Dominican

Dominican

We add the following particulars from Wai;ott, Sac. Archaeol. s.v.: "The rule, a moderation of that of St. Austin, was strict abstinence from flesh; fasts of seven months' duration, from Holy-Cross Day to Easter, and on all Fridays; maintenance wholly by the alms of the faithful; the use of woollen clothes only; and at first a mere white tunic and scapular, without a cowl. In time this rigor was abated, and they wore a white serge tunic, and black cappa or cloak, and a hood for the head; and their simple, unadorned chapels became magnificent churches, rich in every ornament of architecture, color, and carving. From their devotion to the Blessed Virgin they called themselves at first, until the pope, forbade it, Brothers of the Virgin Mary; and they always had a Madonna and crucifix in their cells. There was a general chapter held annually. The superior was called master of the order, and the greater officers priors and superiors. The order was instituted for preaching at home and for missions to the heathen; it has produced one thousand four hundred and fifty-eight cardinals. It used to take mere children and enroll them before the conventional age of probation. They held that the Virgin was conceived in original sin, consecrated Saturdays to her honor and were, in scholastic theology, stout T'homists. Their preaching-cross remains at Hereford, their refectory at Canterbury, the nave of the church and other buildings may be seen at Norwich, and part of their convent at Lynn, Beverley, and Gloucester.

There were three divisions of the order — the preaching friiars, who occupied a convent; cloistered nuns; and the militia of Jesus Christ, who enlgaged in actual war on heretics; they afterwards admitted brethren and sisters of the Penitence of St. Dominic, who were approved in 1360 by Innocent VI. Bishop Pecocik says they evaded their rule, which forblade them to touch money, by counting with a stick. The early Dominican churches were plain, without images, carvings, or pictures, and provided with only one. bell. The use of the organ was not comnmon. Women were not allowed to sit in the choir-aisles, and large high screens parted off the friars from the congregation, for whose use, at the elevation of the host, windows were opened in these partitions. The lay brothers sat apart. Occasionally their churches, as at Venice and Pistoia, were cruciform, but usually terminated in a square end; the naves of Peruain and Spoleto are aisleless, but sometimes they had narrow recesses, as at Ghent, or lateral chantries for altars or, as at Pisa, Sligo, Brecon, Kilmallock, Gloncester, and Roscommon, a single aisle for the accommodation of the congregation at sermons; lateral chapels were added at a later date. Apsidal choirs occur at Monza, Milan, Toulouse, Antwerp, Oberwesel; and at Paris, Agen, and Toulouse the church was double, consisting simply of two aisles of equal length. At Louvain and Norwich the nave has aisles of the usual size. The choirs had no aisles. The chapter house at Toulouse was apsidal, and had three aisles. This order prays more than any other for the dead, the friars chanting the 'De Profndis' every time they pass through the cloister."