page_title: Dominican Order
section_title: Middle Ages
hierarchical_section_title: Dominican Order / History / Middle Ages
context_page_description: The Dominican Order, formally known as the Order of Preachers, is a mendicant order of the Catholic Church founded in France by the Spanish priest Saint Dominic. It was approved by Pope Honorius III via the Papal bull Religiosam vitam on 22 December 1216. Members of the order, who are referred to as Dominicans, generally carry the letters OP after their names, standing for Ordinis Praedicatorum, meaning of the Order of Preachers. Membership in the order includes friars, nuns, active sisters, and affiliated lay or secular Dominicans.
  Founded to preach the Gospel and to oppose heresy, the teaching activity of the order and its scholastic organisation placed the Preachers in the forefront of the intellectual life of the Middle Ages. The order is famed for its intellectual tradition, having produced many leading theologians and philosophers. In the year 2018 there were 5,747 Dominican friars, including 4,299 priests. The Dominican Order is headed by the Master of the Order, as of 2019, Gerard Timoner III. Mary Magdalene and Catherine of Alexandria are the co-patronesses of the Order.
  A number of other names have been used to refer to both the order and its members.
context_section_description: Dominic established a religious community in Toulouse in 1214, to be governed by the rule of Saint Augustine and statutes to govern the life of the friars, including the Primitive Constitution.
  In July 1215, with the approbation of Bishop Foulques of Toulouse, Dominic ordered his followers into an institutional life. Its purpose was revolutionary in the pastoral ministry of the Catholic Church. These priests were organized and well trained in religious studies. Dominic needed a framework—a rule—to organize these components. The Rule of Saint Augustine was an obvious choice for the Dominican Order, according to Dominic's successor Jordan of Saxony, in the Libellus de principiis, because it lent itself to the "salvation of souls through preaching". By this choice, however, the Dominican brothers designated themselves not monks, but canons-regular. They could practice ministry and common life while existing in individual poverty.
  Dominic's education at Palencia gave him the knowledge he needed to overcome the Manicheans. With charity, the other concept that most defines the work and spirituality of the order, study became the method most used by the Dominicans in working to defend the Church against the perils that hounded it, and also of enlarging its authority over larger areas of the known world. In Dominic's thinking, it was impossible for men to preach what they did not or could not understand. When the brethren left Prouille, then, to begin their apostolic work, Dominic sent Matthew of Paris to establish a school near the University of Paris. This was the first of many Dominican schools established by the brethren, some near large universities throughout Europe. The women of the order also established schools for the children of the local gentry.
  The Order of Preachers was approved in December 1216 and January 1217 by Pope Honorius III in the papal bulls Religiosam vitam and Nos attendentes.  On January 21, 1217, Honorius issued the bull Gratiarum omnium recognizing Dominic's followers as an order dedicated to study and universally authorized to preach, a power formerly reserved to local episcopal authorization.
  On August 15, 1217, Dominic dispatched seven of his followers to the great university center of Paris to establish a priory focused on study and preaching. The Convent of St. Jacques, would eventually become the order's first studium generale. Dominic was to establish similar foundations at other university towns of the day, Bologna in 1218, Palencia and Montpellier in 1220, and Oxford just before his death in 1221.
  In 1219 Pope Honorius III invited Dominic and his companions to take up residence at the ancient Roman basilica of Santa Sabina, which they did by early 1220. Before that time the friars had only a temporary residence in Rome at the convent of San Sisto Vecchio which Honorius III had given to Dominic circa 1218 intending it to become a convent for a reformation of nuns at Rome under Dominic's guidance. In May 1220 at Bologna the order's first General Chapter mandated that each new priory of the order maintain its own studium conventuale, thus laying the foundation of the Dominican tradition of sponsoring widespread institutions of learning. The official foundation of the Dominican convent at Santa Sabina with its studium conventuale occurred with the legal transfer of property from Honorius III to the Order of Preachers on June 5, 1222. This studium was transformed into the order's first studium provinciale by Thomas Aquinas in 1265. Part of the curriculum of this studium was relocated in 1288 at the studium of Santa Maria sopra Minerva which in the 16th century world be transformed into the College of Saint Thomas (Latin: Collegium Divi Thomæ). In the 20th century the college would be relocated to the convent of Saints Dominic and Sixtus and would be transformed into the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas, Angelicum.
  The Dominican friars quickly spread, including to England, where they appeared in Oxford in 1221. In the 13th century the order reached all classes of Christian society, fo
caption: Allegory of the Virgin Patroness of the Dominicans by Miguel Cabrera.
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