Preachers, ORDER OF.—As the Order of the Friars Preachers is the principal part of the entire Order of St. Dominic, we shall include under this title the two other parts of the order: the Dominican Sisters (Second Order) and the Brothers of Penitence of St. Dominic (Third Order). First, we shall study the legislation of the three divisions of the order, and the nature of each. Secondly, we shall give an historical survey of the three branches of the order.
I. LEGISLATION AND NATURE
In its formation and development, the Dominican legislation as a whole is closely bound up with historical facts relative to the origin and progress of the order. Hence some reference to these is necessary, the more so as this matter has not been sufficiently studied. For each of the three groups, constituting the ensemble of the Order of St. Dominic, we shall examine: A. Formation of the Legislative Texts; B. Nature of the Order, resulting from legislation.
A. Formation of the Legislative Texts
In regard to their legislation the first two orders are closely connected, and must be treated together. The preaching of St. Dominic and his first companions in Languedoc led up to the pontifical letters of Innocent III, November 17, 1205 (Potthast, “Reg., Pont., Rom.”, 2912). They created for the first time in the Church of the Middle Ages the type of apostolic preachers, patterned upon the teaching of the Gospel. In the same year, Dominic founded the Monastery of Prouille, in the Diocese of Toulouse, for the women whom he had converted from heresy, and he made this establishment the center of union of his missions and of his apostolic works (Balme-Lelaidier, “Cartulaire ou Histoire Diplomatique de St. Dominic”, Paris, 1893, I, 130 sq.; Guiraud, “Cart. de Notre Dame de Prouille,” Paris, 1907, I, CCCXXsq). St. Dominic gave to the new monastery the Rule of St. Augustine, and also the special Institutions which regulated the life of the Sisters, and of the Brothers who lived near them, for the spiritual and temporal administration of the community. The Institutions are edited in Balme, “Cart.” II, 425; “Bull. Ord. Pried.”, VII, 410; Duellius, “Misc.”, bk. I (Augsburg, 1723), 169; “Urkundenbuch der Stadt.”, I (Fribourg, Leipzig, 1883), 605. On December 17, 1219, Honorius III, with a view to a general reform among the religious of the Eternal City, granted the monastery of the Sisters of St. Sixtus of Rome to St. Dominic, and the Institutions of Prouille were given to that monastery under the title of Institutions of the Sisters of St. Sixtus of Rome. With this designation they were granted subsequently to other monasteries and congregations of religious. It is also under this form that we possess the primitive Institutions of Prouille, in the editions already mentioned. St. Dominic and his companions, having received from Innocent III authorization to choose a rule, with a view to the approbation of their order, adopted in 1216, that of St. Augustine, and added thereto the “Consuetudines”, which regulated the ascetic and canonical life of the religious. These were borrowed in great part from the Constitutions of Premontre, but with some essential features, adapted to the purposes of the new Preachers, who also renounced private possession of property, but retained the revenues. The “Consuetudines” formed the first part (prima distinctio) of the primitive Constitutions of the order (Quetif-Echard, “Scriptores Ord. Pried.”, L 12-13; Denifle, “Archiv. fur Literatur and Kirchengeschichte”, I, 194; Balme, “Cart.”, II, 18). The order was solemnly approved, December 22, 1216. A first letter, in the style of those granted for the foundation of regular canons, gave the order canonical existence; a second determined the special vocation of the Order of Preachers as vowed to teaching and defending the truths of faith. “Nos attendentes fratres Ordinis tui futuros pugiles fidei et vera mundi lumina confirmamus Ordinem tuum” (Balme, “Cart.” II, 71,88; Potthast, 5402,5403). (Expecting the brethren of your order to be the champions of the Faith and true lights of the world, we confirm your order.)
On August 15, 1217, St. Dominic sent out his companions from Prouille. They went through France, Spain, and Italy, and established as principal centers, Toulouse, Paris, Madrid, Rome, and Bologna. Dominic, by constant journeyings, kept watch over these new establishments, and went to Rome to confer with the Sovereign Pontiff (Balme, “Cart.” II, 131; “Annales Ord. Pried.”, Rome, 1756, p. 411; Guiraud, “St. Dominic”, Paris, 1899, p. 95). In May, 1220, St. Dominic held at Bologna the first general chapter of the order. This assembly drew up the Constitutions, which are complementary to the “Consuetudines” of 1216 and form the second part (secunda distinctio). They regulated the organization and life of the order, and are the essential and original basis of the Dominican legislation. In this chapter, the Preachers also gave up certain elements of the canonical life; they relinquished all possessions and revenues, and adopted the practice of strict poverty; they rejected the title of abbey for the convents, and substituted the rochet of canons for the monastic scapular. The regime of annual general chapters was established as the regulative power of the order, and the source of legislative authority. (“Script. Ord. Pried.” I, 20; Denifle, “Archiv.”, I, 212; Balme, “Cart.”, III, 575). Now that the legislation of the Friars Preachers was fully established, the Rule of the Sisters of St. Sixtus was found to be very incomplete. The order, however, supplied what was wanting by compiling a few years after, the Statuta, which borrowed from the Constitutions of the Friars, whatever might be useful in a monastery of Sisters. We owe the preservation of these Statuta, as well as the Rule of St. Sixtus, to the fact that this legislation was applied in 1232 to the Penitent Sisters of St. Mary Magdalen in Germany, who observed it without further modification. The Statuta are edited in Duellius, “Misc.”, bk. I, 182. After the legislative work of the general chapters had been added to the Constitution of 1216-20, without changing the general ordinance of the primitive text, the necessity was felt, a quarter of a century later, of giving a more logical distribution to the legislation in its entirety. The great canonist, Raymond of Penaforte, on becoming master general of the order, devoted himself to this work. The general chapters, from 1239 to 1241, accepted the new text, and gave it the force of law. In this form it has remained to the present time as the official text, with some modification, however, in the way of suppressions and especially of additions due to later enactments of the general chapters. It was edited in Denifle, “Archiv.”, V, 553; “Acta Capitulorum Generalium”, I (Rome, 1898), II, 13, 18, in “Monum. Ord. Pried. Hist.”, bk. III.
The reorganization of the Constitutions of the Preachers called for a corresponding reform in the legislation of the Sisters. In his letter of August 27, 1257, Alexander IV ordered Humbert of Romans, the fifth master general, to unify the Constitutions of the Sisters. Humbert remodeled them on the Constitutions of the Brothers, and put them into effect at the General Chapter of Valenciennes, 1259. The Sisters were henceforth characterized as Sorores Ordinis Praedicatorum. The Constitutions are edited in “Analecta, Ord. Pried.” (Rome, 1897), 338; Finke, “Ungedruckte Dominicanerbriefe des 13 Jahrhunderts” (Paderborn, 1891), p. 53; “Litterie Encyclicie magistrorum generalium” (Rome, 1900), in “Mon. Ord. Pried. Hist.”, V, p. 513. To this legislation, the provincials of Germany, who had a large number of religious convents under their care, added certain admonitiones by way of completing and definitely settling the Constitutions of the Sisters. They seem to be the work of Herman of Minden, Provincial of Teutonia (1286-90). He drew up at first a concise admonition (Denifle, “Archiv.”, II, 549); then other series of admonitions, more important, which have not been edited (Rome, Archives of the Order, Cod. Ruten, 130-139). The legislation of the Friars Preachers is the firmest and most complete among the systems of law by which institutions of this sort were ruled in the thirteenth century. Hauck is correct in saying: “We do not deceive ourselves in considering the organization of the Dominican Order as the most perfect of all the monastic organizations produced by the Middle Ages” (“Kirchengeschichte Deutschlands”, part IV, Leipzig, 1902, p. 390). It is not then surprising that the majority of the religious orders of the thirteenth century should have followed quite closely the Dominican legislation, which exerted an influence even upon institutions very dissimilar in aim and nature. The Church considered it the typical rule for new foundations. Alexander IV thought of making the legislation of the Order of Preachers into a special rule known as that of St. Dominic, and for that purpose commissioned the Dominican cardinal, Hugh of St. Cher (February 3, 1255), but the project encountered many obstacles, and nothing came of it. (Potthast, n. 1566; Humberti de Romanis, “Opera de vita regulari”, ed., Berthier, I, Rome, 1888, p. 43).
B. Nature of the Order of Preachers
(1) Its Object
The canonical title of “Order of Preachers”, given to the work of St. Dominic by the Church, is in itself significant, but it indicates only the dominant feature. The Constitutions are more explicit: “Our order was instituted principally for preaching and for the salvation of souls.” The end or aim of the order then is the salvation of souls, especially by means of preaching. For the attainment of this purpose, the order must labor with the utmost zeal—”Our main efforts should be put forth, earnestly and ardently, in doing good to the souls of our fellowmen.”
(2) Its Organization
The aim of the order and the conditions of its environment determined the form of its organization. The first organic group is the convent, which may not be founded with less than twelve religious. At first only large convents were allowed and these were located in important cities (Mon. Ger. Hist.: SS. XXXII, 233, 236), hence the saying: Bernardus valles, montes Benedictus amabat, Oppida Franciscus, celebres Dominicus urbes. (Bernard loved the valleys, Benedict the mountains, Francis the towns, Dominic the populous cities).
The foundation and the existence of the convent required a prior as governor, and a doctor as teacher. The Constitution prescribes the dimensions of the church and the convent buildings, and these should be quite plain. But in the course of the thirteenth century the order erected large edifices, real works of art. The convent possesses nothing and lives on alms. Outside of the choral office (the Preachers at first had the title of canonici) their time is wholly employed in study. The doctor gives lectures in theology, at which all the religious, even the prior, must be present, and which are open to secular clerics. The religious vow themselves to preaching, both within and without the convent walls. The “general preachers” have the most extended powers. At the beginning of the order, the convent was called prcrdicatio, or sancta praedicatio. The convents divided up the territory in which they were established, and sent out on preaching tours religious who remained for a longer or shorter time in the principal places of their respective districts. The Preachers did not take the vow of stability, but could be sent from one locality to another. Each convent received novices, these, according to the Constitutions, must be at least eighteen years of age, but this rule was not strictly observed. The Preachers were the first among religious orders to suppress manual labor, the necessary work of the interior of the house being relegated to lay brothers called conversi, whose number was limited according to the needs of each convent. The prior was elected by the religious, and the doctor was appointed by the provincial chapter. The chapter, when it saw fit, relieved them from office.
The grouping of a certain number of convents forms the province, which is administered by a provincial prior, elected by the prior and two delegates from each convent. He is confirmed by the general chapter, or by the master general, who can also remove him when it is found expedient. He enjoys in his province the same authority as the master general in the order; he confirms the election of conventual priors, visits the province, sees to it that the Constitutions and the ordinances are observed and presides at the provincial chapters. The provincial chapter, which is held annually, discusses the interests of the province. It is composed of a provincial prior, priors from the convents, a delegate from each convent, and the general preachers. The capitulants (members of the chapter), choose from among themselves, four counsellors or assistants, who, with the provincial, regulate the affairs brought before the chapter. The chapter appoints those who are to visit annually each part of the province. The provinces taken together constitute the order, which has at its head a master general, elected by the provincial priors and by two delegates from each province. For a long time his position was for life; Pius VII (1804), reduced it to six years, and Pius IX (1862) fixed it at twelve years. At first the master general had no permanent residence; since the end of the fourteenth century, he has lived usually at Rome. He visits the order, holds it to the observance of the laws, and corrects abuses. In 1509, he was granted two associates (socii); in 1752, four; in 1910, five. The general chapter is the supreme authority within the order. From 1370, it was held every two years; from 1553, every three years; from 1625, every six years. In the eighteenth and at the beginning of the nineteenth century, chapters were rarely held. At present they take place every three years. From 1228, for two years in succession, the general chapter was composed of definitors or delegates from the provinces, each province sending one delegate; the following year it was held by the provincial priors. The chapter promulgates new constitutions, but to become law they must be accepted by three constitutive chapters. The chapter deals with all the general concerns of the order, whether administrative or disciplinary. It corrects the master general, and in certain cases can depose him. From 1220 to 1244, the chapters were held alternately at Bologna and Paris; subsequently, they passed round to all the principal cities of Europe. The generalissimo chapter acknowledged by the Constitution and composed of two definitors from each province, also of provincials, i.e. equivalent to three consecutive general chapters, was held only in 1228 and 1236. The characteristic feature of government is the elective system which prevails throughout the order. “Such was the simple mechanism which imparted to the Order of Friars Preachers a powerful and regular movement, and secured them for a long time a real preponderance in Church and in State” (Delisle, “Notes et extraits des mss. de la Bibl. Nat.”, Paris, xxvii, 1899, 2nd part, p. 312. See the editions of the Constitutions mentioned above: “Const. Ord. Fr. Prd.”, Paris, 1888; “Acta Capit. Gen. Ord. Fr. Praed.”, ed., Reichert, Rome, 1898, sq, 9 vole,; Lo Cicero, Const., “Declar. et Ord. Capit. Gen. O.P.”, Rome, 1892; Humberti de Romanis, “Opera de vita regulari”, ed. Berthier, Rome, 1888; Reichert, “Feier and Geschaftsordung der provincialkapitel des Dominikanerordens im 13 Jahrhundert” in “Romische Quart.”, 1903, p. 101).
(3) Forms of its Activity
The forms of life or activity of the Order of Preachers are many, but they are all duly subordinated. The order assimilated the ancient forms of the religious life, the monastic and the canonical, but it made them subservient to the clerical and the apostolic life which are its peculiar and essential aims. The Preachers adopted from the monastic life the three traditional vows of obedience, chastity, and poverty; to them they added the ascetic element known as monastic observances; perpetual abstinence, fasting from September 14 until Easter and on all the Fridays throughout the year, the exclusive use of wool for clothing and for the bed, a hard bed, and a common dormitory, silence almost perpetual in their houses, public acknowledgment of faults in the chapter, a graded list of penitential practices, etc. The Preachers, however, did not take these observances directly from the monastic orders but from the regular canons, especially the reformed canons, who had already adopted monastic rules. The Preachers received from the regular canons the choral Office for morning and evening, but chanted quickly. They added, on certain days, the Office of the Holy Virgin, and once a week the Office of the Dead. The habit of the Preachers, as of the regular canons, is a white tunic and a black cloak. The rochet, distinctive of the regular canons, was abandoned by the Preachers at the General Chapter of 1220, and replaced by the scapular. At the same time they gave up various canonical customs, which they had retained up to that period. They suppressed in their order the title of abbot for the head of the convent, and rejected all property, revenues, the carrying of money on their travels, and the use of horses. The title even of canon which they had borne from the beginning tended to disappear about the middle of the thirteenth century, and the General Chapters of 1240-1251 substituted the word clericus for canonicus in the article of the Constitutions relating to the admission of novices; nevertheless, the designation, “canon” still occurs in some parts of the Constitutions. The Preachers, in fact, are primarily and essentially clerics. The pontifical letter of foundation said: “These are to be the champions of the Faith and the true lights of the world.” This could apply only to clerics. The Preachers consequently made study their chief occupation, which was the essential means, with preaching and teaching as the end. The apostolic character of the order was the complement of its clerical character. The Friars had to vow themselves to the salvation of souls through the ministry of preaching and confession, under the conditions set down by the Gospel and by the example of the Apostles: ardent zeal, absolute poverty, and sanctity of life.
The ideal Dominican life was rich in the multiplicity and choice of its elements, and was thoroughly unified by its well-considered principles and enactments; but it was none the less complex, and its full realization was difficult. The monastic-canonical element tended to dull and paralyze the intense activity demanded by a clerical-apostolic life. The legislators warded off the difficulty by a system of dispensations, quite peculiar to the order. At the head of the Constitutions the principle of dispensation appears jointly with the very definition of the order’s purpose, and is placed before the text of the laws to show that it controls and tempers their application. “The superior in each convent shall have authority to grant dispensations whenever he may deem it expedient, especially in regard to what may hinder study, or preaching, or the profit of souls, since our order was originally established for the work of preaching and the salvation of souls”, etc. The system of dispensation thus broadly understood, while it favored the most active element of the order, displaced, but did not wholly eliminate, the difficulty. It created a sort of dualism in the interior life, and permitted an arbitrariness that might easily disquiet the conscience of the religious and of the superiors. The order warded off this new difficulty by declaring in the generalissimo chapter of 1236, that the Constitutions did not oblige under pain of sin, but under pain of doing penance (Acta Cap. Gen. I, 8.) This measure, however, was not heartily welcomed by everyone in the order (Humberti de Romanis, Op., II, 46), nevertheless it stood.
This dualism produced on one side, remarkable apostles and doctors, on the other, stern ascetics and great mystics. At all events the interior troubles of the order grew out of the difficulty of maintaining the nice equilibrium which the first legislators established, and which was preserved to a remarkable degree during the first century of the order’s existence. The logic of things and historical circumstances frequently disturbed this equilibrium. The learned and active members tended to exempt themselves from monastic observance, or to moderate its strictness; the ascetic members insisted on the monastic life, and in pursuance of their aim, suppressed at different times the practice of dispensation, sanctioned as it was by the letter and the spirit of the Constitutions [“Const. Ord. Prwd.”, passim; Denifle, “Die Const. des Predigerordens” in “Archie. f. Litt. u. Kirchengesch”, I, 165; Mandonnet, “Les Chanoines—Precheurs de Bologne d’apres Jacques de Vitry” in “Archives de la societe d’histoire du canton de Fribourg”, bk. VIII, 15; Lacordaire, “Memoire pour la restauration des Freres Precheurs dans la Chretiente”, Paris, 1852; P. Jacob, “Memoires sur la canonicite de l’institut de St. Dominic”, Beziers, 1750, tr. into Italian under the title; “Difesa del canonicato dei FF. Predicatori”, Venice, 1758; Laberthoni, “Expose de l’etat, du regime, de la legislation et des obligations des Freres Precheurs”, Versailles, 1767 (new ed., 1872)].
(4) Nature of the Order of the Dominican Sisters
We have indicated above the various steps by which the legislation of the Dominican Sisters was brought into conformity with the Constitutions of Humbert of Romans (1259). The primitive type of religious established at Prouille in 1205 by St. Dominic was not affected by successive legislation. The Dominican Sisters are strictly cloistered in their monasteries; they take the three religious vows, recite the canonical Hours in choir and engage in manual labor. The eruditio litterarum inscribed in the Institutions of St. Sixtus disappeared from the Constitutions drawn up by Humbert of Romans. The ascetic life of the Sisters is the same as that of the Friars. Each house is governed by a prioress, elected canonically, and assisted by a sub-prioress, a mistress of novices, and various other officers. The monasteries have the right to hold property in common; they must be provided with an income sufficient for the existence of the community; they are independent and are under the jurisdiction of the provincial prior, the master general, and of the general chapter. A subsequent paragraph will deal with the various phases of the question as to the relation existing between the Sisters and the Order of Preachers. Whilst the Institutions of St. Sixtus provided a group of brothers, priests, and lay servants for the spiritual and temporal administration of the monastery, the Constitutions of Humbert of Romans were silent on these points. (See the legislative texts relating to the Sisters mentioned above.)
(5) The Third Order
St. Dominic did not write a rule for the Tertiaries, for reasons which are given further on in the historical sketch of the Third Order. However, a large body of the laity, vowed to piety, grouped themselves about the rising Order of Preachers, and constituted, to all intents and purposes, a Third Order. In view of this fact and of some circumstances to be noted later on, the seventh master general of the order, Munio de Zamora, wrote (1285) a rule for the Brothers and Sisters of Penitence of St. Dominic. The privilege granted the new fraternity, January 28, 1286, by Honorius IV, gave it a canonical existence (Potthast, 22358). The rule of Munio was not entirely original; some points being borrowed from the Rule of the Brothers of Penitence, whose origin dates back to St. Francis of Assisi; but it was distinctive on all essential points. It is in a sense more thoroughly ecclesiastical; the Brothers and Sisters are grouped in different fraternities; their government is immediately subject to ecclesiastical authority; and the various fraternities do not form a collective whole, with legislative chapters, as was the case among the Brothers of Penitence of St. Francis. The Dominican fraternities are local and without any bond of union other than that of the Preaching Brothers who govern them. Some characteristics of these fraternities may be gathered from the Rule of Munio de Zamora. The Brothers and Sisters, as true children of St. Dominic, should be, above all things, truly zealous for the Catholic Faith. Their habit is a white tunic, with black cloak and hood, and a leathern girdle. After making profession, they cannot return to the world, but may enter other authorized religious orders. They recite a certain number of Paters and Aves, for the canonical Hours; receive communion at least four times a year, and must show great respect to the ecclesiastical hierarchy. They fast during Advent, Lent, and on all the Fridays during the year, and eat meat only three days in the week, Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday. They are allowed to carry arms only in defense of the Christian Faith. They visit sick members of the community, give them assistance if necessary, attend the burial of Brothers or Sisters and aid them with their prayers. The head or spiritual director is a priest of the Order of Preachers, whom the Tertiaries select and propose to the master general or to the provincial; he may act on their petition or appoint some other religious. The director and the older members of the fraternity choose the prior or prioress, from among the Brothers and Sisters, and their office continues until they are relieved. The Brothers and the Sisters have, on different days, a monthly reunion in the church of the Preachers, when they attend Mass, listen to an instruction, and to an explanation of the rule. The prior and the director can grant dispensations; the rule, like the Constitutions of the Preachers, does not oblige under pain of sin.
