Letters and Privileges
Papal letters of Honorius III. Cited here are the privilege Religiosam vitam of 22 December 1216 for Dominic’s community at Toulouse and the letter Gratiarum omnium of 21 January 1217, which addresses its members as preachers.
Religiosam vitam is a solemn privilege of a standard kind, issued for many religious houses: it takes a church under the protection of Saint Peter, confirms its rule and possessions and grants the usual liberties. It is signed by the pope and eighteen cardinals, among them Hugolino of Ostia, the later Gregory IX, and dated at Saint Peter’s on 22 December 1216, in the first year of Honorius. The original is in the departmental archives at Toulouse.
Its wording treats Dominic’s community as a house of canons living by the Rule of Augustine. The letter Gratiarum omnium largitori, sent from the Lateran a month later, is addressed to the prior and brothers of Saint Romanus as “preachers in the region of Toulouse” and urges them to go on preaching the word of God.
Cited in
- 22 December 1216, firm date