ST. DOMINIC and HIS WORK By Pierre Mandonnet, O.P. Translated by Sister Mary Benedicta Larkin, O.P. CONTENTS FOREWORD INTRODUCTION TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE PROLOGUE Contents PART ONE St. Dominic and the Order of Preachers I. CHRISTENDOM IN THE EARLY THIRTEENTH CENTURY II. THE ORDER OF PREACHERS IN FORMATION III. YEARS OF EXPERIMENTAL ACTIVITY IV. CONSTITUTIONAL ORGANIZATION V. CHARACTER OF ST. DOMINIC VI. NATURE OF THE ORDER OF PREACHERS VII. DEVELOPMENT AND ACTIVITY OF THE PREACHERS VIII. ACADEMIC ORGANIZATION IX. DOCTRINAL LIFE AND THE THOMISTIC SCHOOL X. LITERARY PRODUCTIVITY XI. APOSTOLIC WORK XII. INFLUENCE ON ECCLESIASTICAL AND CIVIL SOCIETY XIII. FOREIGN MISSIONS XIV. SANCTITY AND THE MYSTICAL LIFE XV. LITURGY AND ART XVI. THE PLIGHT OF PREACHING IN THE TWELFTH CENTURY by Reginald Ladner, O.P. XVII. EFFORTS OF THE CHURCH TO REVIVE PREACHING XVIII. THE Ordo Praedicatorum XIX. THE ACADEMIC CRISIS AT THE BEGINNING OF THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY PART TWO From the Rule of St. Augustine to the Rule of St. Dominic INTRODUCTION SECTION ONE The Rule of St. Augustine XX. WHAT IS THE RULE OF ST. AUGUSTINE? XXI. THE RULE OF ST. AUGUSTINE COMPOSED OF TWO TEXTS XXII. THE RULE DECAPITATED SECTION TWO The Augustinian Rule of St. Dominic INTRODUCTION XXIII. THE RULE OF ST. AUGUSTINE, TEACHER OF THE APOSTOLIC LIFE XXIV. THE LEGISLATION OF THE PREACHERS XXV. THE PROJECT OF THE RULE APPENDIXES I. AN EMBASSY INTO THE MARCHES by M. H. Vicaire, O.P. II. THE BIRTH OF ST. MARY OF PROUILLE III. THE Sancta Praedicatio IN NARBONNE IV. INNOCENT III, DIEGO, AND DOMINIC IN 1206 V. ST. DOMINIC AND THE POPE IN 1215 VI. Domini Canes by Pierre Mandonnet, O.P. BIBLIOGRAPHY CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THIS ENTIRE WEBSITE AS domwork.zip To My Brethren of Le Saulchoir Foreword by Marie-Humbert Vicaire, O.P. Father Mandonnet died January 4, 1936, bearing away with him the treasure of knowledge he had amassed on the thought, the men, and the institutions of the thirteenth century. Available as witness to the labor of the fifty years he devoted to history, some admirable but only too few studies remain. Where, it may be asked, is the monumental work on St. Dominic and the beginnings of his Order, the design of which Father Mandonnet cherished and consistently forwarded with an enthusiasm and an understanding others could only half appreciate? His intellectual life, his tastes, and his judgments were largely inspired by this precious design. A library, manuscript notes patiently gathered, some penetrating reflections drawn up on occasion for a critical study, and a general outline stand as the material for a book that was never achieved. The posthumous work composed from such material by one of his disciples can in no way fill the void. Nevertheless, however fragmentary the sketches here collected may be, and however considerable our personal contribution, we are persuaded that the St. Dominic we give to the world does not fall too far short of the concept of our master. The very nature of the collected studies gives us that hope. The possibility of this will be the more readily granted, if the thought of Father Mandonnet and a sense of his historical method are grasped. It was not by chance that Father Mandonnet died without achieving this work. For a long time those about him were aware, and he was aware -- because he knew himself -- that he would not write it. At the close of his life, talking with some of his "petits fréres," he accused himself of idleness. His bibliography dispenses us from having to absolve him of this accusation. As a matter of fact, he had even physically a kind of distaste, which age had deepened, for the toil of writing. What is meant would be appreciated if only he could have been seen at his desk manipulating a heavy fountain pen in his awkward fingers. One day on a slip of paper he wrote the whole secret: "To read, joy; to think, delight; to write, torture." It was all that. If he detested writing -- each of his books was forced from him -- he loved to read and think. When his Siger de Brabant appeared, critics praised, among other features, the bibliographical knowledge revealed in it. Father Mandonnet had not acquired that knowledge on school benches, but in reading with industry and intelligence. One day a brother who brought some books from a library found him in bed sick. Passing through the room again some minutes later, he saw the sick man seated at the table in his bathrobe, reading in spite of a fever. Father Mandonnet examined whole collections from end to end. Never did he open a book merely to look for a reference; he read it completely, or rather he had already