The text of the Rule of the Brothers of the Penitence of St. Dominic is in “Regula S. Augustini et Constitutiones FF. Ord. Praed.” (Rome, 1690), 2nd pt., p. 39; Federici, “Istoria dei cavalieri dent” (Venice, 1787), bk. II, cod. diplomat., p. 28; Mandonnet, “Les regles et le gouvernement de l’Ordo de Poenitentia au XIIIe siecle” (Paris, 1902); Mortier, “Histoire des Maltres Generaux des Freres Precheurs”, II (Paris, 1903), 220.
II. HISTORY OF THE ORDER
The Friars Preachers.—Their history may be divided into three periods: (1) The Middle Ages (from their foundation to the beginning of the sixteenth century); (2) The Modern Period up to the French Revolution; (3) The Contemporaneous Period. In each of these periods we shall examine the work of the order in its various departments.
A. The Middle Ages
The thirteenth century is the classic age of the order, the witness to its brilliant development and intense activity. This last is manifested especially in the work of teaching. By preaching it reached all classes of Christian society, fought heresy, schism, paganism, by word and book, and by its missions to the north of Europe, to Africa, and Asia, passed beyond the frontiers of Christendom. Its schools spread throughout the entire Church; its doctors wrote monumental works in all branches of knowledge, and two among them, Albertus Magnus, and especially Thomas Aquinas, founded a school of philosophy and theology which was to rule the ages to come in the life of the Church. An enormous number of its members held offices in Church and State—as popes, cardinals, bishops, legates, inquisitors, confessors of princes, ambassadors, and paciarii (enforcers of the peace decreed by popes or councils). The Order of Preachers, which should have remained a select body, developed beyond bounds and absorbed some elements unfitted to its form of life. A period of relaxation ensued during the fourteenth century owing to the general decline of Christian society. The weakening of doctrinal activity favored the development here and there of the ascetic and contemplative life and there sprang up, especially in Germany and Italy, an intense and exuberant mysticism with which the names of Master Eckhart, Suso, Tauler, St. Catherine of Siena are associated. This movement was the prelude to the reforms undertaken, at the end of the century, by Raymond of Capua, and continued in the following century. It assumed remarkable proportions in the congregations of Lombardy and of Holland, and in the reforms of Savonarola at Florence. At the same time the order found itself face to face with the Renaissance. It struggled against pagan tendencies in Humanism, in Italy through Dominici and Savonarola, in Germany through the theologians of Cologne; but it also furnished Humanism with such advanced writers as Francis Colonna (Poliphile) and Matthew Brandello. Its members, in great numbers, took part in the artistic activity of the age, the most prominent being Fra Angelico and Fra Bartolomeo.
(a) Development and Statistics
When St. Dominic, in 1216, asked for the official recognition of his order, the first Preachers numbered only sixteen. At the general Chapter of Bologna, 1221, the year of St. Dominic’s death, the order already counted some sixty establishments, and was divided into eight provinces: Spain, Provence, France, Lombardy, Rome, Teutonia, England, and Hungary. The Chapter of 1228 added four new provinces: the Holy Land, Greece, Poland, and Dacia (Denmark and Scandinavia). Sicily was separated from Rome (1294), Aragon from Spain (1301). In 1303 Lombardy was divided into Upper and Lower Lombardy; Provence into Toulouse and Provence; Saxony was separated from Teutonia, and Bohemia from Poland, thus forming eighteen provinces. The order, which in 1277 counted 404 convents of Brothers, in 1303 numbered nearly 600. The development of the order reached its height during the Middle Ages; new houses were established during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, but in relatively small numbers. As to the number of religious only approximate statements can be given. In 1256, according to the concession of suffrages granted by Humbert of Romans to St. Louis, the order numbered about 5000 priests; the clerks and lay brothers could not have been less than 2000. Thus towards the middle of the thirteenth century, it must have had about 7000 members (de Laborde, “Layette du tresor des chartes”, Paris, 1875, III, 304). According to Sebastien de Olmeda, the Preachers, as shown by the census taken under Benedict XII, were close on to 12,000 in 1337. (Fontana, “Monumenaa Dominicana”, Rome, 1674, pp. 207-8). This number was not surpassed at the close of the Middle Ages; the Great Plague of 1348, and the general state of Europe preventing a notable increase. The reform movement begun in 1390 by Raymond of Capua established the principle of a twofold arrangement in the order. For a long time, it is true, the reformed convents were not separated from their respective provinces; but with the foundation of the congregation of Lombardy, in 1459, a new order of things began. The congregations were more or less self-governing, and, according as they developed, overlapped several provinces and even several nations. There were established successively the congregations of Portugal (1460), Holland (1464), Aragon, and Spain (1468), St. Mark in Florence (1493), France (1497), the Gallican (1514). About the same time some new provinces were also established: Scotland (1481), Ireland (1484), Betique or Andalusia (1514), Lower Germany (1515). (Quetif-Echard, “Script. Ord. Praed.”, I, p. 1-15; “Anal. Ord. Praed.”, 1893, passim; Mortier, “Hist. des Maltres Generaux”, I-V, passim).
(b) Administration
The Preachers possessed a number of able administrators among their masters general during the Middle Ages, especially in the thirteenth century. St. Dominic, the creator of the institution (1206-1221), showed a keen intelligence of the needs of the age. He executed his plans with sureness of insight, firmness of resolution, and tenacity of purpose. Jordan of Saxony (1222-1237) sensitive, eloquent, and endowed with rare powers of persuasion, attracted numerous and valuable recruits. St. Raymond of Penaforte (1238-1240), the greatest canonist of the age, ruled the order only long enough to reorganize its legislation. John the Teuton (1241-1252), bishop and linguist, who was associated with the greatest personalities of his time, pushed the order forward along the line of development outlined by its founder. Humbert of Romans (1254-1263), a genius of the practical sort, a broadminded and moderate man, raised the order to the height of its glory, and wrote manifold works, setting forth what, in his eyes, the Preachers and Christian society ought to be. John of Vercelli (1264-1283), an energetic and prudent man, during his long government maintained the order in all its vigor. The successors of these illustrious masters did their utmost in the discharge of their duty, and in meeting the situations which the state of the Church and of society from the close of the thirteenth century rendered more and more difficult. Some of them did no more than hold their high office, while others had not the genius of the masters general of the golden age [Balme-Lelaidier, “Cart. de St. Dominic”; Guiraud, “St. Dominic” (Paris, 1899); Mothon, “Vie du B. Jourdain de Saxe” (Paris, 1885); Reichert, “Das Itinerar des zweiten Dominikaner-generals Jordanis von Sachsen” in “Festschrift des Deutschen Campo Santo in Rom” (Freiburg, 1897), 153; Mothon, “Vita del B. Giovanini da Vercelli” (Vercelli, 1903); Mortier, “Histoire des Maltres Generaux”, I-V]. The general chapters which wielded supreme power were the great regulators of the Dominican life during the Middle Ages. They are usually remarkable for their spirit of decision, and the firmness with which they ruled. They appeared even imbued with a severe character which, taking no account of persons, bore witness to the importance they attached to the maintenance of discipline. (See the Acta Cap. Gen. already referred to.)
(c) Modification of the Statute
We have already spoken of the chief exception to be taken to the Constitution of the order, the difficulty of maintaining an even balance between the monastic and canonical observances and the clerical and apostolical life. The primitive regime of poverty, which left the convents without an assured income, created also a permanent difficulty. Time and the modifications of the state of Christian society exposed these weak points. Already the General Chapters of 1240-1242 forbade the changing of the general statutes of the order, a measure which would indicate at least a hidden tendency towards modification (Acta, I, p. 14-20). Some change seems to have been contemplated also by the Holy See when Alexander IV, February 4, 1255, ordered the Dominican cardinal, Hugh of Saint Cher, to recast the entire legislation of the Preachers into a rule which should be called the Rule of St. Dominic (Potthast, 156-69). Nothing came of the project, and the question was broached again about 1270 (Humberti de Romanis, “Opera”, I, p. 43). It was during the pontificate of Benedict XII, (1334-1342), who undertook a general reform of the religious orders, that the Preachers were on the point of undergoing serious modifications in the secondary elements of their primitive statute. Benedict, desiring to give the order greater efficiency, sought to impose a regime of property-holding as necessary to its security, and to reduce the number of its members (12,000) by eliminating the unfit etc.; in a word, to lead the order back to its primitive concept of a select apostolic and teaching body. The order, ruled at that time by Hugh de Vansseman (1333-41), resisted with all its strength (1337-40). This was a mistake (Mortier, op. cit., III, 115). As the situation grew worse, the order was obliged to petition Sixtus IV for the right to hold property, and this was granted June 1, 1475. Thence forward the convents could acquire property, and perpetual rentals (Mortier, IV, p. 495). This was one of the causes which quickened the vitality of the order in the sixteenth century.
The reform projects of Benedict XII having failed, the master general, Raymond of Capua (1390), sought to restore the monastic observances which had fallen into decline. He ordered the establishment in each province of a convent of strict observance, hoping that as such houses became more numerous, the reform would eventually permeate the entire province. This was not usually the case. These houses of the observance formed a confederation among themselves under the jurisdiction of a special vicar. However, they did not cease to belong to their original province in certain respects, and this naturally gave rise to numerous conflicts of government. During the fifteenth century, several groups made up congregations, more or less autonomous; these we have named above in giving the statistics of the order. The scheme of reform proposed by Raymond and adopted by nearly all who subsequently took up with his ideas, insisted on the observance of the Constitutions ad unguem, as Raymond, without further explanation, expressed it. By this, his followers, and, perhaps Raymond himself, understood the suppression of the rule of dispensation which governed the entire Dominican legislation. “In suppressing the power to grant and the right to accept dispensation, the reformers inverted the economy of the order, setting the part above the whole, and the means above the end” (Lacordaire, “Memoire pour la restauration des Freres Precheurs dans la chretienite”, new ed., Dijon, 1852, p. 18). The different reforms which originated within the order up to the nineteenth century, began usually with principles of asceticism, which exceeded the letter and the spirit of the original constitutions. This initial exaggeration was, under pressure of circumstances, toned down, and the reforms which endured, like that of the congregation of Lombardy, turned out to be the most effectual. Generally speaking, the reformed communities slackened the intense devotion to study prescribed by the Constitutions; they did not produce the great doctors of the order, and their literary activity was directed preferably to moral theology history subjects of piety, and asceticism. They gave to the fifteenth century many holy men (Thomae Antonii Senesis, “Historia disciplinae regularis instauratae in Coenobiis Venetis Ord. Praed.” in Fl. Cornelius, “Ecclesiae Venetw”, VII, 1749, p. 167; BI. Raymond of Capua, “Opuscula et Litter”, Rome, 1899; Meyer, “Buch der Reformacio Predigerordens” in “Quellen and rschungen zur Geschichte des Dominikanerordens in Deutschland”, II, III, Leipzig, 1908-9; Mortier, “Hist. des Maltres Generaux”, III, IV).
(d) Preaching and Teaching
Independently of their official title of Order of Preachers, the Roman Church especially delegated the Preachers to the office of preaching. It is in fact the only order of the Middle Ages which the popes declared to be specially charged with this office (Bull. Ord. Pried. VIII, p. 768). Conformably to its mission, the order displayed an enormous activity. The “Vitae Fratrum” (1260) (Lives of the Brothers) informs us that many of the brothers refused food until they had first announced the Word of God (op. cit., p. 150). In his circular letter (1260), the Master General Humbert of Romans, in view of what had been accomplished by his religious, could well make the statement: “We teach the people, we teach the prelates, we teach the wise and the unwise, religious and seculars, clerics and laymen, nobles and peasants, lowly and great.” (Monum. Ord. Pried. Historia, V, p. 53). Rightly, too, it has been said: “Science on one hand, numbers on the other, placed them [the Preachers] ahead of their competitors in the thirteenth century” (Lecoy de la Marche, “La chaire frangaise au Moyen Age”, Paris, 1886, p. 31). The order maintained this supremacy during the entire Middle Ages (L. Pfleger, “Zur Geschichte des Predigtwesens in Strasburg”, Strasburg, 1907, p. 26; F. Jostes, “Zur Geschichte der Mittelalterlichen Predigt in Westfalen”, Munster, 1885, p. 10). During the thirteenth century, the Preachers in addition to their regular apostolate, worked especially to lead back to the Church heretics and renegade Catholics. An eyewitness of their labors (1233) reckons the number of their converts in Lombardy at more than 100,000 (“Annales Ord. Pried.”, Rome, 1756, col. 128). This movement grew rapidly, and the witnesses could scarcely believe their eyes, as Humbert of Romans (1255) informs us (Opera, II, p. 493). At the beginning of the fourteenth century, a celebrated pulpit orator, Giordano da Rivalto, declared that, owing to the activity of the order, heresy had almost entirely disappeared from the Church (“Prediche del Beato Fra Giordano da Rivalto”, Florence, 1831, I, p. 239).
The Friars Preachers were especially authorized by the Roman Church to preach crusades, against the Saracens in favor of the Holy Land, against Livonia and Prussia, and against Frederick II, and his successors (Bull. O.P., XIII, p. 637). This preaching assumed such importance that Humbert of Romans composed for the purpose a treatise entitled, “Tractatus de priedicatione contra Saracenos infideles et paganos” (Tract on the preaching of the Cross against the Saracens, infidels and pagans). This still exists in its first edition in the Paris Bibliotheque Mazarine, incunabula, no. 259; Lecoy de la Marche! “La predication de la Croisade au XIIIe siecle” n “Rev. des questions historiques”, 1890, p. 5). In certain provinces, particularly in Germany and Italy, the Dominican preaching took on a peculiar quality, due to the influence of the spiritual direction which the religious of these provinces gave to the numerous convents of women confided to their care. It was a mystical preaching; the specimens which have survived are in the vernacular, and are marked by simplicity and strength (Denifle, “fiber die Anfange der Predigtweise der deutschen Mystiker” in “Archiv. f. Litt. u. Kirchengesch”, II, p. 641; Pfeiffer, “Deutsche Mystiker des vierzehnten Jahr-hundert”, Leipzig, 1845; Wackernagel, “Altdeutsche Predigten and Gebete aus Handschriften”, Basle, 1876). Among these preachers may be mentioned: St. Dominic, the founder and model of preachers (d. 1221); Jordan of Saxony (d. 1237) (Lives of the Brothers, pts. II, III); Giovanni di Vincenza, whose popular eloquence stirred Northern Italy during the year 1233—called the Age of the Alleluia (Sitter, “Johann von Vincenza and die Italiensche Friedensbewegung”, Freiburg, 1891); Giordano da Rivalto, the foremost pulpit orator in Tuscany at the beginning of the fourteenth century [d. 1311 (Galletti, “Fra Giordano da Pisa“, Turin, 1899)]; Johann Eckhart of Hochheim (d. 1327), the celebrated theorist of the mystical life (Pfeiffer, “Deutsche Mystiker”, II, 1857; Buttner, “Meister Eckharts Schriften and Predigten”, Leipzig, 1903); Henri Suso (d. 1366), the poetical lover of Divine wisdom (Bihlmeyer, “Heinrich Seuse Deutsche Schriften”, Stuttgart, 1907); Johann Tauler (d. 1361), the eloquent moralist (“Johanns Taulers Predigten”, ed. T. Harnberger, Frankfort, 1864); Venturino ca Bergamo (d. 1345), the fiery popular agitator (Clementi, “Un Santo Patriota, Il B. Venturino da Bergamo”, Rome, 1909); Jacopo Passavanti (d. 1357), the noted author of the “Mirror of Penitence” (Carmini di Pierro, “Contributo alla Biografia di Fra Jacopo Passavanti” in “Giornale storico della letterat ura italiana”, XLVII, 1906, p. 1); Giovanni Dominici (d. 1419), the beloved orator of the Florentines (Gallette, “Una Raccolta di Prediche volgari del Cardinale Giovanni Dominici” in “Miscellanea di studi critici publicati in onore di G. Mazzoni”, Florence, 1907, I); Alain de la Roche (d. 1475), the Apostle of the Rosary (Script. Ord. Pried., I, p. 849); Savonarola (d. 1498), one of the most powerful orators of all times (Luotto, “Il vero Savonarola”, Florence, p. 68).
(e) Academic Organization
The first order instituted by the Church with an academic mission was the Preachers. The decree of the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) requiring the appointment of a master of theology for each cathedral school had not been effectual. The Roman Church and St. Dominic met the needs of the situation by creating a religious order vowed to the teaching of the sacred sciences. To attain their purpose, the Preachers from 1220 laid down as a fundamental principle, that no convent of their order could be founded without a doctor (Const., Dist. II, cog. I). From their first foundation, the bishops, likewise, welcomed them with expressions like those of the Bishop of Metz (April 22, 1221): “Cohabitatio ipsorum non tantum laicis in priedicationibus, sed et clericis in sacris lectionibus esset plurimum profutura, exemplo Domini Papie, qui eis Romie domum contulit, et multorum archiepiscoporum as episcoporum” etc. (Annales Ord. Pried., I, append., col. 71). (Association with them would be of great value not only to laymen by their preaching, but also to the clergy by their lectures on sacred science, as it was to the Lord Pope who gave them their house at Rome, and to many archbishops and bishops.) This is the reason why the second master general, Jordan of Saxony, defined the vocation of the order: “honeste vivere, discere et docere”, i.e. upright living, learning and teaching (Vitie Fratrum, p. 138); and one of his successors, John the Teuton, declared that he was “ex ordine Praedicatorum, quorum proprium esset docendi munus” (Annales, p. 644). (Of the Order of Preachers, whose proper function was to teach.) In pursuit of this aim the Preachers established a very complete and thoroughly organized scholastic system, which has caused a writer of our own times to say that “Dominic was the first minister of public instruction in modern Europe” (Larousse, “Grand Dictionnaire Universel du XIXe Siecle”, s.v. Dominic).
The general basis of teaching was the conventual school. It was attended by the religious of the convent, and by clerics from the outside; the teaching was public. The school was directed by a doctor, called later, though not in all cases, lector. His principal subject was the text of Holy Scripture, which he interpreted, and in connection with which he treated theological questions. The “Sentences” of Peter Lombard, the “History” of Peter Comestor, the “Sum” of cases of conscience, were also, but secondarily, used as texts. In the large convents, which were not called studia generalia, but were in the language of the times studia solemnia, the teaching staff was more complete. There was a second master or sub-lector, or a bachelor, whose duty it was to lecture on the Bible and the “Sentences”. This organization somewhat resembled that of the studia generalia. The head master held public disputations every fortnight. Each convent possessed a magister studentium, charged with the superintendence of the students, and usually an assistant teacher. These masters were appointed by the provincial chapters, and the visitors were obliged to report each year to the chapter on the condition of academic work. Above the conventual schools were the studia generalia. The first studium generate which the order possessed was that of the Convent of St. Jacques at Paris. In 1229 they obtained a chair incorporated with the university and another in 1231. Thus the Preachers were the first religious order that took part in teaching at the University of Paris, and the only one possessing two schools. In the thirteenth century the order did not recognize any mastership of theology other than that received at Paris. Usually the masters did not teach for any length of time. After receiving their degrees, they were assigned to different schools of the order throughout the world. The schools of St. Jacques at Paris were the principal scholastic centers of the Preachers during the Middle Ages.
