an asylum for women who had been heretics or were in danger from heretical influence, and this institution developed into an order of nuns. Unhappily, events occurred which have left a deep stain on the memory of the saint, and which have had an evil influence on the history of his order. Innocent III., incensed by the murder of his legate, Peter of Castelnau, called the barons of northern France, led by Simon of Montfort, to a crusade against the 'heretics.' Dominic in an evil hour became a consenting party to these cruelties, and lent himself to the degrading occupation of proving heresy against the poor victims of the crusade. In 1215 Dominic, now in high favour with ecclesiastical authority, went with Fulbo, Bishop of Toulouse, to the fourth Lateran Council. The council was averse to the foundation of new orders. Still Innocent III. promised approval, on condition that the new order adopted an old rule. Accordingly, Dominic chose the rule of St Augustine, borrowing some additional statutes from the Premonstratensians, and the required authorisation was given in the following year by Honorius III. A little later he became 'Master of the Sacred Palace,' an office which has continued hereditary in the order, as has happened also in the case of that association with the Inquisition which began with Dominic's stay at Toulouse. In 1220 the Dominicans, in imitation of their Franciscan brethren, adopted a poverty so rigid that not even the order as a corporation could hold houses or lands, and thus they forced themselves to become mendicants or beggars. Next year Dominic died. He had lived to see his order occupying sixty houses and divided into eight provinces. It had spread to England, where the first foundation was at Oxford, and where from their dress they were called Black Friars; to northern France, where their house of St James earned for them the name of Jacobins; to Italy, to Spain, to Austria. He was canonised in 1233 by his friend Gregory IX.; his festival falls on 4th August.
We have identified the Dominicans in general with the friars, and this is justified by ordinary language, but strictly speaking the friars are only the first order of St Dominic. They are bound by the usual solemn vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience; they are forbidden ever to eat flesh-meat; they rise in the middle of the night for prayer. They are subject to a general, elected, according to a recent enactment, for twelve years. Under him are the provincials, each of whom rules in a province; lastly, there are the priors of the individual houses. All these officers are elected by popular vote and for a limited term. Their constitutions were put into shape by Raymond of Pennafort, third general; but even since then great changes have been made, among which the permission to hold immovable property, initiated by Martin V., and extended by Sixtus IV. to the whole order in 1477, is especially noteworthy. The function of the order is indicated by their name, 'the order of preachers.' They are therefore missionaries in foreign lands and missionaries at home, and everywhere they have made the rosary, that somewhat mechanical devotion which was employed by Dominic among the Albigenses, popular in the Catholic world. They are the order which has concerned itself specially with the guardianship of the faith. The scholastic theology is almost the creation of great Dominicans, such as Albertus Magnus and Aquinas, and among their illustrious preachers was the martyr, Savonarola. They have been the favourite inquisitors, and a Dominican always presided over the infamies of the Spanish Inquisition. But their influence is now a thing of the past, except for the power still exerted by their great writers of the middle ages. The Jesuits have displaced them as teachers and preachers; though the fame of the order was revived for a time by the genius, the eloquence, and noble character of Lacordaire, who restored it to France. At present the order is chiefly engaged in preaching missions and retreats. They have several houses in the United Kingdom—e.g. at London, Newcastle, Woodchester, &c. They wear a dress of white wool, with a black mantle and pointed hood.
The second order consists of nuns, bound by solemn vows, and engaged to strict inclosure, perpetual abstinence from flesh-meat, &c. They were, as we have seen, instituted by St Dominic.
The Tertiaries or third order are said to have arisen from the 'militia of Jesus Christ,' drawn together by St Dominic to assist in resisting and persecuting the Albigenses. In their present form they are an imitation of a similar institution among the Franciscans. They are either people in the world, free to marry, but following certain ascetical rules; or else are women living as nuns in community under simple vows. They are also known as the Brothers and Sisters of Penance. See the Life of St Dominic, with Sketch of Dominican Order, by Archbishop Alemany; D'Anzas, Etudes sur l'Ordre de St Dominique (4 vols. 1874-76); and Miss Drane's History of St Dominic (1891).