DOMIN'ICANS. An Order of preaching friar: Ithe Lai in name Orrin Prallic,tlnrunn) in the Notnnii Catholic (Mundt. If was founded by mint Dominic tq.v.i in for the mirpose of (minter:let ing. by moans i f preaching. in, tendency of the time to break away from the Church. \\ hen in Rome seeking emitirination for his Order, which was delayed on account of the opposition of the Fourth Lateran Council. coneluded, to the multiplication of new religious organizations. the founder met Saint l'rancis of who was engaged in a similar work. cordial friendship sprang up bettcern tile two different ils.they were in temperament ; to this day its memory is preserved ill the custom of the priest.: Of each Order celebrating the feast of the founder 44 till. ()tiler in his ON‘11 Butte Orders differed from the older one: in emphasizing more strietly the spirit of poverty and rejecting the possession of even ermununity property. Hence they are called mendicant Orders, as they originally depended for their subsistence entirely on the daily charity of their neighbors. The Mime of monks is often ineor reetly applied to them; the proper designation of both and Dominicans is friars (Lat. Irwin's, brothers). The requisite l'apal eon firmation was obtained from the new Pope, Ilonorius 111.. at the end of 1216; with it went special privileges, especially the right to preach and hear confessions everywhere, without local authorization. The first house of the Order was at Toulouse, from which in the summer of 1217 Dominic sent some of his sixteen associates to spread the movement in Spain and France. From the name of their first convent of Saint Jacques in they were popularly known in the latter country as Jacobins—a name which was to acquire a new and sinister significance in the Het olution. They were introduced into England tvithin six years. and founded a house at Oxford. !fere they were known as 'Black Friars,' from the habit ',chichi they wear outside the in preaching and in hearing confes sions—a black cloak and hood over a white woolen undergarment, Matthe• Paris, himself a Benedictine, not in three or four hundred years ascend to stieli a height of greatness as the friar. minor and preachers, within twenty•four years after they began to build their first house in England." (Sec .Tes sopp. The 'outing of the Priurs, London, Their progress was scarcely less rapid in Scot land, where they found a inunitieent patron ill King .1Iexander 11.. who is said to hate nnet Saint 1)0minie in Paris, They soon spread as far as Russia and Oreeec, and in 1280 even to Greenland.
In accordance with the declared purpose of their t he Dominican, have always been known as diligent preachers and strenuous against any departure from the of their (1.111•h. in this they were intrusted with the conduct of the Triquisi lion :In ecclesiastical institution; and even in SpaM. after it became practically a department
of civil government. a Dominican was usually at its head. The offlee of master I if the sacred paho.o. ,n(lowed with great privileges by I.eo X., Ins always been held by a member of the Order; and since IG2r) the censorship of books has been one of its functions. In 1123 the per !mission to hold property was granted by the Pope to eertain houses, and extended to the tire Order in 1177. since which time they have been less exclusively a mendiennt Order. They hare furnished four popes (Innocent V.. Itenediel XI.. V.. and Ilenriliet N111.), rind more than sixty cardinals. Outside of their specific work, they (lid much for the development of art. Their cloister at Santa Maria Novella, in •lor ence. was a veritable selmol of architecture. Painting was also cultivated with great sne•ess at San Marco in the same city, and at Santa Caterina in Pisa ; and the names of Giovanni (la Ficsole, better known as Fra Angelico, Bene detto da and Bartolommeo della Porta are worthy of remembrance. (Consult Marchese, M('moric (lei pin insirtni pit torsi, scultori c architct ti domeniconi, Bologna, 1878.) Their chief glory in theological learning is Saint Thomas Aquinas (q.v.), whose teaching has been especially commended by Lco X111. as the stand ard of dogmatic theology; other distinguished teachers were Albertus Alagnus and Raymond of Pefialorte, the third general of the Order. Their great rivals in the later Middle Ages were the Franciscans. These two Orders divided the para mount influence in the Church, and often in the Catholic States, not without frequent hostility on the part of the parochial clergy, who felt their rights invaded by the friars: but the rise of the Jesuits lessened their power both in the schools and in the court. In the eighteenth cen tury they possessed not less than a thousand houses in all parts of the world. The troubles of the latter part of that century, however, de creased their number considerably. In France the Order was revived largely through the efforts of the famous Lacordaire (q.v.). the centenary of whose birth was solemnly celebrated in 1902 as that of 'the restorer of the Dominican Order in France.' In England and Ireland they have nihv 21 houses for men and 13 for women: in the United States, into which they were introduced in 1805. though they had played the leading part in the evangelization of Spanish America, they have only a few- friars, but a much larger num ber of sisters. At the head of the whole Order stands the general (mapistcr gcneralisl, whose term of office since 1862 has been twelve years; since 1273 he has had his residence at Santa :Maria Sopra Minerva in Borne. There are fifty two provinces (each with a provincial at its head). though some of these are now hardly more than nominal.