In 1248 the development of the order led to the erection of four new studia generalia—at Oxford, Cologne, Montpellier, and Bologna. When at the end of the thirteenth and the beginning of the fourteenth century several provinces of the order were divided, other studia were established at Naples, Florence, Genoa, Toulouse, Barcelona, and Salamanca. The studium generate was conducted by a master or regent, and two bachelors who taught under his direction. The master taught the text of the Holy Scriptures with commentaries. The works of Albert the Great and St. Thomas Aquinas show us the nature of these lessons. Every fifteen days the master held a debate upon a theme chosen by himself. To this class of exercises belong the “Quaestiones Disputat” of St. Thomas, while his “Quaestiones Quodlibeticae” represent extraordinary disputations which took place twice a year during Advent and Lent, and whose subject was proposed by the auditors. One of the bachelors read and commentated the Book of Sentences. The commentaries of Albert and Thomas Aquinas on the Lombard are the fruit of their two-year baccalaureate course as sententiarii. The biblicus lectured on the Scriptures for one year before becoming a sententiarius. He did not commentate, but read and interpreted the glosses which preceding ages had added to the Scriptures for a better understanding of the text. The professors of the studia generalia were appointed by the general chapters, or by the master general, delegated for that purpose. Those who were to teach at Paris were taken indiscriminately from the different provinces of the order.
The conventual schools taught only the sacred sciences, i.e. Holy Scripture and theology. At the beginning of the thirteenth century neither priests nor religious studied or taught the profane sciences. As it could not set itself against this general status, the order provided in its constitutions that the master general, or the general chapter, might allow certain religious to take up the study of the liberal arts. Thus, at first, the study of the arts, i.e. of philosophy, was entirely individual. As numerous masters of arts entered the order during the early years, especially at Paris and Bologna, it was easy to make a stand against this private teaching. However, the development of the order and the rapid intellectual progress of the thirteenth century soon caused the organization—for the use of religious only—of regular schools for the study of the liberal arts. Towards the middle of the century the provinces established in one or more of their convents the study of logic; and about 1260 the studia naturalium, i.e. courses in natural science. The General Chapter of 1315 commanded the masters of the students to lecture on the moral sciences to all the religious of their convents; i.e. on the ethics, politics, and economics of Aristotle. From the beginning of the fourteenth century we find also some religious who gave special courses in philosophy to secular students. In the fifteenth century the Preachers occupied in several universities chairs of philosophy, especially of metaphysics. Coming in contact as it did with barbaric peoples—principally with the Greeks and Arabs—the order was compelled from the outset to take up the study of foreign languages. The Chapter Generalissimo of 1236 ordered that in all convents and in all the provinces the religious should learn the languages of the neighboring countries. The following year Brother Phillippe, Provincial of the Holy Land, wrote to Gregory IX that his religious had preached to the people in the different languages of the Orient, especially in Arabic, the most popular tongue, and that the study of languages had been added to their conventual course. The province of Greece furnished several Hellenists whose works we shall mention later. The province of Spain, whose population was a mixture of Jews and Arabs, opened special schools for the study of languages. About the middle of the thirteenth century it also established a studium arabicum at Tunis; in 1259 one at Barcelona; between 1265 and 1270 one at Murcia; in 1281 one at Valencia. The same province also established some schools for the study of Hebrew at Barcelona in 1281, and at Jativa in 1291. Finally, the General Chapter of 1310 commanded the master general to establish, in several provinces, schools for the study of Hebrew, Greek, and Arabic, to which each province of the order should send at least one student. In view of this fact a Protestant historian, Molinier, in writing of the Friars Preachers, remarks: “They were not content with professing in their convents all the divisions of science, as it was then understood; they. added an entire order of studies which no other Christian schools of the time seem to have taught, and in which they had no other rivals than the rabbis of Languedoc and Spain” (“Guillem Bernard de Gaillac et l’enseignement chez les Dominicains”, Paris, 1884, p. 30).
This scholastic activity extended to other fields, particularly to the universities which were established throughout Europe from the beginning of the thirteenth century; the Preachers took a prominent part in university life. Those universities, like Paris, Toulouse etc., which from the beginning had chairs of theology, incorporated the Dominican conventual school which was patterned on the schools of the studia generalia. When a university was established in a city—as was usually the case—after the foundation of a Dominican convent, which always possessed a chair of theology, the pontifical letters granting the establishment of the university made no mention whatever of a faculty of theology. The latter was considered as already existing by reason of the Dominican school and others of the mendicant orders, who followed the example of the Preachers. For a time the Dominican theological schools were simply in juxtaposition to the universities, which had no faculty of theology. When these universities petitioned the Holy See for a faculty of theology, and their petition was granted, they usually incorporated the Dominican school, which thus became a part of the theological faculty. This transformation began towards the close of the fourteenth and lasted until the first years of the sixteenth century. Once established, this state of things lasted until the Reformation in the countries which became Protestant, and until the French Revolution and its spread in the Latin countries.
The archbishops, who according to the decree of the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) were to establish in each metropolitan church a master of theology, considered themselves dispensed from this obligation by reason of the creation of Dominican schools open to the secular clergy. However, when they thought it their duty to apply the decree of the council, or when later they were obliged by the Roman Church to do so, they frequently called in a Dominican master to fill the chair of their metropolitan school. Thus the metropolitan school of Lyons was intrusted to the Preachers, from their establishment in that city until the beginning of the sixteenth century (Forest, “L’ecole cathedrale de Lyon”, Paris-Lyons, 1885, pp. 238, 368; Beyssac, “Les Prieurs de Notre Dame de Confort”, Lyons, 1909; “Chart. Univer. Paris“, III, p. 28). The same arrangement, though not so permanent, was made at Toulouse, Bordeaux, Tortosa, Valencia, Urgel, Milan etc. The popes, who believed themselves morally obligated to set an example regarding the execution of the scholastic decree of the Lateran Council, usually contented themselves during the thirteenth century with the establishment of schools at Rome by the Dominicans and other religious orders. The Dominican masters who taught at Rome or in other cities where the sovereign pontiffs took up their residence, were known as lectores curice. However, when the popes, once settled at Avignon, began to require from the archbishops the execution of the decree of Lateran, they instituted a theological school in their own papal palace; the initiative was taken by Clement V (1305-1314). At the request of the Dominican, Cardinal Nicolas Alberti de Prato (d. 1321), this work was permanently intrusted to a Preacher, bearing the name of Magister Sacri Palatii. The first to hold the position was Pierre Godin, who later became cardinal (1312). The office of Master of the Sacred Palace, whose functions were successively increased, remains to the present day the special privilege of the Order. of Preachers (Catalani, “De Magistro Sacri Palatii Apostolici“, Rome, p. 175).
Finally, when towards the middle of the thirteenth century the old monastic orders began to take up the scholastic and doctrinal movement, the Cistercians, in particular, applied to the Preachers for masters of theology in their abbeys (“Chart. Univ. Paris“, I, p. 184). During the last portion of the Middle Ages, the Dominicans furnished, at intervals, professors to the different orders, not themselves consecrated to study (Denifle, “Quellen zur Gelehrtengeschichte des Predigerordens im 13. and 14. Jahrhundert” in “Archiv.”, II, p. 165; Mandonnet, “Les Chanoines Precheurs de Bologne”, Fribourg, 1903; Douais, “Essai sur l’organisation des etudes clans l’Ordre des Freres-Precheurs”, Paris, 1884; Mandonnet, “De l’incorporation des Dominicains dans l’ancienne Universite de Paris” in “Revue Thomiste”, IV, 1896, p. 139; Denifle, “Die Universitaten des Mittelalters”, Berlin, 1885; I, passim; Denifle-Chatelain, “Chart. Univ., Paris“, 1889, passim; Bernard, “Les Dominicains dans l’Universite de Paris“, Paris, 183; Mandonnet, “Siger de Brabant et l’averroisme Latin au XIIIe siecle”, Louvain, 1911, I, p. 30-95). The legislation regarding studies occurs here and there in the constitutions, and principally in the “Acta Capitularium Generalium”, Rome, 1898, sq. and Douais, “Acta Capitulorum Provincialium” (Toulouse, 1894).
The teaching activity of the order and its scholastic organization placed the Preachers in the forefront of the intellectual life of the Middle Ages. They were the pioneers in all directions as one may see from a subsequent paragraph relative to their literary productions. We speak only of the school of philosophy and of theology created by them in the thirteenth century which has been the most influential in the history of the Church. At the beginning of the thirteenth century philosophical teaching was confined practically to the logic of Aristotle and theology, and was under the influence of St. Augustine; hence the name Augustinism generally given to the theological doctrines of that age. The first Dominican doctors, who came from the universities into the order, or who taught in the universities, adhered for a long time to the Augustinian doctrine. Among the most celebrated were Roland of Cremona, Hugh of Saint Cher, Richard Fitzacre, Moneta of Cremona, Peter of Tarentaise, and Robert of Kilwardby. It was the introduction into the Latin world of the great works of Aristotle, and their assimilation, through the action of Albertus Magnus that opened up in the Order of Preachers a new line of philosophical and theological investigation. The work begun by Albertus Magnus (1240-1250) was carried to completion by his disciple, Saint Thomas Aquinas (q.v.), whose teaching activity occupied the last twenty years of his life (1245-1274). The system of theology and philosophy constructed by Aquinas is the most complete, the most original, and the most profound, which Christian thought has elaborated, and the master who designed it surpasses all his contemporaries and his successors in the grandeur of his creative genius. The Thomist School developed rapidly both within the order and without. The fourteenth and fifteenth centuries witnessed the struggles of the Thomist School on various points of doctrine. The Council of Vienne (1311) declared in favor of the Thomistic teaching, according to which there is but one form in the human composition, and condemned as heretical any one who should deny that “the rational or intellective soul is per se and essentially the form of the human body”. This is also the teaching of the Fifth Lateran Council (1515). See Zigliara, “De Mente Concilii Viennensis”, Rome, 1878, pp. 88-89.
The discussions between the Preachers and the Friars on the poverty of Christ and the Apostles was also settled by John XXII in the Thomistic sense [(November 12, 1323), Ehrle, “Archiv. f. Litt. u Kirchengesch.”, III p. 517; Tocco, “La Questione della poverty nel Secolo XIV”, Naples, 1910]. The question regarding the Divinity of the Blood of Christ separated from His Body during His Passion, raised for the first time in 1351, at Barcelona, and taken up again in Italy in 1463, was the subject of a formal debate before Pius II. The Dominican opinion prevailed; although the pope refused a sentence properly so called (Mortier, “Hist. des Mattres Generaux”, III, p. 287, IV, p. 413; G. degli Agostini, “Notizie istorico-critiehe intorno la vita e le opere degli scrittori Viniziani”, Venice, 1752, I, p. 401. During the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the Thomist School had to make a stand against Nominalism, of which a Preacher had been one of the protagonists. The repeated sentences of the universities and of princes slowly combatted this doctrine (De Wulf, “Histoire de la philosophie medievale”, Louvain-Paris, 1905, p. 453).
The Averroism against which Albert the Great, and especially Aquinas had fought so energetically did not disappear entirely with the condemnation of Paris (1277), but survived under a more or less attenuated form. At the beginning of the sixteenth century the debates were renewed, and the Preachers found themselves actively engaged therein in Italy where the Averroist doctrine had reappeared. The General of the Dominicans, Thomas de Vio (Cajetan), had published his commentaries on the “De Anima” of Aristotle (Florence, 1509), in which, abandoning the position of St. Thomas, he contended that Aristotle had not taught the individual immortality of the soul, but affirming at the same time that this doctrine was philosophically erroneous. The Council of Lateran, by its Decree, December 19, 1513, not only condemned the Averroistic teaching, but exacted still further that professors of philosophy should answer the opposing arguments advanced by philosophers—a measure which Cajetan did not approve (Mansi, “Councils“, I, 32, col. 842). Pietro Pomponazzi, having published at Bologna (1516) his treatise on the immortality of the soul in the Averroistic sense, while making an open profession of faith in the Christian doctrine, raised numerous polemics, and was held as a suspect. Chrysostom Javelli, regent of theology at the Convent of St. Dominic, in agreement with the ecclesiastical authority, and at the request of Pomponazzi, sought to extricate him from this difficulty by drawing up a short theological expose of the question which was to be added in the future to the work of Pomponazzi. But this discussion did not cease all at once. Several Dominicans entered the lists. Girolamo de Fornariis subjected to examination the polemic of Pomponazzi with Augustin Nifi (Bologna, 1519); Bartolommeo de Spina attacked Cajetan on one article, and Pomponazzi in two others (Venice, 1519); Isidore of Isolanis also wrote on the immortality of the soul (Milan, 1520); Lucas Bettini took up the same theme, and Pico della Mirandola published his treatise (Bologna, 1523); finally Chrysostom Javelli himself, in 1523, composed a treatise on immortality in which he refuted the point of view of Cajetan and of Pomponazzi (Chrysostomi Javelli, “Opera”, Venice, 1577, I-III p. 52). Cajetan, becoming cardinal, not only held his position regarding the idea of Aristotle, but further declared that the immortality of the soul was an article of faith, for which philosophy could offer only probable reasons (“In Ecclesiasten”, 1534, cap. iv; Fiorentino, “Pietro Pomponazzi“, Florence, 1868).
(f) Literary and Scientific Productions
During the Middle Ages the order had an enormous literary output, its activity extending to all spheres. The works of its writers are epoch-making in the various branches of human knowledge.
(i) Works on the Bible.—The study and teaching of the Bible were foremost among the occupations of the Preachers, and their studies included everything pertaining to it. They first undertook correctories (correctoria) of the Vulgate text (1230-36), under the direction of Hugh of Saint Cher, professor at the University of Paris. The collation with the Hebrew text was accomplished under the sub-prior of St-Jacques, Theobald of Sexania, a converted Jew. Two other correctories were made prior to 1267, the first called the correctory of Sens. Again under the direction of Hugh of Saint Cher the Preachers made the first concordances of the Bible which were called the Concordances of St-Jacques or Great Concordances because of their development. The English Dominicans of Oxford, apparently under the direction of John of Darlington, made more simplified concordances in the third quarter of the thirteenth century. At the beginning of the fourteenth century a German Dominican, Conrad of Halberstadt simplified the English concordances still more; and John Fojkowich of Ragusa, at the time of the Council of Basle, caused the insertion in the concordances of elements which had not hitherto been incorporated in them. The Dominicans, moreover, composed numerous commentaries on the books of the Bible. That of Hugh of Saint Cher was the first complete commentary on the Scriptures (last ed., Venice, 1754, 8 vols. in fol.). The commentaries of Bl. Albertus Magnus and especially those of St. Thomas Aquinas are still famous. With St. Thomas the interpretation of the text is more direct, simply literal, and theological. These great Scriptural commentaries represent theological teaching in the studia generalia. The lecturce on the text of Scripture, also composed to a large extent by Dominicans, represent Scriptural teaching in the other studia of theology. St. Thomas undertook an “Expositio continua” of the four Gospels now called the “Catena aurea”, composed of extracts from the Fathers with a view to its use by clerics. At the beginning of the fourteenth century Nicholas of Trevet did the same for all the books of the Bible. The Preachers were also engaged in translating the Bible into the vernacular. In all probability they were the translators of the French Parisian Bible during the first half of the thirteenth century, and in the fourteenth century they took a very active share in the translation of the celebrated Bible of King John. The name of a Catalonian Dominican, Romeu of Sabruguera, is attached to the first translation of the Scriptures into Catalonian. The names of Preachers are also connected with the Valencian and Castilian translations, and still more with the Italian (F. L. Mannoci, “Intorno a un volgarizzamento della Biblia attribuita al B. Jacopo da Voragine” in “Giornale storico e letterario della Liguria”, V, 1904, p. 96). The first pre-Lutheran German translation of the Bible, except the Psalms, is due to John Rellach, shortly after the middle of the fifteenth century. Finally the Bible was translated from Latin into Armenian about 1330 by B. Bartolommeo Parvi of Bologna, missionary and bishop in Armenia. These works enabled Vercellone to write: “To the Dominican Order belongs the glory of having first renewed in the Church the illustrious example of Origen and St. Augustine by the ardent cultivation of sacred criticism” (P. Mandonnet, “Travaux des Dominicains sur les Saintes Ecritures” in “Dict. de la Bible“, II, col. 1463; Saul, “Das Bibelstudium im Predigerorden” in “Der Katholik”, 82 Jahrg, 3 f., XXVII, 1902, a repetition of the foregoing article).
(ii) Philosophical works.—The most celebrated philosophical works of the thirteenth century were those of Albertus Magnus and St. Thomas Aquinas. The former compiled on the model of Aristotle a vast scientific encyclopedia which exercised great influence on the last centuries of the Middle Ages (“Alberti Magni Opera”, Lyons, 1651, 20 vols. in fol.; Paris, 1890, 38 vols. in 40; Mandonnet, “Siger de Brabant”, I, 37, n. 3). Thomas Aquinas, apart from special treatises and numerous philosophical sections in his other works, commentated in whole or in part thirteen of Aristotle‘s treatises, these being the most important of the Stagyrite’s works (Mandonnet, “Des emits authentiques de St. Thomas d’Aquin”, 2nd ed., p. 104, Opera, Paris, 1889, XXII-XVI). Robert of Kilwardby (d. 1279), a holder of the old Augustinian direction, produced numerous philosophical writings. His “De ortu et divisione philosophiae” is regarded as “the most important introduction to Philosophy of the Middle Ages” (Bain., “Dominicus Gundissalinus De divisione philosophisae”, Munster, 1903, 368). At the end of the thirteenth and the beginning of the fourteenth century, Dietrich of Vriberg left an important philosophical and scientific work (Krebs, “Meister Dietrich, sein Leben, seine Werke, seine Wissenschaft”, Munster, 1906). At the end of the thirteenth and the beginning of the fourteenth century the Domini-cans composed numerous philosophical treatises, many of them bearing on the special points whereon the Thomistic School was attacked by its adversaries (“Archiv f. Litt. and Kirchengesch.”, II, 226 sqq.).
(iii) Theological works.—In importance and number theological works occupy the foreground in the literary activity of the order. Most of the theologians composed commentaries on the “Sentences” of Peter Lombard, which was the classical text in theological schools. Besides the “Sentences” the usual work of bachelors in the Universities included Disputationes and Quodlibeta, which were always the writings of masters. The theological summce set forth the theological matter according to a more complete and well-ordered plan than that of Peter Lombard and especially with solid philosophical principles in which the books of the “Sentences” were wanting. Manuals of theology and more especially manuals, or summae, on penance for the use of confessors were composed in great numbers. The oldest Dominican commentaries on the “Sentences” are those of Roland of Cremona, Hugh of Saint Cher, Richard Fitzacre, Robert of Kilwardby, and Albertus Magnus. The series begins with the year 1230 if not earlier and the last are prior to the middle of the thirteenth century (Mandonnet, “Siger de Brabant”, I, 53). The “Summa” of St. Thomas (1265-75) is still the masterpiece of theology. The monumental work of Albertus Magnus is unfinished. The “Summa de bono” of Ulrich of Strasburg (d. 1277), a disciple of Albert, is still unedited, but is of paramount interest to the historian of the thought of the thirteenth century (Grabmann, “Studien ueber Ulrich von Strassburg” in “Zeitschrift fur Kathol. Theol.”, XXIX, 1905, 82). The theological summa of St. Antoninus is highly esteemed by moralists and economists (Ilgner, “Die Volkswirtschaftlichen Anschaungen Antonins von Florenz”, Paderborn, 1904). The “Compendium theologicae veritatis” of Hugh Ripelin of Strasburg (d. 1268) is the most widespread and famous manual of the Middle Ages (Mandonnet, “Des ecrits authentiques de St. Thomas”, Fribourg, 1910, p. 86). The chief manual of confessors is that of Paul of Hungary composed for the Brothers of St. Nicholas of Bologna (1220-21) and edited without mention of the author in the “Bibliotheca Casinensis” (IV, 1880, 191) and with false assignment of author-ship by R. Duellius, “Miscellan. Lib.” (Augsburg, 1723, 59). The “Summa de Poenitentia” of Raymond of Pennafort, composed in 1235, was a classic during the Middle Ages and was one of the works of which the MSS. were most multiplied. The “Summa Confessorum” of John of Freiburg (d. 1314) is, according to F. von Schulte, the most perfect product of this class of literature. The Pisan Bartolommeo of San Concordio has left us a “Summa Casuum” composed in 1338, in which the matter is arranged in alphabetical order. It was very successful in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The manuals for confessors of John Nieder (d. 1438), St. Antoninus, Archbishop of Florence (d. 1459), and Girolamo Savonarola (d. 1498) were much esteemed in their time (Quetif-Echard, “Script. Ord. Prwd.”, I, passim; Hurter, “Nomenclator literarius; a?tas media”, Innsbruck, 1906, passim; F. von Schulte, “Gesch. der Quellen and Literatur des canonischen Rechts”, Stuttgart, II, 1877, p. 410 sqq.; Dietterle, “Die Summae confessorum … von ihren Anfangen an bis zu Silvester Prierias” in “Zeitschrift fur Kirchengesch.”, XXIV, 1903; XXVIII, 1907).
