Dominic
A canon of Osma in Spain who preached for nearly a decade against heresy in southern France and founded the Order of Preachers, confirmed by Honorius III in 1216. He died at Bologna in 1221.
Jordan of Saxony, his successor, says that Dominic came from the village of Caleruega in the diocese of Osma and became subprior of the cathedral chapter there (Jordan of Saxony, Libellus 5, 14). After the death of his bishop he stayed on in the region of Toulouse, preaching, for nearly ten years (Jordan of Saxony, Libellus 31, 37). Honorius III addressed him in 1216 as prior of the community at Saint Romanus in Toulouse (Honorius III, Religiosam vitam (22 December 1216)).
He fell ill at Bologna in 1221, a year in which the order’s general chapter met there, and died in that city. The bishop of Ostia, later Gregory IX, who had known him well, conducted his funeral (Jordan of Saxony, Libellus 88, 92–96). See Dominic Founds the Order of Preachers.
In the timeline
- 22 December 1216, firm dateDominic Founds the Order of Preachers
Dominic, a Spanish canon who had spent nearly ten years preaching against heresy in southern France, gathers a community at Toulouse. Pope Honorius III confirms it in December 1216, and within five years its friars are in Paris, Bologna and Spain.