The founder of the Order of Preachers, otherwise known as the Dominican Friars, was born in about 1170 at Calaruega, a town in the Castile region of Spain.
Few facts are known about Dominic’s early life, other than
that he was educated at the University of Palencia and became a canon of the
cathedral at Osma and prior of the chapter in about 1201.
At about the same time he went to Denmark on a diplomatic
mission, accompanied by his bishop. Their route took them through the Languedoc
area of southern France, and Dominic thus became acquainted with the variety of
Catholicism being practised by the people in Albi and other cities in the
region.
Albigensianism was a heresy in that its followers adopted
beliefs that were contrary to the official line taken by mainstream Catholicism
and sanctioned by the Pope. Their general belief was that the worlds of spirit
and matter were entirely separate, with the former being created by God and the
latter by Satan. This led them to question the physical existence of Jesus as a
person, as opposed to a purely spiritual angelic being, such that the New
Testament accounts of Jesus could only be accepted as allegory.
The Albigensians were therefore anathema both to the Pope
and the civil authorities in France, whom the Albigensians regarded as unworthy
of obedience due to their worldly rather than spiritual existence.
Having completed their work in Denmark, Dominic and his
bishop journeyed to Rome, where they hoped to be sent on a mission to Russia.
However, Pope Innocent III was far more interested in sorting out the
Albigensians, and the pair was instructed to bring the heretics to heel.
Dominic was convinced that the best way to convert the heretics
was through patience, love and preaching, but that was not the method favoured by
the French crown or, as it turned out, the Pope. Instead, a fearsome “Albigensian
Crusade” was launched that employed extreme violence against the people living
in a number of towns and cities. At Beziers in 1209, for example, the entire
population was slaughtered, whether they were heretics or loyal Catholics.
Although he was powerless to stop the violence, Dominic remained
convinced that this was the wrong approach. Heresy would only be prevented, in his
view, through preaching and prayer, and he proposed to set up an order of
trained preachers who would travel among the people and depend on them for
their sustenance. The order was officially licenced by Pope Honorius III in
1216.
These men became known as “black friars” from the colour of
their robes, and Dominican friaries were established in many parts of Europe. By
the time that Geoffrey Chaucer was writing his Canterbury Tales in the late 14th
century, it was doubtless true that some friars had taken the instruction to
live off the alms of the poor as an excuse to extort as much wealth from them
as possible, but just how typical Chaucer’s friar was of his fellow Dominicans
is a matter of debate.
Dominic spent the rest of his life establishing friaries and
convents throughout Spain, France and Italy. A feature of these establishments
was their organisation along democratic lines, with elections to office and
regular consultations with the members.
Dominic died in 1221 and was canonised only thirteen years
later.
© John Welford
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