(iv) Apologetic works.—The Preachers, born amid the Albigensian heresy and founded especially for the defense of the Faith, bent their literary efforts to reach all classes of dissenters from the Catholic Church. They produced by far the most powerful works in the sphere of apologetics. The “Summa contra Catharos et Valdenses” (Rome, 1743) of Moneta of Cremona, in course of composition in 1244, is the most complete and solid work produced in the Middle Ages against the Cathari and Waldenses. The “Summa contra Gentiles” of St. Thomas Aquinas is one of that master’s strongest creations. It is the defense of the Christian Faith against Arabian philosophy. Raymond Marti in his “Pugio fidei”, in course of composition in 1278 (Paris, 1642; 1651; Leipzig, 1687), measures arms with Judaism. This work, to a large extent based on Rabbinic literature, is the most important medieval monument of Orientalism (Neubauer, “Jewish Controversy and the Pugio Fidei” in “The Expositor”, 1888, p. 81 sqq.; Loeb, “La controverse religieuse entre les chratiens et les Juifs au moyen-age en France et en Espagne” in “Revue de l’histoire des religions”, XVIII, 136). The Florentine, Riccoldo di Monte Croce, a missionary in the East (d. 1320), composed his “Propugnaculum Fidei” against the doctrine of the Koran. It is a rare medieval Latin work based directly on Arabian literature. Demetrius Cydonius translated the “Propugnaculum” into Greek in the fourteenth century and Luther translated it into German in the sixteenth (Mandonnet, “Fra Riccoldo di Monte Croce, pelerin en Terre Sainte et missionnaire en Orient” in “Revue Biblique”, I, 1893, 44; Grabmann, “Die Missionsidee bei den Dominikanertheologien des 13. Jahrhunderts” in “Zeitschrift fur Missionswissenschaft”, I, 1911, 137).
(v) Educational literature.—Besides manuals of theology the Dominicans furnished a considerable literary output with a view to meeting the various needs of all social classes and which may be called educational or practical literature. They composed treatises on preaching, models or materials for sermons, and collections of discourses. Among the oldest of these are the “Distinctiones” and the “Dictionarius pauperum” of Nicholas of Biard (d. 1261), the “Tractatus de diversis materiis praedicabilibus” of Stephen of Bourbon (d. 1261), the “De eruditione pra?dicatorum” of Humbert of Romans (d. 1277), the “Distinctiones” of Nicholas of Goran (d. 1295), and of Maurice of England [d. circa 1300; (Quetif-Echard, “Script. Ord. Praed.”, II, 968; 970; Lecoy de la Marche, “La chaire francaise au moyen-age”, Paris, 1886; Crane, “The exempla or illustrative stories from the `Sermones vulgares’ of Jacques de Vitry“, London, 1890)]. The Preachers led the way in the composition of comprehensive collections of the lives of the saints or legendaries, writings at once for the use and edification of the faithful. Bartholomew of Trent compiled his “Liber epilogorum in Gesta Sanctorum” in 1240. After the middle of the thirteenth century Roderick of Cerrate composed a collection of “Vitae Sanctorum” (Madrid, University Library, cod. 146). The “Abbreviatio in gestis et miraculis sanctorum”, composed in 1243 according to the “Speculum historiale” of Vincent of Beauvais, is the work of Jean de Mailly. The “Legenda Sanctorum” of Jacopo de Voragine (Vorazze) called also the “Golden Legend”, written about 1260, is universally known. “The success of the book,” writes the Bollandist, A. Poncelet, “was prodigious; it far exceeded that of all similar compilations.” It was besides translated into all the vernaculars of Europe. The “Speculum Sanctorale” of Bernard Guidonis is a work of a much more scholarly character. The first three parts were finished in 1324 and the fourth in 1329. About the same time Peter Calo (d. 1348) undertook under the title of “Legenda sanctorum” an “immense compilation” which aimed at being more complete than its predecessors (A. Poncelet, “Le legendier de Pierre Calo” in “Analecta Bollandiana”, XXIX, 1910, 5-116).
Catechetical literature was also early taken in hand. In 1256-7 Raymond Marti composed his “Explanatio symboli ad institutionem fidelium” (“Revue des Bibliotheques”, VI, 1846, 32; March, “La `Explanatio Symboli’, obra inedita de Ramon Marti, autor del `Pugio Fidei'”, in “Anuari des Institut d’Estudis Catalans”, 1908, and Barcelona, 1910). Thomas Aquinas wrote four small treatises which represent the contents of a catechism as it was in the Middle Ages: “De articulis fidei et Ecclesiae Sacramentis”; “Expositio symboli Apostolorum”; “De decem praeceptis et lege amoris”; “Expositio orationis dominicae”. Several of these writings have been collected and called the catechism of St. Thomas. (Portmann-Kunz, “Katechismus des hl. Thomas von Aquin”, Lucerne, 1900.) In 1277 Laurent d’Orleans composed at the request of Philip the Bold, whose confessor he was, a real catechism in the vernacular known as the “Somme le Roi” (Mandonnet, “Laurent d’Orleans l’auteur de la Somme le Roi” in “Revue des langues romanes”, 1911; “Dict. de theol. cath.”, II, 1900). At the beginning of the fourteenth century Bernard Guidonis composed an abridgment of Christian doctrine which he revised later when he had become Bishop of Lodeve (1324-31) into a sort of catechism for the use of his priests in the instruction of the faithful (“Notices et extraits de la Bib. Nat.”, XXVII, Paris, 1879, 2nd part, p. 362; C. Douais, “Un nouvel emit de Bernard Gui. Le synodal de Lodeve, “Paris, 1944, p. vii). The “Discipulus” of John Herolt was much esteemed in its day (Paulus, “Johann Herolt and seine Lehre. Ein Beitrag zur Gesch. des religiosen Volksunterichte am Ausgang des Mittelalters” in “Zeitsch. fur kath. Theol.”, XXVI, 1902, 417).
The order also produced pedagogical works. William of Tournai composed a treatise “De Modo docendi pueros” (Paris, Bib. Nat. lat. 16435) which the General Chapter of 1264 recommended, as well as one on preaching and confession for school children. (“Act. Cap. Gen.” I, 125; “Script. Ord. Pried.”, I, 345). Vincent of Beauvais wrote especially for the education of princes. He first composed his “De eruditione filiorum regalium” (Basle, 1481), then the “De eruditione principum”, published with the works of St. Thomas, to whom as well as to Guillaume Perrault it has been incorrectly ascribed; finally (c. 1260) the “Tractatus de morali principis institutione”, which is a general treatise and is still unedited (“Script. Ord. Pried.”, I, 239; R. Fried-rich, “Vincentius von Beauvais als Padagog nach seiner Schrift De eruditione filiorum regalium”, Leipzig, 1883). Early in the fifteenth century (1405) John Dominici composed his famous “Lucula noctis”, in which he deals with the study of pagan authors in the education of Christian youth. This is a most important work, written against the dangers of Humanism (“B. Johannis Dominici Cardinalis S. Sixti Lucula Noctis”, ed. R. Coulon, Paris, 1908). Dominici is also the author of a much esteemed work on the government of the family (“Regola del governo di cura familiare dal Beato Giovanni Dominici“, ed. D. Salve, Florence, 1860). St. Antoninus composed a “Regola a ben vivere” (ed. Palermo, Florence, 1858). Works on the government of countries were also produced by members of the order; among them are the treatises of St. Thomas “De rege et regno”, addressed to the King of Cyprus (finished by Bartolommeo of Lucca), and the “De regimine subditorum”, composed for the Countess of Flanders. At the request of the Florentine Government Girolamo Savonarola drew up (1493) his “Trattati circa ii reggimento e governo della citta di Firenze” (ed. Audin de Rians, Florence, 1847) in which he shows great political insight.
(vi) Canon law.—St, Raymond of Pennafort was chosen by Gregory IX to compile the Decretals (1230-34); to his credit also belong opinions and other works on canon law. Martin of Troppau, Bishop of Gnesen, composed (1278) a “Tabula decreti” commonly called “Margarita Martiniana”, which received wide circulation. Martin of Fano, professor of canon law at Arezzo and Modena and podesta of Genoa in 1260-2, prior to entering the order, wrote valuable canonical works. Nicholas of Ennezat at the beginning of the fourteenth century composed tables on various parts of canon law. During the pontificate of Gregory XII John Dominici wrote copious memoranda in defense of the rights of the legitimate pope, the two most important being still unedited (Vienna, Hof-bibliothek, lat. 5102, fol. 1-24). About the middle of the fifteenth century John of Torquemada wrote extensive works on the Decretals of Gratian which were very influential in defense of the pontifical rights. Important works on inquisitorial law also emanated from the order, the first directories for trial of heresy being composed by Dominicans. The oldest is the opinion of St. Raymond of Pennafort [1235 (ed. in Bzovius, “Annal. eccles.” ad ann. 1235; “Monum. Ord. Pried. Hist.”, IV, fasc. II, 41; “Le Moyen Age”, 2nd series III, 305)]. The same canonist wrote (1242) a directory for the inquisitions of Aragon (C. Douais, “L’Inquisition“, Paris, I, 1906, p. 275). About 1244 another directory was composed by the inquisitors of Provence (“Nouvelle revue historique du droit francais et etranger”, Paris, 1883, 670; E. Vacandard, “L’Inquisition“, Paris, 1907, p. 314). But the two classical works of the Middle Ages on inquisitorial law are that of Bernard Guidonis composed in 1321 under the title of “Directorium Inquisitionis hereticae pravitatis” (ed. C. Douais, Paris, 1886) and the “Directorium Inquisitorum” of Nicholas Eymerich [(1399) “Archie fur Literaturund Kirchengeschechte”; Grahit, “El inquisidor F. Nicholas Eymerich”, Girona, 1878; Schulte, “Die Gesch. der Quellen and Literatur des Canonischen Rechts”, II, passim].
(vii) Historical Writings.—The activity of the Preachers in the domain of history was considerable during the Middle Ages. Some of their chief works incline to be real general histories which assured them great success in their day. The “Speculum Historiale” of Vincent of Beauvais (d. circa 1264) is chiefly, like the other parts of the work, of the nature of a documentary compilation, but he has preserved for us sources which we could never otherwise reach (E. Boutarie, “Examen des sources du Speculum historiale de Vincent de Beauvais”, Paris, 1863). Martin the Pole, called Martin of Troppau (d. 1279), in the third quarter of the thirteenth century composed his chronicles of the popes and emperors which were widely circulated and had many continuators (“Mon. Germ. Hist.: Script.”, XXII). The anonymous chronicles of Colmar in the second half of the thirteenth century have left us valuable historical materials which constitute a sort of history of contemporary civilization (Mon. Germ. Hist.: Script., XVII). The chronicle of Jacopo da Voragine, Archbishop of Genoa (d. 1298) is much esteemed (“Rer. Ital. Script.”; Mannucci, “La Cronaca di Jacopo da Voragine”, Genoa, 1904). Ptolemy of Lucca and Bernard Guidonis are the two great ecclesiastical historians of the early fourteenth century. The “Historic ecclesiastica nova” of the former and the “Flores cronicorum seu cathalogus pontificum romanorum” of the latter contain valuable historical information.
But the historical activity of Bernard Guidonis far exceeded that of Ptolemy and his contemporaries; he is the author of twenty historical publications, several of which, such as his historical compilation on the Order of Preachers, are very important in value and extent. Bernard Guidonis is the first medieval historian who had a wide sense of historical documentation (“Rer. Ital. Script.”, XI; K. Kruger, “Des Ptolemaus Lucensis Leben and Werke”, Gottingen, 1874; D. Konig, “Ptolemaus von Lucca and die Flores Chronicorum des B. Guidonis”, Wurzburg, 1875; Idem, “Tolomeo von Lucca”, Harburg, 1878; Delisle, “Notice sur les manuscrits de Bernard Gui” in “Notices et manu- the “Speculum morale” is apocryphal) of Vincent scrits de in Bib. Nat.”, XVII, pt. II, 169-455; of Beauvais constitute the largest encyclopedia of the Douais, “Un nouveau manuscrits de Bernard Gui” in “Notices et manuscrits de la Bib. Nat.”, XVII, pt. II, 169-455; Douais, “Un nouveau manuscrit de Bernard Gui et de ses chroniques des papes d’Avignon” in “Mem. soc. Archeol. Midi”, XIV, 1889, p. 417, Paris, 1889; Arbellot, “Etude biographique et bibliographique sur Bernard Guidonis“, Paris-Limoges, 1896). The fourteenth century beheld a galaxy of Dominican historians, the chief of whom were: Francesco Pipini of Bologna (d. 1320), the Latin translator of Marco Polo and the author of a “Chronicon” which began with the history of the Franks (L. Manzoni, “Di frate Francesco Pipini da Bologna, storico, geografo, viaggiatore del sec. XIV”, Bologna, 1896); Nicholas of Butrinto (1313), author of the “Relatio de Henrici VII imperatoris itinere italico” (ed. Heyck, Innsbruck, 1888); Nicholas Trevet, compiler of the “Annales sex regum Anglia” (ed. T. Hog, London, 1845); Jacopo of Acqui and his “Chronicon imaginis mundi [(1330); Monumenta historim patrim, script.”, III, Turin, 1848]; Galvano Fiamma (d. circa 1340) composed various works on the history of Milan (Ferrari, “Le cronache di Galvano Fiamma e le font.i della Galvagnana” in “Bulletino dell’ Istituto Storico Italiano”, Rome, 1891); John of Colonna (c. 1336) is the author of a “De viris illustribus” and a “Mare Historiarum” (Mandonnet, “Des ecrits authentiques de St. Thomas d’Aquin”, Fribourg, 2nd ed., 1910, p. 97). In the second half of the fourteenth century Conrad of Halberstadt wrote a “Chronographia summorum Pontificum et Imperatorum romanorum (Menck, “Die Chronographia Konrads von Halberstadt” etc. in “Forsch. deutsch. Gesch.”, XX, 1880, 279); Henry of Hervordia (d. 1370) wrote a “Liber de rebus memorabilibus” (ed. Potthast, Gottingen, 1859); Stefanardo de Vicomercato is the author of the rhythmical poem “De gestis in civitate Mediolani” (in “Script. Rer. Ital.”, IX; G. Calligaris, “Alcune osservazioni sopra un passo del poema “De gestis in civitate Mediolani’ di Stefanardo” in “Misc. Ceriani”, Milan, 1910). At the end of the fifteenth century Hermann of Lerbeke composed a “Chronicon comitum Schauenburgensium” and a “Chronicon episcoporum Mindensium” (Eckmann, “Hermann von Lerbeke mit besonderer Beriicksichtigung seines Lebens and der Abfassungszeit seiner Schriften” (Hamm, 1879); Hermann Korner left an important “Chronica novella” (ed. J. Schwalm, Gottingen, 1895; cf. Waitz, “Ueber Hermann Korner and die Lubecker Chronikon”, Gottingen, 1851). The “Chronicon” or “Summa Historialis” of St. Antoninus, Archbishop of Florence, composed about the middle of the fifteenth century is a useful compilation with original data for the author’s own times (Schaube, “Die Quellen der Weltchronik des heil. Antonin, Erzbischofs von Florenz” Hirschberg, 1880). Felix Fabri (Schmid, d. 1502) left valuable historical works; his “Evagatorium in Terror Sanctm, Arabim et Aegypti peregrinationem” (ed., Hassler, Stuttgart, 1843) is the most instructive and important work of this kind during the fourteenth century. He is also the author of a “Descriptio Sueviae” (“Quellen zer Schweizer Gesch.”, Basle, 1884) and a “Tractatus de civitate Ulmensi” (Litterarischesverein in Stuttgart, no. 186, Tubingen, 1889, ed. G. Veesenmeyer; cf., under the names of these writers, Quetif-Echard, “Script. Ord. Praed”; Chevalier, “Repertoire . . du moyen-age; Bio-Bibl.”, Paris, 1907; Potthast, “Bib. Hist. Medii Aevi”, Berlin, 1896; Hurter, “Nomenclator Lit.”, II, 1906).
(viii) Miscellaneous works.—Being unable to devote a section to each of the different spheres wherein the Preachers exercised their activity, we shall mention here some works which obtained considerable influence or are particularly worthy of attention. The “Specula” (“Naturale”, “doctrinale”, “historiaae”; the “Speculum morale” is apocryphal) of Vincent of Beauvais constitute the largest encyclopedia of the Middle Ages and furnished materials for many subsequent writers (Vogel, “Literar-historischen Notizen uber den mittelalterlichen Gelehrten Vincenz von Beauvais”, Freiburg, 1843; Bourgeat, “Etudes sur Vincent de Beauvais”, Paris, 1856). The work of Humbert of Romans, “De tractandis in concilio generali”, composed in 1273 at the request of Gregory X, and which served as a program to the General Council of Lyons in 1274, contains the most remarkable views on the condition of Christian society and the reforms to be undertaken (Mortier, “Hist. des Maitres generaux de l’ordre des Freres Precheurs”, I, 88). The treatise is edited in full only in Brown, “Appendix ad fasc. rerum expectandarum et fugendarum” (London, 1690, p. 185). Burchard of Mount Sion with his “Descriptio Terrae Sancta” written about 1283, became the classic geographer of Palestine during the Middle Ages (J. C. M. Laurent, “Peregrinatores medii aevi quatuor”, Leipzig, 1873). William of Moerbeke, who died as Archbishop of Corinth about 1286, was the revisor of translations of Aristotle from the Greek and the translator of portions not hitherto translated. To him are also due translations of numerous philosophical and scientific works of ancient Greek authors (Mandonnet, “Siger de Brabant”, I, 40). The “Catholicon” of the Genoese John Balbus, completed in 1285, is a vast treatise on the Latin tongue, accompanied by an etymological vocabulary. It is the first work on profane sciences ever printed. It is also famous because in the Mainz edition (1460) John Guttenberg first made use of movable type (“Incunabula xylographica et typographica”, 1455-1500, Joseph Baer, Frankfort, 1900, p. 11). The “Philobiblion” edited under the name of Richard of Bury, but composed by Robert Holcot (d. 1349), is the first medieval treatise on the love of books (ed. Cocheris, Paris, 1856; tr. Thomas, London, 1888). John of Tambach (d. 1372), first professor of theology at the newly-founded University of Prague (1347), is the author of a valuable work, the “Consolatio Theologies” (Denifle, “Magister Johann von Dambach” in “Archiv fur Litt. u. Kirchengesch” III, 640). Towards the end of the fifteenth century Frederico Frezzi, who died as Bishop of Foligno (1416), composed in Italian a poem in the spirit of the “Divina Commedia” and entitled “II Quadriregio” (Foligno, 1725); (cf. Canetti, “Il Quadriregio”, Venice, 1889; Filippini, “Le edizioni del Quadriregio” in “Bibliofilia”, VIII, Florence, 1907). The Florentine Thomas Sardi (d. 1517) wrote a long and valued poem, “L’anima peregrina”, the composition of which dates from the end of the fifteenth century (Romagnoli, “Frate Tommaso Sardi e it suo poema inedito dell’ anima peregrina” in “Il propugnatore”, XVIII, 1885, pt. II, 289).
