Dominicans

Dominicans (or ‘black’ or ‘preaching’ friars) were a mendicant order founded by a Spanish Augustinian and preacher, St Dominic, to combat the Albigensian heresy in southern France. The order was confirmed by Pope Innocent III in 1215, and its rule, largely based on the Augustinian rule, codified by 1221. Though following ideals of corporate poverty, the order was dedicated to educational activity and quickly established itself at the forefront of intellectual life—Thomas Aquinas was a Dominican—and friaries were found in virtually every university town in the medieval West. Like the Franciscans there were also strictly enclosed communities of contemplative nuns. Its rule, with its system of representational government under the authority of the master-general, is famous for its organizational sophistication, and partly accounts for its success and appeal both to the ecclesiastical hierarchy, especially the papacy, which used it for administrative, as well as evangelizing, duties, and to the laity.

The Dominicans first settled in England in Oxford and London in 1221 and by their dissolution in 1538–9 there were over 50 English friaries, constituting the English province, and divided into the four disciplinary ‘visitations’ of London, Oxford, Cambridge, and York.

Brian Golding