DOMINIC

Founder of the Dominican Order of friars with its emphasis on poverty, prayer and preaching. His main sphere of activity was the French region of Languedoc. Though his own preaching secured only a poor response, his life style did attract followers. He had papal encouragement to counter Cathar/Albigensian popularity – deemed to be based on heretical teachings. The extent of Dominic’s association with the violence already emerging in the persecution of Cathars and the subsequent Inquisition is debated, but there is no doubting his zeal to extirpate all that is perceived as inimical to God in the world.

Life

• New Advent entry on Dominic

• Dominic and his campaign against the Cathars

• The iconography of St Dominic