(ix) Liturgy.—Towards the middle of the thirteenth century the Dominicans had definitely established the liturgy which they still retain. The final correction (1256) was the work of Humbert of Romans. It was divided into fourteen sections or volumes. The prototype of this monumental work is preserved at Rome in the general archives of the order (“Script. Ord. Prmd.” I, 143; “Zeitschr. f. Kathol. Theol.”, VII, 10). A portable copy for the use of the master general, a beautiful specimen of thirteenth-century book-making, is preserved in the British Museum, no. 23,935 (J. W. Legg, “Tracts on the Mass”, Bradshaw Society, 1904; Barge, “Le Chant liturgique dans l’Ordre de Saint-Dominique” in “L’Annee Dominicaine”, Paris, 1908, 27; Gagin, “Un manuscrit liturgique des Freres Precheurs anterieur aux reglements d’Humbert de Romans” in “Revue des Bibliotheques”, 1899, p. 163; Idem, “Dominicains et Teutoniques, conflit d’attribution du `Liber Choralis'”, no. 182 du catalogue 120 de M. Ludwig Rosenthal” in “Revue des Bibliotheques”, 1908). Jerome of Moravia, about 1250, composed a “Tractatus de Musica” (Paris, Bib. Nat. lat. 16,663), the most important theoretical work of the thirteenth century on liturgical chant, some fragments of which were placed as preface to the Dominican liturgy of Humbert of Romans. It was edited by Coussemaker in his “Scriptores de musica medii aevi”, I (Paris, 1864). (Cf. Kornmtiller “Die alten Musiktheoretiker XX. Hieronymus von Mahren” in “Kirchenmusikalisches Jahrbuch”, IV, 1889, 14.) The Preachers also left numerous liturgical compositions, among the most renowned being the Office of the Blessed Sacrament by St. Thomas Aquinas, one of the masterpieces of Catholic liturgy (Mandonnet, “Des Omits authentiques de S. Thomas d’Aquin”, 2nd ed. p. 127). Armand du Prat (d. 1306) is the author of the beautiful Office of St. Louis, King of France. His work, selected by the Court of Philip the Bold, came into universal use in France (“Script. Ord. Pried.” I, 499; “Notices et extraits des manuscrits de la Bib. Nat.”, XXVII, 11th pt., 369, n. 6). The “Dies Irae” has been attributed to Cardinal Latino Malabranca who was in his time a famous composer of ecclesiastical chants and offices (“Scritti vari di Filologia”, Rome, 1901, p. 488).
(x) Humanistic works. The order felt more than is commonly thought the influence of Humanism, and furnished it with noteworthy contributions. This influence was continued during the following period in the sixteenth century and reacted on its Biblical and theological compositions. Leonardo Giustiniani, Archbishop of Mytilene, in 1449, composed against the celebrated Poggio a treatise “De vera nobilitate”, edited with Poggio’s “De nobilitate” (Avellino, 1657). The Sicilian Thomas Schifaldo wrote commentaries on Perseus about 1461 and on Horace in 1476. He is the author of a “De viris illustribus Ordinis Prdicatorum”, written in humanistic style, and of the Office of St. Catherine of Siena, usually but incorrectly ascribed to Pius II (Cozzuli, “Tommaso Schifaldo umanista siciliano del sec. XV”, Palermo, 1897, in “Documenti per servire alla storia di Sicilia”, VI). The Venetian Francesco Colonna is the author of the celebrated work “The Dream of Poliphilus” (“Poliphili Hypnerotomachia, ubi humana omnia non nisi somnium esse docet”, Aldus, Venice, 1499; cf. Popelin, “Le songe de Poliphile ou hypnerotomachia de Frere Francesco Colonna“, Paris, 1880). Colonna‘s work aims to condense in the form of a romance all the knowledge of antiquity. It gives evidence of its author’s profound classical learning and impassioned love for Graeco-Roman culture. The work, which is accompanied by the most perfect illustrations of the time, has been called “the most beautiful book of the Renaissance” (Ilg, “Ueber den kunsthistorisches werth der Hypnerotomachia Poliphili”, Vienna, 1872; Ephrusi, “Etudes sur le songe de Poliphile” in “Bulletin de Bibliophile” 1887; Paris, 1888; Dorez, “Des origines et de la diffusion du songe de Poliphile” in “Revue des Bibliotheques”, VI, 1896, 239; Gnoli, “Il sogno di Polifilo” in “Bibliofila”, 1900, 190; Fabrini, “Indagini sul Polifilo” in “Giorn. Storico della letteratura Italiana”, XXXV, 1900, I; Poppelreuter, “Der anonyme Meister des Polifilo” in “Zur Kunstgesch. des Auslandes”, XX, Strassburg, 1904; Molmenti, “Alcuni documenti concernenti l’autore della (Hypnerotomachia Poliphili)” in “Arehivio storico italiano”, Ser. V, XXXVIII (906, 291). Tommaso Radini Todeschi (Radinus Todischus) composed under the title “Callipsychia” (Milan, 1511) an allegorical romance in the manner of Apuleius and inspired by the “Dream of Poliphilus”. The Dalmatian, John Polycarpus Severitanus of Sebenico, commentated the eight parts of the discourse of Donatus and the Ethics of Seneca the Younger (Perugia, 1517; Milan, 1520; Venice, 1522) and composed “Gramatices historicae, methodicae et exegeticae” (Perugia, 1518). The Bolognese Leandro Alberti (d. 1550) was an elegant Latinist and his “De viris illustribus ordinis praedicatorum” (Bologna, 1517), written in the humanistic manner, is a beautiful specimen of Bolognese publishing (“Script. Ord. Praed.”, II, 137; Campori, “Sei lettere inedite di Fra Leandro Alberti” in “Atti e memorie della Deput. di Storia patria per le prov. Modenesi e Parmensi”, I, 1864, p. 413). Finally Matteo Bandello (d. 1555), who was called the “Dominican Boccacio”, is regarded as the first novelist of the Italian Cinquecento and his work shows what an evil influence the Renaissance could exert on churchmen (Masi “Matteo Bandello o vita italiana in un novelliere del cinquecento”, Bologna, 1900).
(g) The Preachers and Art
The Preachers hold an important place in the history of art. They contributed in many ways to the artistic life of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Their churches and convents offered an extraordinary field of activity to contemporary artists, while a large number of the Preachers themselves did important work in the various spheres of art. Finally by their teaching and religious activity they often exercised a profound influence on the direction and inspiration of art. Primarily established under a regime of evangelic poverty, the order took severe measures to avoid in its churches all that might suggest luxury and wealth. Until the middle of the thirteenth century its constitutions and general chapters energetically legislated against anything tending to suppress the evidence of poverty (“Archiv. f. Litt.—und Kirchgesch.”, I, 225; “Acta Cap. Gen.”, I, passim). But the order’s intense activity, its establishment in large cities and familiar contact with the whole general movement of civilization triumphed over this state of things. As early as 1250, churches and convents appeared called opus sumptuosum (Finke, “Die Freiburger Dominikaner and der Mtinsterbau”, Freiburg, 1901, p. 47; Potthast, op. cit., 22,426). They were, however, encouraged by ecclesiastical authority and the order eventually relinquished its early uncompromising attitude. Nevertheless ascetic and morose minds were scandalized by what they called royal edifices (Matthew Paris, “Hist. maj. ‘, ad. ann. 1243; d’Achery, “Spicelegium”, Paris, 1723, II, 634; Cocheris, “Philobiblion”, Paris, 1856, p. 227). The second half of the thirteenth century saw the beginning of a series of monuments, many of which are still famous in history and art. “The Dominicans,” says Cesare Cantu, “soon had in the chief towns of Italy magnificent monasteries and superb temples, veritable wonders of art. Among others may be mentioned: the Church of Santa Maria Novella, at Florence; Santa Maria Sopra Minerva, at Rome; St. John and St. Paul, at Venice; St. Nicholas, at Treviso; St. Dominic, at Naples, at Perugia, at Prato, and at Bologna, with the splendid tomb of the founder, St. Catherine, at Pisa; St. Eustorgius and Sta Maria delle Grazie, at Milan, and several others remarkable for a rich simplicity and of which the architects were mostly monks” (“Les Heretiques de l’Italie”, Paris, 1869, I, 165; Berthier, “L’eglise de Sainte Sabine a Rome“, Rome, 1910; Mullooly, “St. Clement, Pope and Martyr, and his Basilica in Rome“, Rome, 1873; Nolan, “The Basilica of St. Clement in Rome“, Rome, 1910; Brown, “The Dominican Church of Santa Maria Novella at Florence, An historical, architectural and artistic study”, Edinburgh, 1902; Berthier, “L’eglise de la Minerve a Rome“, Rome, 1910; Marchese, “San Marco convento dei Padri Predicatori in Firenze”, Florence, 1853; Malaguzzi, “La chiesa e it convento di S. Domenico a Bologna secondo nuove richerche” in “Repertorium fur Kunstwissenschaft”, XX, 1897, 174; Caffi, “Della chiesa di Sant’ Eustorgio in Milano”, Milan, 1841; Valle, “S. Domenico Maggiore di Napoli”, Naples, 1854; Milanese, “Le Chiesa monumentale di S. Nicola in Treviso”, Treviso, 1889; Mortier, “Notre Dame de la Guercia”, Paris, 1904; Ital. tr. Ferretti, Florence, 1904; Orlandini, “Descrizione storica della chiesa di S. Domenico di Perugia“, Perugia, 1798; Biebrach, “Die holzgedeckten Franziskaner and Dominikanerkirchen in Umbrien and Toskana”, Berlin, 1908).
France followed in Italy‘s footsteps. Here mention must be made of the Jacobins of Toulouse (Carriere, “Les Jacobins de Toulouse”, 2nd ed., Toulouse, s. d.); St. Jacques de Paris (Millin, “Antiquites nationales”, Paris, 1790, III, 1); St. Maximin in Provence (Rostan, “Notice sur l’eglise de Saint-Maximin”, Brignoles, 1859); Notre-Dame-de-Confort at Lyons (Cormier, “L’ancien couvent des Dominicains de Lyon”, Lyons, 1898). A comprehensive account of the architectural work of the Dominicans in France may be found in the magnificent publication of Rohault de Fleury, “Gallia Dominicana, Les couvents de Saint-Dominique en France au moyen-age (Paris, 1903, 2 vols. m 4′). Spain was also covered with remarkable monuments: St. Catherine of Barcelona and St. Thomas of Madrid were destroyed by fire; S. Esteban at Salamanca, S. Pablo and S. Gregorio at Valladolid, Santo Tomas at Avila, San Pablo at Seville and at Cordova. S. Cruz at Granada, Santo Domingo at Valencia and Saragossa (Martinez-Vigil, “La orden de Predicadores”, Barcelona, 1886). Portugal also had beautiful buildings. The church and convent of Batalha are perhaps the most splendid ever dwelt in by the order (Murphy, “Plans, elevations, sections and views of the Church of Batalha”, London, 1795; de Condeixa, “O mosteiro de Batalha em Portugal“, Paris, 1892; Vascoucellos, “Batalha. Convento de Santa Maria da Victoria”, Porto, 1905). Germany had beautiful churches and convents, usually remarkable for their simplicity and the purity of their lines (Scherer, “Kirchen and Kloster der Franziskaner and Dominikaner in Thuringen”, Jena, 1910; Schneider, “Die Kirchen der Dominikaner and Karmeliten” in “Mittelalterliche Ordensbauten in Mainz“, Mainz, 1879; “Zur Wiederherstellung der Dominikanerkirche in Augsburg” in “Augsburger Postzeitung”, November 12, 1909; “Das Dominikanerkloster in Eisenach”, Eisenach, 1857; Ingold, “Notice sur l’eglise et le couvent des Dominicains de Colmar”, Colmar, 1894; Burckhardt-Riggenbach, “Die Dominikaner Klosterkirche in Basel”, Basle, 1855; Stammler, “Die ehemalige Predigerkirche in Bern and ihre Wandmalerein” in “Berner Kunstdenkmaler”, III, Bern, 1908).
Whatever may be said to the contrary the Dominicans as well as other mendicant orders created a special architectural art. They made use of art as they found it in the course of their history and adapted it to their needs. They adopted Gothic art and assisted in its diffusion, but they accepted the art of the Renaissance when it had supplanted the ancient forms. Their churches varied in dimensions and richness, according to the exigencies of the place. They built a number of churches with double naves and a larger number with open roofs. The distinct characteristic of their churches resulted from their sumptuary legislation which excluded decorated architectural work, save in the choir. Hence the predominance of single lines in their buildings. This exclusivism, which often went as far as the suppression of capitals on the columns, gives great lightness and elegance to the naves of their churches. While we lack direct information concerning most of the architects of these monuments, there is no doubt that many of the men who supervised the construction of its churches and convents were members of the order and they even assisted in works of art outside of the order. Thus we know that Brother Diemar built the Dominican church of Ratisbon (1273-77) (Sighart, “Gesch. d. bildenden Kiinste im Kgn. Bayern”, Munich, 1862). Brother Volmar exercised his activity in Alsace about the same time and especially at Colmar (Ingold, op. cit.). Brother Humbert was the architect of the church and convent of Bonn, as well as of the stone bridge across the Aar, in the Middle Ages the most beautiful in the city (Howald, “Das Dominikaner-Kloster in Bern von 1269-1400”, Bern, 1857). In Italy architects of the order are known to fame, especially at Florence, where they erected the church and cloisters of S. Maria Novella, which epitomize the whole history of Florentine art (Davidsohn, “Forschungen zur Gesch. von Florenz”, Berlin, 1898, 466; Marchese, “Memorie dei pill insigni pittori, scultori e architetti domenicani”, Bologna, 1878, I). At first the order endeavored to banish sculpture from its churches, but eventually accepted it and set the example by the construction of the beautiful tomb of St. Dominic at Bologna, and of St. Peter of Verona at the Church of St. Eustorgius at Milan. A Dominican, William of Pisa, worked on the former (Berthier, “Le tombeau de St. Dominique”, Paris, 1895; Beltrani, “La cappella di S. Pietro Martire presso la Basilica di Sant Eustorgio in Milano” in “Archivio storico dell’ arte”, V, 1892). Brother Paschal of Rome executed interesting sculptural works, e.g. his sphinx of Viterbo, signed and dated (1286), and the paschal candlestick of Sta. Maria in Cosmedin, Rome (“Romische Quartalschrift”, 1893, 29).
There were many miniaturists and painters among the Preachers. As early as the thirteenth century Hugh Ripelin of Strasburg (d. 1268) was renowned as a painter (Mon. Germ. Hist.: SS., XVII, 233). But the lengthy list is dominated by two masters who overshadow the others, Fra Angelico and Fra Bartolommeo. The work of Fra Giovanni Angelico da Fiesole (d. 1455) is regarded as the highest embodiment of Christian inspiration in art (Marchese, “Memorie”, I, 245; Tumiati, “Frate Angelico”, Florence, 1897; Supino, “Beato Angelico”, Florence, 1898; Langton Douglas, “Fra Angelico“, London, 1900; Wurm, “Meister and Schiilerarbeit in Fra Angelicoe Werk”, Strasburg, 1907; Cochin, “Le Bienheureux Fra Giovanni Angelico da Fiesole”, Paris, 1906; Schottmuller, “Fra Angelico da Fiesole”, Stuttgart and Leipzig, 1911 (Fr. ed., Paris, 1911). Fra Bartolommeo belongs to the golden age of the Italian Renaissance. He is one of the great masters of drawing. His art is scholarly, noble, and simple and imbued with a tranquil and restrained piety (Marchese, “Memorie”, II, 1; Franz, “Fra Bartolommeo della Porta”, Ratisbon, 1879; Gruyer, “Fra Bartolommeo della Porta et Mariotto Albertinelli”, Paris–London, s. d.; Knapp, “Fra Bartolommeo della Porta and die Schule von San Marco”, Halle, 1903). The order also produced remarkable painters on glass: James of Ulm (d. 1491), who worked chiefly at Bologna and William of Marcillat (d. 1529), who in the opinion of his first biographer was perhaps the greatest painter on glass who ever lived (Marchese, “Memorie”, II; Mancini, “Guglielmo de Marcillat francese insuperato pittore sul vetro”, Florence, 1909). As early as the fourteenth century Dominican churches and convents began to be covered with mural decorations. Some of these edifices became famous sanctuaries of art, such as S. Maria Novella and S. Marco of Florence. But the phenomenon was general at the end of the fifteenth century, and thus the order received some of the works of the greatest artists, as for instance the “Last Supper” of Leonardo da Vinci (1497-98) in the refectory of S. Maria delle Grazie at Milan (Bossi, “Del cenacolo di Leonardo da Vinci”, Milan, 1910; Sant’ Ambrogio, “Note epigrafiche ed artistiche intorno alla sala del Cenacolo ed al tempio di Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milano” in “Archivio Storico Lombardo”, 1892).
The Preachers exercised a marked influence on painting. The order infused its apostolic zeal and theological learning into the objects of art under its control, thus creating what may be called theological painting. The decoration of the Campo Santo of Pisa, Orcagna‘s frescoes in the Strozzi chapel and the Spanish chapel at S. Maria Novella, Florence, have long been famous (Michel, “Hist. de l’art depuis les premiers temps chretiens jusqu’tt nos jours”, Paris, II, 1908; Hettner, “Die Dominikaner in der Kunstgesch. des 14. and 15. Jahrhunderts” in “Italienische Studien zur Gesch. der Renaissance“, Bruns-wick, 1879, 99; “Renaissance and Dominikaner Kunst” in “Hist.—polit. Blatter”, LXXXXIII, 1884; Perate, “Un Triomphe de la Mort de Pietro Lorenzetti”, Paris, 1902; Bacciochi, “Il chiostro verde e la cappella degli Spagnuoli”, Florence; Endres, “Die Verherrlichung des Dominikanerordens in der Spanischen Kapelle an S. Maria Novella zu Florenz” in “Zeitschr. f. Christliche Kunst”, 1909, p. 323). To the same causes were due the numerous triumphs of St. Thomas Aquinas (Hettner, op. cit.; Berthier, “Le triomphe de Saint Thomas clans la chapelle des Espagnols a Florence“, Fribourg, 1897; Ucelli, “Dell’ iconografia di s. Tommaso d’Aquino”, Naples, 1867). The influence of Savonarola on the artists and the art of his time was profound (Gruyer, “Les illustrations des ecrits de Jerome Savonarole et les paroles de Savonarole sur l’art”, Paris, 1879; Lafenestre, “Saint Francois d’Assise et Savonarole inspirateurs de l’art Italien”, Paris, 1911). The Dominicans also frequently furnished libretti, i.e. dogmatic or symbolic themes for works of art. They also opened up an important source of information to art with their sanctoriaux and their popularizing writings. Artistic works such as the dances of death and sybils allied with the prophets are greatly indebted to them (Neale, “L’art religieux du XIIIB siecle”, Paris, 1910; Idem, “L’art religieux de la fin du moyen-rage en France“, Paris, 1910). Even the mystical life of the order, in its way, exercised an influence on contemporary art (Peltzer, “Deutsche Mystik and deutsche Kunst”, Strassburg, 1899; Hintze, “Der Einfluss des mystiken auf die altere Kolner Malerschule”, Breslau, 1901). Its saints and its confraternities, especially that of the Rosary, inspired many artists (Neuwbarn, “Die Verherrlichung des hl. Dominicus in der Kunst”, 1906).
(h) The Preachers and the Roman Church
The Order of Preachers is the work of the Roman Church. She found in St. Dominic an instrument of the first rank. But it was she who inspired the establishment of the order, who loaded it with privileges, directed its general activity, and protected it against its adversaries. From Honorius III (1216) till the death of Honorius IV (1287) the papacy was most favorable to the Preachers. Innocent IV’s change of attitude at the end of his pontificate (May 10, 1254), caused by the recriminations of the clergy and perhaps also by the adhesion of Arnold of Trier to Frederick II‘s projects of anti-ecclesiastical reform, was speedily repaired by Alexander IV [December 22, 1254; (“Chart. Univ. Paris“, I, 263, 276; Winckelmann, “Fratris Arnoldi Ord. Pried. De correctione Ecclesiae Epistola”, 1863; “Script. Ord. Pried.”, II, 821 b)]. But as a general thing during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the popes remained much attached to the order, displaying great confidence in it, as is made manifest by the “Bullarium” of the Preachers. No other religious order, it would seem, ever received eulogies from the papacy like those addressed to it by Alexander IV, May 23, 1257 (Potthast, op. cit., 16,847). The order cooperated with the Church in every way, the popes finding in its ranks assistants who were both competent and devoted. Beyond doubt through its own activity, its preaching and in instruction, it was already a powerful agent of the papacy; nevertheless the popes requested of it a universal cooperation. Matthew Paris states in 1250: “The Friars Preachers, impelled by obedience, are the fiscal agents, the nuncios and even the legates of the pope. They are the faithful collectors of the pontifical money by their preaching and their crusades and when they have finished they begin again. They assist the infirm, the dying, and those who make their wills. Diligent negotiators, armed with powers of every kind, they turn all to the profit of the pope” (Matthew Paris, “Hist. Angl.”, III, 317, in pope” (Matthew Paris, “Hist. Angl.”, III, 317, in “Ler. Brit. Med. Aev. Script.”). But the commissions of the Church to the Preachers far exceeded those enumerated by Matthew Paris, and among the weightiest must be mentioned the visitation of monasteries and dioceses, the administration of a large number of convents of nuns and the inquisitorial office. The order attempted to withdraw from its multifarious occupations, which distracted it from its chief end. Gregory IX partially yielded to their demands (October 25, 1239; cf. Potthast, op. cit., 10,804), but the order never succeeded in wholly winning its cause (Fontana, “Sacrum Theatrum Dominicanum”, pt. II, De S. R. Ecclesiae Officialibus, Rome, 1666; “Bull. Ord. Pried.”, I-II, passim; Potthast, “Regest. Pont. Rom.”, Papal Register of the XIII cent. in “Bib. des Ecoles Francaises d’Athenes et de Rome“).