done so. In this way, going straight to the point, he read and annotated the numerous volumes of medieval history which he had collected, one by one, from all the rare-book dealers of Europe. Thus he developed that keen sense of the tangles and stumps in the field of history which enabled him to avoid snares when he did not have time for minute exploration: "Mandonnet . ran into difficulties here, but shrewdly walked round them according to his custom," remarked a certain scholar in a vein of bad humor. Father Mandonnet had cultivated that fruitful intuition which enabled him to put his finger on a decisive document, an essential fact, a hidden cause, which, according to their own lights, either as they were or were not of a stature to appreciate the accuracy and value of these finds, historians were tempted to ascribe, now to an amazing historical flair, now to an efflux of unverifiable hypotheses. Experience has convinced us that our first scandalized reactions at the audacious insight of the master rose only from our ignorance. It happened at times that he followed the lead of his intuitions and seemed to be constructing unwarranted theses; but we did not know all that be knew. If our reading on the theologians of the twelfth century were what his was, would we have questioned, so lightly at times, the equivalence he maintained between the ordo praedicatorum and the ordo doctorum? His solid reliance on documents justified a certain boldness: "Come, my friend," be said to a disciple, who he knew would not abuse the counsel, "off the ground now, get on the trapeze."(1) What is more profoundly significant, his vast knowledge was not haphazard. On the contrary, it followed the itinerary of an intelligence which directed it over the leading roads of history; the vast network of these roads embraced the field as a whole. Father Mandonnet's intelligence was eminently synthetic. He did not believe that fidelity to a document dispensed from reflection, and his historical thought was at once total, organic, and balanced. He had weighed all human values and ranged them in a pyramidal hierarchy from the base in "our daily bread" to the topmost "peak of civilization," ascending always through the Bread which does not perish. In this edifice of reciprocal causality, every problem, every element, however small it might be, had to take its own place, or, more exactly, find its true dimension. In his eyes, an historical fact was never the fruit of pure scholarly research, but a stone in a pyramid, a link in a chain, a point of convergence; for him that fact had a meaning and a context infinitely extensive. That is the point to be laid hold of here. Erudition may be multiple and far-reaching, but thought, like truth, is one. In fact, there is not a single one of the learned articles published by Father Mandonnet and collected here which does not contain in substance the whole of his thought. If he lingered on the record of Vitry, the symbol of the dog, or the Summa of Master Paul, it was not for the joy of identifying an anonymous writer or of elaborating on a detail of sacred heraldry; it was to substantiate in the concrete of reality one of his noble ideas about the Order of Preachers. All these studies were complementary and in sequence. They ran the whole length of the life of Father Mandonnet as along the bank of a stream, in the very rhythm according to which his idea developed. They bore the reflection of the intuition which gave them birth. They had only to be linked, like the two segments of Peter's chain, to form but one book. It would not be rash to suggest that the very force of Father Mandonnet's reflective genius may have caused the sterility of his editorial power. Facts spoke to him of too many things; soon he paused to listen, and delayed for the examination of a point which his historical sense found more weighty still. The incalculable number of projected studies left in his files bear witness to this. A title, a brilliant introduction, then ten blank pages with new titles, indispensable steps in the development of the thought, but these pages remained blank; the article would never be written. It would have taken all the dimensions of a book and would have required ten years of supplementary research. Nevertheless, neither prelude nor title was in vain. Chosen by his synthetic intelligence, it marked out exactly the veins to be worked, those which would render most treasure and contribute necessary ore to attain a balance in the subject. A few lines from his pen held an extraordinary power of suggestion. Father Mandonnet was a stimulator of minds. One day unexpected circumstances induced Father Mandonnet to put in writing his ideas about St.