The Dominicans gave to the Church many noted personages: among them during the Middle Ages were two popes, Innocent V (1276) and Benedict XI [1303-4; (Mothon, “Vie du B. Innocent V”, Rome, 1896; Fietta, “Nicola Boccasino di Trevigi e it suo tempo”, Padua, 1875; Funk, “Papst Benedikt XI”, Munster, 1891; Grandjean, “Benoit XI avant son pontificat” (1240-1303) in “Melanges archiv.—Hist. de L’ecole frangaise de Rome“, VIII, 219; Idem, “Recherches sur l’administration financiere du pape Benoit XI”, loc. cit., III, 1883, 47; Idem, “La date de la mort de Benoit XI”, loc. cit., XIV, 1894, 241; Idem, “Registre de Benoit XI”, Paris, 1885)]. There were twenty-eight Dominican cardinals during the first three centuries of the order’s existence. Some of them were noted for exceptional services to the papacy. The earliest of them, Hugh of Saint Cher, had the delicate mission of persuading Germany to accept William of Holland after the deposition of Frederick II (Sassen, “Hugh von St. Cher em Seine Tatigkeit als Kardinal, 1244-1263”, Bonn, 1908). Cardinal Latino Malabranca is famous for his legations and his pacification of Florence (1280; Davidsohn, “Gesch. von Florenz”, II, Berlin, 1908, p. 152; Idem, “Forsch. zur Gesch von Florenz”, IV, 1908, p. 226). Nicholas Albertini of Prato (1305-21) also undertook the pacification of Florence (1304; Bandini, “Vita del Cardinale Nicole da Prato”, Leghorn, 1757; Fineschi, “Supplemento alla vitta del Cardinale Nicole da Prato”, Lucca, 1758; Perrens, “Hist. de Florence“, Paris, III, 1877, 87). Cardinal Giovanni Dominici (1408-19) was the staunchest defender of the legitimate pope, Gregory XII, at the end of the Great Schism; and in the name of his master resigned the papacy at the Council of Constance (Rossler, “Cardinal Johannes Dominici, O.Pr., 1357-1419″, Freiburg, 1893; Mandonnet, “Beitrage zur. Gesch. des Kardinals Giovanni Dominici” in “Hist. Jahrbuch.”, 1900; Hollerbach, “Die Gregorianische Partei, Sigismund and das Konstanzer Konzil” in “Romische Quartalschrift”, XXIII-XXIV, 1909-10). Cardinal John de Torquemada (Turrecremata, 1439-68), an eminent theologian, was one of the strongest defenders of the pontifical rights at the time of the Council of Basle (Lederer, “Johann von Torquemada, sein Leben and seine Schriften”, Freiburg, 1879; Hefele, “Cone iliengesch.”, VIII).
Many important officials were furnished to the Church: Masters of the Sacred Palace (Catalamus, “De magistro sacri palatii apostolici” Rome, 1751); pontifical penitentiaries (Fontana, “Sacr. Theatr. Dominic”, 470; 631; “Bull. O.P.”, VIII, 765, Poenitentiarii; Goller, “Die papstliche Ponitentiarii von ihrem Ursprung bis zu ihrer Umgestaltung unter Pius VII”, Rome, 1907-11); and especially pontifical inquisitors. The defense of the Faith and the repression of heresy is essentially an apostolic and pontifical work. The Preachers also furnished many delegate judges holding their powers either from the bishops or from the pope, but the order as such had no mission properly so called, and the legislation for the repression of heresy was in particular absolutely foreign to it. The extreme dangers run by the Church at the beginning of the thirteenth century, owing to the progress of the Albigensians and Cathari, impelled the papacy to labor for their repression. It first urged the bishops to act, and the establishment of synodal witnesses was destined to make their mission more effective, but the insufficiency of this arrangement induced Gregory IX to advise the bishops to make use of the Preachers and finally, doubtless owing to the lack of zeal displayed by many bishops, to create inquisitorial judges by pontifical delegation. The Preachers were not chosen de jure, but de facto and successively in the various provinces of the order. The pope usually charged the Dominican provincials with the nomination of inquisitorial officers whose jurisdiction ordinarily coincided with the territory of the Dominican province. In their office the inquisitors were removed from the authority of their order and dependent only on the Holy See. The first pontifical inquisitors were invariably chosen from the Order of Preachers, the reason being the scarcity of educated and zealous clerics. The Preachers, being vowed to study and preaching, were alone prepared for a ministry, which required both learning and courage. The order received this, like many other pontifical commissions, only with regret. The master general, Humbert of Romans, declared that the friars should flee all odious offices and especially the Inquisition (Opera, ed. Berthier, II, 36).
The same solicitude to remove the order from the odium of the inquisitorial office impelled the provincial chapter of Cahors (1244) to forbid that anything should accrue to the friars from the administration of the Inquisition, that the order might not be slandered. The provincial chapter of Bordeaux (1257) even forbade the religious to eat with the inquisitors in places where the order had a convent (Douais, “Les Freres Precheurs en Gascogne”, Paris–Auch, 1885, p. 64). In countries where heresy was powerful, for instance in the south of France and the north of Italy, the order had much to endure, pillage, temporary expulsion, and assassination of the inquisitors. After the putting to death of the inquisitors at Avignonet (May 28, 1242) and the assassination of St. Peter of Verona (April 29, 1242) (“Vitae fratrum”, ed. Reichart, 231; Perein, “Monumenta Conventus Tolosani”, Toulouse, 1693, II, 198; Acta SS., April 29) the order, whose administration had much to suffer from this war against heresy, immediately requested to be relieved of the inquisitorial office. Innocent IV refused (April 10, 1243; Potthast, 11,083), and the following year the bishops of the south of France petitioned the pope that he would retain the Preachers in the Inquisition (“Hist. gen. du Languedoc”, III, ed. in folio, proof CCLIX, Vol. CCCCXLVI). Nevertheless the Holy See understood the desire of the Preachers; several provinces of Christendom ceased to be administered by them and were confided to the Friars Minor, viz., the Pontifical States, Apulia, Tuscany, the March of Trevisa and Slavonia, and finally Provence (Potthast, 11,993, 15,330, 15,409, 15,410, 18,895, 20,169; Tanon, “Hist. des tribunaux de l’inquisition en France” Paris, 1893; Idem, “Documents pour servir a I’hist. de l’Inquisition dans le Languedoc”, Paris, 1900; Vacandard, “L’Inquisition“, Paris, 1907; Lea, “Hist. of the Inquisition in the Middle Ages“, New York–London, 1888, French tr., Paris, 1900; Fredericq, “Corpus documentorum Inquisitionis haereticae pravitatis Neerlandicae”, Ghent, 1900; Amabile, “Il santo officio della Inquizione in Napoli”, Citta di Castello, 1892; Canzons, “Hist. de l’Inquisition en France“, Paris, 1909; Jordan, “La reeponsabilite de l’Eglise dans la repression de l’heresie au moyen-age” in “Annales de Philosophie chret.”, CLIV, 1907, p. 225). The suppression of heresy which had been especially active in certain more affected parts of Christendom, diminished notably in the second half of the thirteenth century. The particular conditions prevailing in Spain brought about the reestablishment of the Inquisition with new duties for the inquisitor general. These were exercised from 1483 to 1498 by Thomas of Torquemada, who reorganized the whole scheme of suppression, and by Diego de Deza from 1498 to 1507. These were the first and last Dominican inquisitors general in Spain (Lea, “Hist. of the Inquisition of Spain“, New York, 1906; Cotarelo y Valledor, “Fray Diego de Deza”, Madrid, 1905).
(i) The Friars Preachers and the Secular Clergy
The Preachers, who had been constituted from the beginning as an order of clerics vowed to ecclesiastical duties with a view to supplementing the insufficiency of the secular clergy, were universally accepted by the episcopate, which was unable to provide for the pastoral care of the faithful and the instruction of clerics. It was usually the bishops who summoned the Preachers to their dioceses. The conflicts which broke out here and there during the thirteenth century were not generally due to the bishops but to the parochial clergy who considered themselves injured in their temporal rights because of the devotion and generosity of the faithful towards the order. As a general thing compromises were reached between the convents and the parishes in which they were situated and peaceful results followed. The two great contests between the order and the secular clergy broke out in France during the thirteenth century. The first took place at the University of Paris, led by William of Saint-Amour (1252-59), and was complicated by a scholastic question. The episcopate had no share in this, and the church supported with all its strength the rights and privileges of the order, which emerged victorious (Mandonnet, “Siger de Brabant”, I, 70, 90; Perrod, “Etude sur la vie et les oeuvres de Guillaume de Saint-Amour” in “Memoires de la societe d’emulation de Jura”, Lons-le-Saunier, 1902, p. 61; Seppelt, “Der Kampf der Bettelorden an der Universitat Paris in der Mitte des 13. Jahrhunderts” in “Kirchengeschichtliche Abhandlungen”, Breslau, III 1905; VII, 1909). The strife broke out anew in the north of France after the privilege of Martin IV, “Ad fructus uberes” (December 13, 1281), and lasted until the Council of Paris in 1290. It was to a large extent conducted by Guillaume de Flavacourt, Bishop of Amiens, but in this instance also the two great mendicant orders triumphed over their adversaries, thanks to the energetic assistance of two cardinal legates (Denifle-Chatelain, “Chart. Univ. Paris“, I, passim; Finke, “Das Pariser National Konzil 1290” in “Romische Quartalschrift”, 1895, p. 171; Paulus, “Welt and Ordensclerus beim Ausgange des XIII. Jahrhunderts in Kampfe urn die Pfarr-Rechte”, Essen-Ruhr, 1900).
The order gave many of its members to the episcopate, but endeavored to prevent this. Sts. Dominic and Francis seem to have disapproved of the accession of their religious to ecclesiastical dignities (“Speculum perfections”, ed. Sabatier, Paris, 1898, p. 75; Thomas of Celano, “Legenda secunda S. Francisci”, III, lxxxvi). Jordanus of Saxony the immediate successor of St. Dominic, forbade all acceptance of election or postulation to the episcopate, under pain of excommunication, without special permission of the pope, the general chapter, and the master general (“Acta Cap. Gen.”, ed. Reichert, 4). During his administration he resisted with all his strength and declared that he would rather see a friar buried than raised to the episcopate (“Vitae Fratrum”, ed. Reichert, 141, 143, 209). Everyone knows the eloquent letter which Humbert of Romans wrote to Albertus Magnus to dissuade him from accepting the nomination to the See of Ratisbon (1260; Peter of Prussia, “Vita B. Alberti Magni”, Antwerp, 1621, p. 253). But all this opposition could not prevent the nomination of a great many to high ecclesiastical dignities. The worth of many religious made them so prominent that it was impossible that they should not be suggested for the episcopate. Princes and nobles who had sons or kinsmen in the order often labored for this result with interested motives, but the Holy See especially saw in the accession of Dominicans to the episcopate the means of infusing it with new blood. From the accession of Gregory IX the appointment of Dominicans to dioceses and archdioceses became an ordinary thing. Hence until the end of the fifteenth century about fifteen hundred Preachers were either appointed or translated to dioceses or archdioceses, among them men remarkable for their learning, their competent administration, their zeal for souls, and the holiness of their lives. (Eubel, “Hierarchia catholica”, I-II; “Bull Ord. Prmd.”, I-IV; “Script. Ord. Pried.”, I, p. xxi; Cavalieri, “Galleria de’ sommi Pontefici, Patriarchi, Arcivescovi, e Vescovi dell’ ordine de’ Predicatori”, Benevento, 1696; Vigna, “I vescovi domenicani Liguri ovvero in Liguria”, Genoa, 1887.)
(j) The Preachers and Civil Society
During the Middle Ages the Preachers influenced princes and communities. Princes found them to be prudent advisers, expert ambassadors, and enlightened confessors. The French monarchy was much attached to them. As early as 1226 Jordanus of Saxony was able to write, in speaking of Blanche of Castile: “The queen tenderly loves the friars and she has spoken with me personally and familiarly about her affairs” (Bayonne, “Lettres du B. Jourdain de Saxe”, Paris-Lyons, 1865, p. 66). No prince was more devoted to the order than St. Louis, nor did any grant it more favors. The French monarchy sought most of its confessors during the Middle Ages from the Order of Preachers (Chapotin, “A travers l’histoire dominicaine: “Les princes frangais du Moyen Age et l’ordre de Saint Dominique”, Paris, 1903, p. 207; Idem, “Etudes historiques sur la province dominicaine de France“, Paris, 1890, p. 128). It was the entrance of Humbert II, Dauphin of Vienna, into the order, which gained Dauphiny for France (Guiffrey, “Hist. de la reunion du Dauphine a, la France“, Paris, 1878). The Dukes of Burgundy also sought their confessors from the order (Chapotin, op. cit., 190). The kings of England did likewise and frequently employed its members in their service (Palmer, “The Kings’ Confessors” in “The Antiquary”, London, 1890, p. 114; Tarett, “Friars Confessors of the English Kings” in “The Home Counties Magazine”, XII, 1910, p. 100). Several German emperors were much attached to the order, nevertheless the Preachers did not hesitate to enter into conflict with Frederick II and Louis of Bavaria when these princes broke with the Church (Opladen, “Die Stellung der deutschen Konige zu den Orden im dreizethnten Jahrhundert” Bonn, 1908; Paulus, “Thomas von Strassburg and ‘Rudolph von Sachsen. Ihre Stellung zum Interdikt” in “Hist. Jahrbuch.”, XIII, 1892, 1; “Neues Archiv. der Geschellschaft fur altere deutsche Geschictskunde”, XXX, 1905, 447). The kings of Castile and Spain invariably chose their confessors from among the Preachers (“Catalogo de los religiosos dominicos qui han servido a los Senores de Castilla, de Aragon, y de Andalucia, en el empleo de sus Confessores de Estado”, Madrid, 1700). The kings of Portugal likewise sought their directors from the same source (de Sousa, “Historia de S. Domingos particulor de Reino, e conquistas de Portugal“, Lisbon, 1767; Gregoire, “Hist. des confesseurs des empereurs, des rois et d’autres princes”, Paris, 1824).
The first to be established in the centers of cities, the Dominicans exercised a profound influence on municipal life, especially in Italy. A witness at the canonization of St. Dominic in 1233 expresses the matter when he says that nearly all the cities of Lombardy and the Marches placed their affairs and their statutes in the hands of the Preachers, that they might arrange and alter them to their taste and as seemed to them fitting. The same was true of the extirpation of wars, the restoration of peace, restitution for usury, hearing of confessions and a multitude of benefits which would be too long to enumerate (“Annales Ord. Pried.”, Rome, 1756, append., col. 128). About this time the celebrated John of Vicenza exercised powerful influence in the north of Italy and was himself podesth of Verona (Sutter, “Johann von Vicenza and die italienische Friedensbewegung im Jahre 1233”, Freiburg, 1891; Ital. tr., Vicenza, 1900; Vitali, “I Domenicani nella vita italiana del secolo XIII”, Milan, 1902; Hefele, “Die Bettelorden and das religiose Volksleben Ober-und Mittelitaliens im XIII. Jahrhundert”, Leipzig–Berlin, 1910). An idea of the penetration of the order into all social classes may be formed from the declaration of Pierre Dubois in 1300 that the Preachers and the Minors knew better than anyone else the condition of the world and of all social classes (“De recuperatione Terre Sancte”, ed. Langlois, Paris, 1891, pp. 51, 74, 84). The part played by Catherine of Siena in the pacification of the towns of Central Italy and the return of the papacy from Avignon to Rome is well known. “She was the greatest figure of the second half of the fourteenth century, an Italian, not only a saint, a mystic, a miracle-worker, but a statesman, and a great statesman, who solved for the welfare of Italy and all Christendom the most difficult and tragic question of her time” (Gebhart, “line Sainte homme d’etat, Ste Catherine de Sienne” in “Revue Hebdomadaire”, March 16, 1907, 257). It was the Dominican Bishop of Geneva, Ademar de la Roche, who granted that town its liberties and franchise in 1387 (Mallet, “Libertes, franchises, immunites, us et coutumes de la ville de Geneve promulges par l’eveque Ademar Fabri le 23 Mai, 1387” in “Memoires et documents de la societe d’histoire et d’archeologie de Geneve”, Geneva, II, 1843, p. 270). Finally reference must be made to the profound influence exercised by Girolamo Savonarola (1498) on the political life of Florence during the last years of the fifteenth century (Vilari, “La Storia di Girolamo Savonarola e de suoi tempi”, Florence, 1887; Luotto, “Il vero Savonarola”, Florence, 1897).
(k) The Preachers and the Faithful
During the thirteenth century the faithful were almost without pastoral care and preaching. The coming of the Preachers was an innovation which won over the people eager for religious instruction. What a chronicler relates of Thuringia was the case almost everywhere: “Before the arrival of the Friars Preachers the word of God was rare and precious and very rarely preached to the people. The Friars Preachers preached alone in every section of Thuringia and in the town of Erfurt and no one hindered them” (Koch, “Graf Eiger von Holmstein”, Gotha, 1865, pp. 70, 72). About 1267 the Bishop of Amiens, Guillaume de Flavacourt, in the war against heresy already mentioned, declared that the people refused to hear the word of God from any save the Preachers and Minors (Bibl. de Grenoble, MS. 639, fol. 119). The Preachers exercised a special influence over the piously inclined of both sexes among the masses, so numerous in the Middle Ages, and they induced to penance and continence a great many people living in the world, who were commonly called Beguins, and who lived either alone or in more or less populous communities. Despite the order’s attraction for this devout, half-lay, half-religious world, the Preachers refused to take it under their jurisdiction in order not to hamper their chief activity nor distort their ecclesiastical ideal by too close contact with lay piety. The General Chapters of 1228 and 1229 forbade the religious to give the habit to any woman or to receive her profession, or to give spiritual direction to any community of women not strictly subject to some authority other than that of the order (“Archiv. f. Litt. a Kirchengesch.”, I, 27; Bayonne, “Lettres du B. Jourdain de Saxe”, 110). But the force of circumstances prevailed, and, despite everything, these clients furnished the chief elements of the Penitential Order of St. Dominic, who received their own rule in 1285, and of whom more has been said above (Mosheim, “De Beghardis et Beguiniabus”, Leipzig, 1720; Le Grand, “Les Beguines de Paris“, 1893; Nimal, “Les Beguinages”, Nivelles, 1908). The Order especially encouraged congregations of the Blessed Virgin and the saints, which developed greatly, especially in Italy. Many of them had their headquarters in convents of the Preachers, who administered them spiritually. After the Penitential movement of 1260 confraternities were formed commonly called Disciplinati, Battuti, etc. Many of them originated in Dominican churches (there is no general historical work on this subject). In 1274, during the Council of Lyons, Gregory X confided to the Dominicans the preaching of the Holy Name of Jesus, whence arose confraternities of that name (Bull. Ord. Pried., VIII, 524). Finally the second half of the fifteenth century saw the rapid development of confraternities of the Holy Rosary under the influence of the Preachers (“Acta Sanctae Sedis nec non magistrorum et capitulorum generalium sacri ordinis Praedicatorum pro Societate SS. Rosarii”, Lyons, 1890). With the object of developing the piety of the faithful the Preachers allowed them to be buried in the habit of the order (Cantimpratanus, “De bono universali apum”, lib. II, viii, n. 8). From the time of Jordanus of Saxony they issued letters of participation in the spiritual goods of the order. The same general established at Paris the custom of the evening sermon (collatio) for the students of the University, in order to turn them aside from dissipation, which custom passed to all the other universities (“Vita fratrum”, ed. Reichert, 327).
(l) The Preachers and the Foreign Missions
During the Middle Ages the Order of Preachers exercised considerable activity within the boundaries of Christendom and far beyond. The evangelization of heathen countries was confided to the nearest Dominican provinces. At the beginning of the fourteenth century the missions of Asia became a special group, the congregation of Friars Pilgrims for Christ. Some of the remote provinces, especially those of Greece and the Holy Land, were recruited from volunteers throughout the order. Besides the work of evangelization the religious frequently assumed the mission of ambassador or agent to schismatic or pagan princes, and Friars Preachers frequently occupied sees in partibus infidelium. A number of them, faithful to the order’s doctrinal vocation, composed works of all kinds to assist their apostolate, to defend the Christian Faith, to inform the Roman Church or Latin princes concerning the condition of the East, and to indicate measures to be taken against the dangers threatening Christianity. Finally they frequently shed their blood in these inhospitable and unfruitful countries. The province of Spain labored for the conversion of the Arabs of the Peninsula, and in 1256 Humbert of Romans described the satisfactory results (H. de Romanis, “Opera”, ed. Berthier, II, 502). In 1225 the first Spanish Dominicans evangelized Morocco and the head of the mission, Brother Dominic, was consecrated in that year first Bishop of Morocco (Analecta Ord. Pried., III, 374 sqq.). Some years later they were already established at Tunis [“Mon. Ord. Pried.: Hist.”, IV (Barmusidiana), fast. II, 29]. In 1256 and the ensuing years Alexander IV, at the instance of St. Raymond of Pennafort, gave a vigorous impulse to this mission (Potthast, 16,438; 17,187; 17,929).
In the north of Europe the province of England or that of Dacia carried its establishments as far as Greenland (Telie, “L’evangelization de l’Amerique avant Christophe Colomb” in “Compte rendu du congres scient. intern. des Catholiques”, 1891, sect. hist., 1721). As early as 1233 the province of Germany promoted the crusade against the Prussians and the heretical Stedingers, and brought them to the Faith (Schomberg, “Die Dominikaner im Erzbistum Bremen“, Brunswick, 1910, 14; “Bull. Ord. Pried.”, I, 61; H. de Romanis, “Opera”, II, 502). The province of Poland, founded by St. Hyacinth (1221), extended its apostolate by means of this saint as far as Kieft and Dantizig. In 1246 Brother Alexis resided at the Court of the Duke of Russia, and in 1258 the Preachers evangelized the Ruthenians (Abraham, “Powstanie organizacyi Koficio lacif skiego na Rusi”, Lemberg, 1904; Rainaldi, “Annal. eccl.”, ad ann. 1246, n. 30; Potthast, 17,186; Baracz, “Rys dziejew Zakonn Kaznodzie jskiego w Polsce”, Lemberg, 1861; Comtesse de Flavigny, “Saint Hyacinthe et ses compagnons”, Paris, 1899). The province of Hungary, founded in 1221 by Bl. Paul of Hungary, evangelized the Cumans and the people of the Balkans. As early as 1235-37 Brother Richard and his companions set out in quest of Greater Hungary—the Hungarian pagans still dwelling on the Volga (“Vitae Fratrum”, ed. Reichert, 305; “De inventa Hungaria Magna tempore Gregorii IX”, ed. Endlicher, in “Rerum Hungaricarum Monumenta”, 248; Ferrarius, “De rebus Hungaricae Provinciae S. Ord. Praed.”, Vienna, 1637).
The province of Greece, founded in 1228, occupied those territories of the empire of the East which had been conquered by the Latins, its chief center of activity being Constantinople. Here also the Preachers labored for the return of the schismatics to ecclesiastical unity (“Script. Ord. Pried.”, I, pp. i, xii, 102, 136, 156, 911; Potthast, 3198; “Vitae fratrum”, 1218). The province of the Holy Land, established in 1228, occupied all the Latin conquest of the Holy Land besides Nicosia and Tripoli. Its houses on the Continent were destroyed one after the other with the defeat of the Christians, and at the beginning of the fourteenth century the province was reduced to the three convents on the Island of Cyprus (“Script. Ord. Pried.”, I, pp. i, xii; Balme, “La Province dominicaine de Terre-Sainte de 1277 a 1280” in “Archives de I’Orient Latin”; Idem, “Les franciscains et les dominicains Jerusalem au treizieme et au quatorzieme siecle”, 1890, p. 324). The province of the Holy Land was the starting point for the evangelization of Asia during the thirteenth century. As early as 1237 the provincial, Philip, reported to Gregory IX extraordinary results obtained by the religious; the evangelization reached Jacobites and Nestorians, Maronites and Saracens (Script. Ord. Pried., I, 104). About the same time the Friars established themselves in Armenia and in Georgia (“Bull. Ord. Pried.”, I, 108, “Script. O.P.”, I, 122; H. de Romanis, “Opera”, II, 502; Vine. Bellovacensis, “Speculum historiale”, 1. b. XXI, 42; Tamarati, “L’Eglise Georgienne des origines jusqu’e nos jours”, Rome, 1910, 430).
The missions of Asia continued to develop throughout the thirteenth century and part of the fourteenth and missionaries went as far as Bagdad and India [Mandonnet, “Fra Ricoldo de Monte Croce” in “Revue bib.”, I, 1893; Balme, “Jourdain Cathala de Severac, Eveque de Coulain” (Quilon) Lyons, 1886]. In 1312 the master general, Beranger de Landore, organized the missions of Asia into a special congregation of “Friers Pilgrims”, with Franco of Perugia as vicar general. As a base of evangelization they had the convent of Pera (Constantinople), Capha, Trebizond, and Negropont. Thence they branched out into Armenia and Persia. In 1318 John XXII appointed Franco of Perugia Archbishop of Sultanieh, with six other Dominicans as suffragans. During the first half of the fourteenth century the Preachers occupied many sees in the East. When the missions of Persia were destroyed in 1349, the Preachers possessed fifteen monasteries there, and the United Brethren (see below) eleven monasteries. In 1358 the Congregation of Pilgrims still had two convents and eight residences. This movement brought about the foundation, in 1330, of the United Brethren of St. Gregory the Illuminator. It was the work of Bl. Bartolommeo Petit of Bologna, Bishop of Maragha, assisted by John of Kerni. It was formed by Armenian religious who adopted the Constitution of the Dominicans and were incorporated with the order after 1356. Thirty years after their foundation the United Brethren had in Armenia alone 50 monasteries with 700 religious. This province still existed in the eighteenth century [Eubel, “Die wahrend des 14. Jahrhunderts im Missionsgebiet der Dominikaner and Franziskaner errichteten Bistumer” in “Ferstchrift des deutschen Campo Santo in Rom”, Freiburg i. Br., 1897, 170; Heyd, “Die Kolonien der romischen Kirche, welche die Dominikaner and Franziskaner im 13. und 14. Jahrhundert in dem von der Tataren beherrschten Landern Asiens and Europas gregriindet haben” in “Zeitschrift fur die historische Theologie”, 1858; Tournebize, “Hist. politique et religieuse de l’Armenie”, Paris, s. d. (1910), 320; Andre-Marie, “Missions dominicaines clans l’Extreme Orient”, Lyons and Paris, 1865; Mortier, “Hist. des maitres generaux de l’ordre des Freres Precheurs”, I, IV].
(m) The Preachers and Sanctity
It is characteristic of Dominican sanctity that its saints attained holiness in the apostolate, in the pursuit or promotion of learning, administration, foreign missions, the papacy, the cardinalate, and the episcopate. Until the end of the fifteenth century the order in its three branches gave to the Church nine canonized saints and at least seventy-three blessed. Of the first order (the Preachers) are St. Dominic, St. Peter of Verona, martyr, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Raymond of Pennafort, St. Vincent Ferrer, St. Antoninus of Florence. Among the Dominican saints in general there is a predominance of the intellectual over the emotional qualities; their mystical life is more subjective than objective; and asceticism plays a strong part in their holiness. Meditation on the sufferings of Christ and His love was common among them. Mystic states, with the phenomena which accompany them, were ordinary, especially in convents of women in German countries. Many received the stigmata in various forms. St. Thomas Aquinas and Meister Eckhart were, from different standpoints, the greatest medieval theorists concerning the mystical state (Giffre de Rechac, “Les vies et actions memorables des saints canonises de l’ordre des Freres Precheurs et de plusieurs bienheureux et illustres personnages du meme ordre”, Paris, 1647; Marchese, “Sagro diario domenicano”, Naples, 1668, 6 vols. in fol.; Manoel de Lima, “Agiologio dominico”, Lisbon, 1709-54, 4 vols. in fol.; “Annee dominicaine”, Lyons 1883-1909, 12 vols. in 4; Imbert-Gourbeyre, “La Stigmatisation”, Clermont-Ferrand, 1894; Thomas de Vallgormera, “Mystica theologia D. Thom”, Barcelona, 1662; Turin, 1911, reed. Berthier).
B. Modern Period
The modern period consists of the three centuries between the religious revolution at the beginning of the sixteenth century (Protestantism) and the French Revolution with its consequences. The Order of Preachers, like the Church itself, felt the shock of these destructive revolutions, but its vitality enabled it to withstand them successfully. At the beginning of the sixteenth century the order was on the way to a genuine renaissance when the Revolutionary upheavals occurred. The progress of heresy cost it six or seven provinces and several hundreds of convents, but the discovery of the New World opened up a fresh field of activity. Its gains in America and those which arose as a consequence of the Portuguese conquests in Africa and the Indies far exceeded the losses of the order in Europe, and the seventeenth century saw its highest numerical development. The sixteenth century was a great doctrinal century, and the movement lasted beyond the middle of the eighteenth. In modern times the order lost much of its influence on the political powers, which had universally fallen into absolutism and had little sympathy for the democratic constitution of the Preachers. The Bourbon Courts of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were particularly unfavorable to them until the suppression of the Society of Jesus. In the eighteenth century there were numerous attempts at reform which created, especially in France, geographical confusion in the administration. During the eighteenth century the tyrannical spirit of the European Powers and, still more, the spirit of the age lessened the number of recruits and the fervor of religious life. The French Revolution ruined the order in France, and the crises which more or less rapidly followed considerably lessened or wholly destroyed numerous provinces.
(a) Geographical Distribution and Statistics
The modern period saw a great change in the geographical distribution of provinces and the number of religious in the order. The establishment of Protestantism in Anglo-Saxon countries brought about, during the sixteenth century, the total or partial disappearance of certain provinces. The provinces of Saxony, Dacia, England, and Scotland completely disappeared; that of Teutonia was mutilated; that of Ireland sought refuge in various houses on the Continent. The discovery and evangelization of America opened up vast territories, where the first Dominican missionaries established themselves as early as 1510. The first province, with San Domingo and the neighboring islands for its territory, was erected, under the name of the Holy Cross, in 1530. Others followed quickly—among them St. James of Mexico (1532), St. John Baptist of Peru (1539), St. Vincent of Chiapa (1551), St. Antoninus of New Granada (1551), St. Catherine of Quito (1580), St. Lawrence of Chile (1592). In Europe the order developed constantly from the middle of the sixteenth century till the middle of the eighteenth. New provinces or congregations were formed. Under the government of Serafino Cavalli (1571-78) the order had thirty-one provinces and five congregations. In 1720 it had forty-nine provinces and four congregations. At the former date there were about 900 convents; at the latter, 1200. During Cavalli’s time the order had 14,000 religious, and in 1720 more than 20,000. It seems to have reached its greatest numerical development during the seventeenth century. Mention is made of 30,000 and 40,000 Dominicans; perhaps these figures include nuns; it does not seem probable that the number of Preachers alone ever exceeded 25,000. The secularization in Austria-Hungary under Joseph II began the work of partial suppression of convents, which was continued in France by the Committee of Regulars (1770) until the Convention (1793) finally destroyed all religious life in that country. The Napoleonic conquest overthrew many provinces and houses in Europe. Most of them were eventually restored; but the Revolution destroyed partially or wholly the provinces of Portugal (1834), Spain (1834), and Italy (1870). The political troubles brought about by the revolt of Latin America from the mothercountry at the beginning of the nineteenth century partially or wholly destroyed several provinces of the New World (“Script. Ord. Prmd.”, II, p. I; “Analecta Ord. Pried.”, I sqq.; “Dominicanus orbis descriptus”; Mortier, “Hist. des maitres generaux”, V sqq.; Chapotin, “Le dernier prieur du dernier couvent”, Paris, 1893; Rais, “Historia de la provincia de Aragon, orden de Predicadores, desde le ano 1803 hasta el de 1818”, Saragossa, 1819; 1824).
(b) Administration of the Order
During the modern period the Preachers remained faithful to the spirit of their organization. Some modifications were necessitated by the general condition of the Church and civil society. Especially noteworthy was the attempt, in 1569, of St. Pius V, the Dominican pope, to restrict the choice of superiors by inferiors and to constitute a sort of administrative aristocracy (Acta Cap. Gener., V, 94). The frequent intervention of popes in the government of the order and the pretensions of civil powers, as well as its great development, diminished the frequency of general chapters; the rapid succession of masters general caused many chapters to be convened during the seventeenth century; in the eighteenth century chapters again became rare. The effective administration passed into the hands of the general assisted by pontifical decrees. During these three centuries the order had many heads who were remarkable for their energy and administrative ability, among them Thomas de Vio (1508-18), Garcia de Loaysa (1518-24), Vincent Giustiniani (1558-70), Nicolo Ridolfi (162944), Giovanni Battista de’ Marini (1650-69), Antonin Cloche (1686-1720), Antonin Bremond (1748-55), John Thomas de Boxadors (Mortier, “Hist. des maitres generaux”, V sq.; “Acta cap. gen.”, IV sq.; “Chronicon magistrorum generalium”; “Regula S. Augustini et Constitutiones Ord. Praed.”, Rome, 1695; Paichelli, “Vita del Rmo P. F. Giov. Battista de’ Marini“, Rome, 1670; Messin, “Vita del Rmo P. F. Antonino Cloche”, Benevento, 1721; “Vita Antonini Bremondii” in “Annales Ord. Praed.”, Rome, 1756, I, p. LIX).
(c) Scholastic Organization
The scholastic organization of the Dominicans during this modern period tended to concentration of studies. The conventual school required by the Constitutions disappeared, at least in its essentials, and in each province or congregation the studies were grouped in particular convents. The studia generalia multiplied, as well as convents incorporated with universities. The General Chapter of 1551 designates 27 convents in university towns where, and where only, the religious might take the degree of Master in Theology. Through the generosity of Dominicans in high ecclesiastical offices large colleges for higher education were also established for the benefit of certain provinces. Among the most famous of these were the College of St. Gregory at Valladolid, founded in 1488 by Alonzo of Burgos, adviser and confessor of the kings of Castile (Bull. O.P., IV, 38); that of St. Thomas at Seville, established in 1515 by Archbishop Diego de Deza (“Historia del colegio major de Ste Tomas de Sevilla”, Seville, 1890). The Preachers also established universities in their chief provinces in America—San Domingo (1538), Santa Fe de Bogota (1612), Quito (1681), Havana (1721)—and even in the Philippines, where the University of Manila (1645) is still flourishing and in their hands. During the sixteenth and following centuries the schedule of studies was more than once revised, and the matter extended to meet the needs of the times. Oriental studies especially received a vigorous impulse under the generalship of Antonin Bremond (Fabricy, “Des titres primitifs de la Revelation“, Rome, 1772, II, 132; “Acta. Cap. Gen.”, IV-VII; “Bull. O.P.”, passim; V. de la Fuente, “La ensenanza Tomistica en Espana”, Madrid, 1874; Contarini, “Notizie storiche circa gli publici professori nello studio di Padova scelti dall’ ordine di San Domenico”, Venice, 1769).
(d) Doctrinal Activity
The doctrinal activity of the Preachers continued during the modern period. The order, closely connected with the events of the Reformation in German countries, faced the revolutionary movement as best it could, and by preaching and writing deserved what Dr. Paulus has said of it: “It may well be said that in the difficult conflict through which the Catholic Church had to pass in Germany in the sixteenth century no other religious order furnished in the literary sphere so many champions, or so well equipped, as the Order of St. Dominic” (“Die deutschen Dominikaner in Kampfe gegen Luther, 1518-1563”, Freiburg i. Br., 1903). The order was conspicuous by the number and influence of the Dominican bishops and theologians who took part in the Council of Trent. To a certain extent Thomistic doctrine predominated in the discussions and decisions of the council, so that Clement VII, in 1593, could say, when he desired the Jesuits to follow St. Thomas, that the council approved and accepted his works (Astrain, “Historia de la Compania de Jesus en la asistencia de Espana”, III, Madrid, 1909, 580). The “Catechismus ad Parochos”, the composition of which had been ordered by the council, and which was published at the command of Pius V (1566), is the work of Dominican theologians (Reginaldus, “De catechismi romani auctoritate dissertatio”, Naples, 1765). The Spanish Dominican School of the sixteenth century, inaugurated by Francisco de Vitoria (d. 1540), produced a series of eminent theologians: Melchior Cano (1560), the celebrated author of “De locis theologicis”; Domingo Soto (1500); Bartolome de Medina (1580); Domingo Banez. This line of theologians was continued by Tomas de Lemos (1629); Diego Alvarez (1635); Juan de S. Tomas (1644); [“Script. O.P.”, II, s. vv.; P. Getino, “Historia de un convento” (St. Stephen of Salamanca), Vergara, 1904; Ehrle, “Die Vatikanischen Handschriften der Salamanticenser Theologen des sechszehnten Jahrhunderts” in “Der Katholik”, 64-65, 1884-85; L. G. Getino, “El maestro Fr. Francisco de Vitoria” in “La Ciencia tomista”, Madrid, I, 1910, 1; Caballero, “Vida del Illmo. dr. D. Fray Melchor Cano”, Madrid, 1871; Alvarez, “Santa Teresa y el P. Banez”, Madrid, 18821.
Italy furnished a contingent of Dominican theologians of note, of whom Thomas de Vio Cajetan (d. 1534) was incontestably the most famous (Cossio, “II cardinale Gaetano e la riforma”, Cividale, 1902). Francesco Silvestro di Ferrara (d. 1528) left a valuable commentary on the “Summa contra Gentiles” (Script. O.P., II, 59). Chrysostom Javelli, a dissenter from the Thomistic School, left very remarkable writings on the moral and political sciences (op. cit., 104). Catharine (1553) is a famous polemicist, but an unreliable theologian (Schweizer, “Ambrosius Catharinus Pol’tus, 1484-1553, ein Theologe des Reformations-zeitalters”, Munster, 1910). France likewise produced excellent theologians—Jean Nicolai (d. 1673); Vincent de Contenson (d. 1674); Antoine Reginald (d. 1676); Jean-Baptiste Gonet (d. 1081); Antoine Gondin (d. 1695); Antonin Manoulie (d. 1706); Noel Alexandre (Natalis Alexander) (d. 1724); Hyacinthe de Graveson (d. 1733); Hyacinthe Serry (d. 1738) (“Script. O.P.”, II; Hurter, “Nomenclator”, IV; H. Serry, “Opera omnia”, I, Lyons, 1770, p. 5). From the sixteenth century to the eighteenth the Thomistic School upheld by the authority of Dominican general chapters and theologians, the official adhesion of new religious orders and various theological faculties, but above all by the Holy See, enjoyed an increasing and undisputed authority.
The disputes concerning moral theology which disturbed the Church during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, originated in the theory of probability advanced by the Spanish Dominican Bartolome de Medina in 1577. Several theologians of the order adopted, at the beginning of the seventeenth century, the theory of moral probability; but in consideration of the abuses which resulted from these doctrines, the General Chapter of 1656 condemned them, and after that time there were no more Probabilists among the Dominicans. The condemnations of Alexander VII (1665, 1667), the famous Decree of Innocent XI, and various acts of the Roman Church combined to make the Preachers resolute opponents of Probabilism. The publication of Concina’s “Storia del probabilismo” in 1743 renewed the controversy. He displayed enormous activity, and his friend and disciple, Giovanni Vicenzo Patuzzi (d. 1769), defended him in a series of vigorous writings. St. Alphonsus Liguori felt the consequences of these disputes, and, in consideration of the position taken by the Holy See, greatly modified his theoretical system of probability and expressed his desire to adhere to the doctrine of St. Thomas Aquinas (Mandonnet, “Le decret d’Innocent XI contre le probabilisme”, in “Revue Thomiste” 1901-03; Ter Haar, “Das Decret des Papstes Innocenz XI fiber den Probabilismus”, Paderborn, 1904; Concina, “Della storia del Probabilismo e del Rigorismo”, Lucca, 1743; Mondius, “Studio storico-critico sul sistema morale di S. Alfonso M. de Liguori”, Monza, 1911; Dellinger-Reusch, “Gesch. der Moralstreitigkeiten”, Nordlingen, 1889).
(e) Scientific productions
The literary activity of the Preachers of the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries was not confined to the theological movement noticed above, but shared in the general movement of erudition in the sacred sciences. Among the most noteworthy productions were the works of Pagnini (d. 1541) on the Hebrew text of Scripture; his lexicons and grammars were famous in their day, and exercised a lasting influence (Script. O.P., II, 114); Sixtus of Siena (d. 1569), a converted Jew, created the science of introduction to the Sacred Books with his “Bibliotheca Sancta” (Venice, 1566; op. cit., 206); Jacques Goar, liturgist and Orientalist, published the “Euchologium sive rituale Graecorum” (Paris, 1647), a work which, according to Renaudot, was unsurpassed by anything in its time (Hurter, “Nomenclat. litt.”, III, 1211). Francois Combefis (d. 1679) issued editions of the Greek Fathers and writers (op. cit., IV, 161). Michel le Quien, Orientalist, produced a monumental work in his “Oriens Christianus”, Vansleb (d. 1079) was twice sent by Colbert to the Orient, whence he brought a large number of MSS. for the Bibliotheque du Roi (Pougeois, “Vansleb”, Paris, 1869). Thomas Mammachi (d. 1792) left a large unfinished work, “Origines et Antiquitates Christianae” (Rome, 1753-57).
In the historical field mention must be made of Bartholomew de Las Casas (d. 1566) who left a valuable “Historia de las Indias” (Madrid, 1875). Noel Alexandre (d. 1724) left an ecclesiastical history which was long held in esteem [Paris, 1676-89; (Dict. de Theol. Cath., I, 769)]. Joseph Augustin Orsi (d. 1761) wrote an “Historia eclesiastica” which was continued by his confrere Filippo Angelo Beechetti (d. 1814). The last edition (Rome, 1838) numbers 50 volumes (Kirchenlex., IX, 1087). Nicolas Coeffeteau was, according to Vaugelas, one of the two greatest masters of the French language at the beginning of the eighteenth century (Urbain, “Nicolas Coeffeteau, dominicain, eveque de Marseille, un des fondateurs de la prose francaise, 1574-1623″, Paris, 1840). Thomas Campanella (d. 1639) won renown by his numerous writings on philosophy and sociology as well as by the boldness of his ideas and his eventful life (Dict. de theol. cath., II, 1443). Jacques Barelier (d. 1673) left one of the foremost botanical works of his time, which was edited by A. de Jussieu, “Icones plantarum per Galliam, Hispaniam et Italiam observatarum ad vivum exhibitarum” [Paris, 1714; (Script. O.P., II, 645)].
(f) The Preachers and Christian Society
During the modern period the order performed countless services for the Church. Their importance may be gathered from the fact that during this period it gave to the Church two popes, St. Pius V (1566-72) and Benedict XIII (1724-30), forty cardinals, and more than a thousand bishops and archbishops. From the foundation of the Roman Congregations in the sixteenth century a special place was reserved for the Preachers; thus the titulars of the Commissariat of the Holy Office and the secretary of the Index were always chosen from this order. The title of Consultor of the Holy Office also belonged by right to the master general and the Master of the Sacred Palace (Gams, “Series episcoporum ecclesiae catholicae”, Ratisbon, 1873; Falloux, “Histoire de Saint Pie V”, Paris, 1858; Borgia, “Benedicti XIII vita”, Rome, 1741; Catalano, “De secretario Indicis”, Rome, 1751). The influence of the Preachers on the political powers of Europe was unequally exercised during this period: they remained confessors of the kings of Spain until 1700; in France their credit decreased, especially under Louis XIV, from whom they had much to suffer (“Catalogo de los religiosos dominicanos confessores de Estado, 1700”; Chapotin, “La guerre de succession de Poissy, 1660-1707”, Paris, 1892).
(g) The Preachers and the Missions
The missions of the Preachers reached their greatest development during the modern period. They were fostered, on the one hand, by the Portuguese conquests in Africa and the East Indies and, on the other, by the Spanish conquests in America and Western Asia. As early as the end of the fifteenth century Portuguese Dominicans reached the West Coast of Africa and, accompanying the explorers, rounded the Cape of Good Hope to settle on the coast of East Africa. They founded temporary or permanent missions in the Portuguese African settlements and went in succession to the Indies, Ceylon, Siam, and Malacca. They made Goa the center of these missions which in 1548 were erected into a special mission of the Holy Cross, which had to suffer from the British conquest, but continued to flourish till the beginning of the nineteenth century. The order gave a great many bishops to these regions [Joao dos Santos, “Ethiopia oriental”, Evora, 1609; reedited Lisbon, 1891; Cacegas-de Sousa, “Historia de S. Domingo partidor do reino e conquistas de Portugal“, Lisbon, 1767 (Vol. IV by Lucas de Santa Catharina); Andre Marie, “Missions dominicaines dans l’extreme Orient”, Lyons-Paris, 1865]. The discovery of America soon brought Dominican evangelization in the footsteps of the conquistadores; one of them, Diego de Deza, was the constant defender of Christopher Columbus, who declared (letter of December 21 1504) that it was to him the Sovereigns of Spain owed the possession of the Indies (Mandonnet, “Les dominicains et la decouverte de l’Amerique”, Paris, 1893). The first missionaries reached the New World in 1510, and preaching was quickly extended throughout the conquered countries, where they organized the various provinces already mentioned and found in Bartolome de las Casas, who took the habit of the order, their most powerful assistant in the defense of the Indians.
St. Louis Bertrand (d. 1581) was the great apostle of New Granada, and St. Rose of Lima (d. 1617) the first flower of sanctity in the New World (Remesal, “Historia de la provincia de S. Vicente de Chiapa y Guatemala”, Madrid, 1619; Davila Padilla, “Historia de la fundacion y discorso de la provincia de Santiago de Mexico“, Madrid, 1592; Brussels, 1625; Franco, “Segunda parte de la historia de la provincia de Santiago de Mexico“, 1645, Mexico; reed. Mexico, 1900; Melendez, “Tesores verdaderos de la Indias en la historia de la gran provincia de S. Juan Bautista del Peru“, Rome, 1681; Alonso de Zamora, “Historia de la provincia de San Antonio del nuevo reyno de Granada”, Barcelona, 1701; Helps, “Life of las Casas, the Apostle of the Indies”, London, 1883; Gutierrez, “Fray Bartolome de las Casas sus tiempos y su apostolado”, Madrid, 1878; Fabie, “Vida y escritos de Fray Bartolome de las Casas“, Madrid, 1879; Wilberforce, “Life of Louis Bertrand”, Fr. tr. Folghera, Paris, 1904; Masson, “Sainte Rose, tertiaire dominicaine, patronne du Nouveau Monde”, Lyons, 1898). Dominican evangelization went from America to the Philippines (1586) and thence to China (1590), where Gaspar of the Holy Cross, of the Portuguese Congregation of the Indies, had already begun to work in 1559. The Preachers established themselves in Japan (1601), in Tonking (1676), and in the Island of Formosa. This flourishing mission passed through persecutions, and the Church has raised its numerous martyrs to her altars [Ferrando-Fonseca, “Historia de los PP. Dominicos a las islas Filipinas, y en sus misiones de Japan, China, Tungkin y Formosa”, Madrid, 1870; Navarrete “Tratados historicos, politicos, ethicos y religiosos de la monarquia de China“, Madrid, 1676-1679, tr., London, 1704; Gentili, “Memorie di un missionario domenicano nella Cina”, 1887; Orfanel, “Historia eclesiastica de los succesos de la christiandad de Japon desde 1602 que entr6 en el la orden de Predicadores, hasta el ano de 1620”, Madrid, 1633; Guglielmotti, “Memorie delle missioni cattoliche nef regno del Tunchino”, Rome, 1844; Arias, “El beato Sanz y companeros martires”, Manila, 1893; “I martiri annamiti e chinesi (1798-1856)”, Rome, 1900; Clementi, “Gli otto martiri tonchinesi dell’ ordine di S. Domenico”, Rome, 1906]. In 1635 the French Dominicans began the evangelization of the French Antilles, Guadaloupe, Martinique etc., which lasted until the end of the eighteenth century (Du Tertre, “Hilt. generale des Antilles”, Paris, 1667-71; Labat, “Nouveau voyage aux isles de l’Amerique”, Paris, 1742). In 1750 the Mission of Mesopotamia and Kurdistan was founded by the Italian religious; it passed to the Province of France (Paris) in 1856 (Goormachtigh, “Hist. de la mission dominicaine en Mesopotamie et Kurdistan”, in “Analecta O.P.”, III, 271).
(h) Dominican Saints and Blessed
From the beginning of the sixteenth century members of the Order of St. Dominic eminent for sanctity were the subjects of twenty-one canonizations or beatifications. Some of the beatifications included a more or less large number at one time: such were the Annamite martyrs, who formed a group of twenty-six beati canonized May 21, 1900, by Leo XIII, and the martyrs of Tonking, who numbered eight, the last of whom died in 1861, and who were canonized by Pius X, November 28, 1905. Five saints were canonized during this period; St. John of Gorkum (d. 1572), martyr; St. Pius V (d. 1572), the last pope canonized; St. Louis Bertrand (d. 1581), missionary in the New World; St. Catherine de’ Ricci (d. 1589), of the second order, and St. Rose of Lima (d. 1617), tertiary, the first American saint. (See general bibliography of saints in section Middle Ages above.)
C. Contemporaneous Period
The contemporaneous period of the history of the Preachers begins with the different restorations of provinces undertaken after the revolutions which had destroyed the order in several countries of the Old World and the New. This period begins more or less early in the nineteenth century, and it cannot be traced down to the present day without naming religious who are still living and whose activity embodies the present life of the order. The revolutions not having totally destroyed certain of the provinces, nor decimated them, simultaneously, the Preachers were able to take up the laborious work of restoration in countries where the civil legislation did not present insurmountable obstacles. During this critical period the number of Preachers seems never to have sunk below 3500. The statistics for 1876 give 3748 religious, but 500 of these had been expelled from their convents and were engaged in parochial work. The statistics for 1910 give a total of very nearly 4472 religious both nominally and actually engaged in the proper activities of the order. They are distributed in 28 provinces and 5 congregations, and possess nearly 400 convents or secondary establishments.
In the revival movement France held a foremost place, owing to the reputation and convincing power of the immortal orator, Henri-Dominique Lacordaire (1802-61). He took the habit of a Friar Preacher at Rome (1839), and the province of France was canonically erected in 1850. From this province were detached the province of Lyons, called Occitania (1862), that of Toulouse (1869), and that of Canada (1909). The French restoration likewise furnished many laborers to other provinces, to assist in their organization and progress. From it came the master general who remained longest at the head of the administration during the nineteenth century, Pere Vincent Jandel (1850-72). Here should be mentioned the province of St. Joseph in the United States. Founded in 1805 by Father Dominic Fenwick, afterwards first Bishop of Cincinnati, Ohio (1821-32), this province has developed slowly, but now ranks among the most flourishing and active provinces of the order. In 1910 it numbered 17 convents or secondary houses. In 1905 it established a large house of studies at Washington.
The province of France (Paris) has produced a large number of preachers, several of whom became renowned. The conferences of Notre-Dame-de-Paris were inaugurated by Pere Lacordaire. The Dominicans of the province of France furnished most of the orators: Lacordaire (1835-36, 1843-51), Jacques Monsabre (1869-70, 1872-90), Joseph Ollivier (1871, 1897), Thomas Etourneau (1898-1902). Since 1903 the pulpit of Notre Dame has again been occupied by a Dominican. Pere Henri Didon (d. 1900) was one of the most esteemed orators of his time. The province of France displays greater intellectual and scientific activity than ever, the chief center being the house of studies at present situated at Kain, near Tournai, Belgium, where are published “L’Annee Dominicaine” (founded 1859), “La Revue des Sciences Philosophiques et Theologiques” (1907), and “La Revue de la Jeunesse” (1909).
The province of the Philippines, the most populous in the order, is recruited from Spain, where it has several preparatory houses. In the Philippines it has charge of the University of Manila, recognized by the Government of the United States, two colleges, and six establishments; in China it administers the missions of North and South Fo-Kien; in the Japanese Empire, those of Formosa and Shikoku, besides establishments at New Orleans, at Caracas (Venezuela), and at Rome. The province of Spain has seventeen establishments in the Peninsula and the Canaries, as well as the missions of Urubamba (Peru). Since 1910 it has published at Madrid an important review, “La Ciencia Tomista”. The province of Holland has a score of establishments, and the missions of Curacao and Porto Rico. Other provinces also have their missions. That of Piedmont has establishments at Constantinople and Smyrna; that of Toulouse, in Brazil; that of Lyons, in Cuba; that of Ireland, in Australia and Trinidad; that of Belgium, in the Belgian Congo, and so on.
Doctrinal development has had an important place in the restoration of the Preachers. Several institutions besides those already mentioned have played important parts. Such is the Biblical school at Jerusalem, open to the religious of the order and to secular clerics, and which publishes the “Revue Biblique”, so highly esteemed in the learned world. The faculty of theology of the University of Freiburg, confided to the care of the Dominicans in 1890, is flourishing and has about 250 students. The Collegium Angelicum, established at Rome (1911) by Hyacinth Connier (master general since 1902), is open to regulars and seculars for the study of the sacred sciences. To the reviews mentioned above must be added the “Revue Thomiste”, founded by Pere Thomas Coconnier (d. 1908), and the “Analecta Ordinis Praedicatorum” (1893). Among the numerous writers of the order in this period are: Cardinals Thomas Zigliara (d. 1893) and Zephirin Gonzalez (d. 1894), two esteemed philosophers; Father Alberto Guillelmotti (d. 1893), historian of the Pontifical Navy, and Father Heinrich Denifle, one of the most famous writers on medieval history (d. 1905).
In 1910 the order had twenty archbishops or bishops, one of whom, Andreas Fruhwirth, formerly master general (1892-1902), is Apostolic nuncio at Munich (Sanvito, “Catalogus omnium provinciarum sacri ordinis praedicatorum”, Rome, 1910; “Analecta O.P.”, Rome, 1893—; “L’Annee Dominicaine”, Paris, 1859-). In the last two publications will be found historical and bibliographical information concerning the history of the Preachers during the contemporaneous period.
III. The Second Order. Dominican Sisters
The circumstances under which St. Dominic established the first convent of nuns at Prouille (1206) and the legislation given the second order have been related above. As early as 1228 the question arose as to whether the Order of Preachers would accept the government of convents for women. The order itself was strongly in favor of avoiding this ministry and struggled long to maintain its freedom. But the sisters found, even among the Preachers, such advocates as the master general, Jordanus of Saxony (d. 1236), and especially the Dominican cardinal, Hugh of St. Cher (d. 1263), who promised them that they would eventually be victorious (1267). The incorporation of monasteries with the order continued through the latter part of the thirteenth and during the next century. In 1288 the papal legate, Giovanni Boccanazzi, simultaneously placed all the Penitent Sisters of St. Mary Magdalen in Germany under the government of the provincial of the Preachers, but this step was not final. The convents of sisters incorporated with the order were especially numerous in the province of Germany. The statistics for 1277 show 58 monasteries already incorporated, 40 of which were in the single province of Teutonia. The statistics for 1303 give 149 convents of Dominican nuns, and these figures increased during the succeeding centuries. Nevertheless, a certain number of monasteries passed under the jurisdiction of bishops. In the list of convents drawn up during the generalship of Serafino Cavalli (1571-78) there are only 168 monasteries. But the convents of nuns are not indicated for most provinces, and the number should really be much higher. The Council of Trent placed all the convents of nuns under the jurisdiction of bishops, but the Preachers frequently provided these houses with chaplains or almoners. The statistics for 1770 give 180 monasteries, but they are incomplete. The revolutions, which affected the ecclesiastical situation in most Catholic countries from the end of the eighteenth century, brought about the suppression of a great many monasteries; several, however, survived these disturbances, and others were reestablished. In the list for 1895 there are more than 150 monasteries, including some of the Third Order, which are cloistered like the Second Order. These monasteries are most numerous in Spain. In Germany the convents of nuns in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries witnessed the development of an intense mystical life, and several of these houses have preserved accounts of the life of the sisters, usually in the vernacular.
The Dominican sisters, instructed and directed by an order of preachers and teachers, were remarkable not only for spiritual but also for intellectual culture. In the course of seven centuries various nuns have left literary and artistic works which bear witness to the culture of some of these monasteries (“Script. O.P.”, I, pp. i-xv; II, pp. i-xix, 830; “Bull. O.P.”, passim; Mortier, “Hist. des maltres generaux”, passim; Danzas, “Etudes sur les temps primitifs de l’ordre de St. Dominique”, IV, Poitiers-Paris (1877); “Analecta O.P.”, passim; Greith, “Die deutsche Mystik im Prediger Orden”, Freiburg i. Br., 1861; de Villermont, “Un groupe mystique allemand”, Brussels, 1907).
IV. The Third Order
Neither St. Dominic nor the early Preachers wished to have under their jurisdiction—and consequently under their responsibility—either religious or lay associations. We have seen their efforts to be relieved of the government of nuns who, nevertheless, were following the rule of the order. But numerous laymen, and especially lay women, who were leading in the world a life of penance or observing continence, felt the doctrinal influence of the order and grouped themselves about its convents. In 1285 the need of more firmly uniting these lay elements and the idea of bringing under the direction of the Preachers a portion of the Order of Penance led the seventh master general, Munon de Zamora, at the instance of Honorius IV, to draw up the rule known as that of the Penance of St. Dominic. Inspired by that of the Brothers of Penance, this rule had a more ecclesiastical character and firmly subordinated the conduct of the brothers to the authority of the Preachers. Honorius IV confirmed the foundation by the collation of a privilege (January 28, 1286). The former master general of the Friars Minor, Jerome d’Ascoli, having become pope in 1288 under the name of Nicholas IV, regarded the action of his predecessor and of the master general of the Friars Preachers as a kind of defiance of the Friars Minor who considered themselves the natural protectors of the Brothers of Penance, and by his letters of August 17, 1289, he sought to prevent the desertion of the Brothers of Penance. Munon de Zamora discharged his office of master general as it had been confided to him by Martin IV. The Order of Preachers protested with all its might against what it regarded as an injustice.
These events retarded the development of the Dominican Third Order, a portion of the Preachers remaining unfavorable to the institution. Nevertheless, the Third Order continued to exist; one of its fraternities, that of Siena, was especially flourishing, a list of its members from 1311 being extant. The sisters numbered 100 in 1352, among them she who was to become St. Catherine of Siena. They numbered 92 in 1378. The reforming movement of Raymund of Capua, confessor and historian of St. Catherine, aimed at the spread of the Third Order; in this Thomas Caffarini of Siena was especially active. The Dominican Third Order received new approbation from Boniface IX, January 18, 1401, and on April 27 of the following year the pope published its rule in a Bull, whereupon its development received a fresh impetus. It never became very widespread, the Preachers having sought quality rather than number of tertiaries. St. Catherine of Siena, canonized in 1461, is the patroness of the Third Order, and, following the example of her who has been called the Joan of Arc of the papacy, the Dominican tertiaries have always manifested special devotion to the Roman Church. Also in imitation of their patroness, who wrote splendid mystical works, they endeavored to acquire a special knowledge of their religion, as befits Christians incorporated with a great doctrinal order. The Third Order has given several blessed to the Church, besides St. Catherine of Siena and St. Rose of Lima. For several centuries there have been regular convents and congregations belonging to the Third Order. The nineteenth century witnessed the establishment of a large number of regular congregations of tertiaries devoted to works of charity or education. In 1895 there were about 55 congregations, with about 800 establishments and 20,000 members. In the United States there are flourishing convents at Sinsinawa (Wisconsin), Jersey City, Traverse (Michigan), Columbus (Ohio), Albany (New York), and San Francisco (California).
In 1852 Pere Lacordaire founded in France a congregation of priests for the education of youth called the Third Teaching Order of St. Dominic. It is now regarded as a special province of the Order of Preachers, and had flourishing and select colleges in France at Oullins (1853), Soreze (1854), Arceuil (1863), Arcachon (1875), Paris (Ecole Lacordaire, 1890). These houses have ceased to be directed by Dominicans since the persecution of 1903. The teaching Dominicans now have the College Lacordaire at Buenos Aires, Champittet at Lausanne (Switzerland), and San Sebastian (Spain). During the Paris Commune four martyrs of the teaching order died in company with a priest of the First Order, May 25, 1871. One of them, Pere Louis-Raphael Captier, was an eminent educator (Mandonnet, “Les regles et le gouvernement de fordo de Poenitentia au XIIIe siecle” in “Opuscules de critique historique”, IV, Paris, 1902; Federici, “Istoria de’ Cavalieri Gaudenti”, Venice, 1787).
P. MANDONNET