Founded to preach the gospel and to oppose heresy, the teaching activity of the order and its scholastic organisation placed it at the forefront of the intellectual life of the Middle Ages.

Dominic inspired his followers with loyalty to learning and virtue, a deep recognition of the spiritual power of worldly deprivation and the religious state, and a highly developed governmental structure.

[8] During his studies in Palencia, Spain, there was a dreadful famine, prompting Dominic to sell all of his beloved books and other equipment to help his neighbours.

[13] Dominic became inspired to achieve this by preaching and teaching, starting near Toulouse, since the Albigensian Christians refused to compromise their principles despite the overwhelming force of the crusades brought against them.

The Rule of Saint Augustine was an obvious choice for the Dominican Order, according to Dominic's successor Jordan of Saxony, in the Libellus de principiis, because it lent itself to the "salvation of souls through preaching".

[20][21] The Order of Preachers was approved in December 1216 and January 1217 by Pope Honorius III in the papal bulls Religiosam vitam and Nos attendentes.

In 1219, Pope Honorius III invited Dominic and his companions to take up residence at the ancient Roman basilica of Santa Sabina, which they did by early 1220.

[25][26] The official foundation of the Dominican convent at Santa Sabina with its studium conventuale occurred with the legal transfer of property from Honorius III to the Order of Preachers on June 5, 1222.

[28] In the 13th century the order reached all classes of Christian society, fought heresy, schism, and paganism by word and book, and by its missions to the north of Europe, to Africa, and Asia passed beyond the frontiers of Christendom.

Its schools spread throughout the entire church; its doctors wrote monumental works in all branches of knowledge, including the extremely important Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas.

A smaller emphasis on doctrinal activity favoured the development here and there of the ascetic and contemplative life and there sprang up, especially in Germany and Italy, the mystical movement with which the names of Meister Eckhart, Heinrich Suso, Johannes Tauler, and Catherine of Siena are associated.

Among these was Countess Margaret of Flanders who established the monastery of Lille, while Val-Duchesse at Oudergem near Brussels was built with the wealth of Adelaide of Burgundy, Duchess of Brabant (1262).

The formula for profession contained in the Constitutions of Montargis Priory (1250) requires that nuns pledge obedience to God, the Blessed Virgin, their prioress and her successors according to the Rule of Saint Augustine and the institute of the order, until death.

[36] As well as sewing, embroidery and other genteel pursuits, the nuns participated in a number of intellectual activities, including reading and discussing pious literature.

[49] Bartolomé de Las Casas, as a settler in the New World, was galvanized by witnessing the brutal torture and genocide of the Native Americans by the Spanish colonists.

[50] Gaspar da Cruz (c. 1520–1570), who worked all over the Portuguese colonial empire in Asia, was probably the first Christian missionary to preach (unsuccessfully) in Cambodia.

The French Revolution ruined the order in France, and crises that more or less rapidly followed considerably lessened or wholly destroyed numerous provinces.

France held a foremost place in the revival movement, owing to the reputation and convincing power of the orator, Jean-Baptiste Henri Lacordaire (1802–1861).

[55] In 1877, Bishop Ricards in South Africa requested that Augsburg send a group of nuns to start a teaching mission in King Williamstown.

"Dominican friars were preaching the Gospel on the Volga Steppes by 1225 (the year following the establishment of the Kipchak Khanate by Batu), and in 1240 Pope Gregory IX despatched others to Persia and Armenia.

By the 1850s, the Dominicans had half a million followers in the Philippines and well-established missions in the Chinese province of Fujian and Tonkin, Vietnam, performing thousands of baptisms each year.

[78] In the seventeenth century, some European Dominican monasteries (e.g. St Ursula's, Augsburg) temporarily became no longer enclosed, so they could engage in teaching or nursing or other work in response to pressing local need.

[79] But in the nineteenth century, in response to increasing missionary fervor, monasteries were asked to send groups of women to found schools and medical clinics around the world.

While the Order provides them with these spiritual aids and directs them to their own sanctification, it leaves them free for the complete service of the local Church, under the jurisdiction of their own Bishop.

"[88] Pope Pius XII, in Chosen Laymen, an Address to the Third Order of St. Dominic (1958), said, "The true condition of salvation is to meet the divine invitation by accepting the Catholic 'credo' and by observing the commandments.

[97] The writings of Albertus Magnus made a significant contribution to German mysticism, which became vibrant in the minds of the Beguines and women such as Hildegard of Bingen and Mechthild of Magdeburg.

[98] In Europe, it was often the female members of the order, such as Catherine of Siena, Mechthild of Magdeburg, Christine of Stommeln, Margaret Ebner, and Elsbet Stagl,[99] who gained reputations for having mystical experiences.

As time passed, Jewish and early Christian writings presented the idea of "unknowing" in which God's presence was enveloped in a dark cloud.

From these considerations of Scripture comes the simplest way to imitate Christ: an emulation of the moral actions and attitudes that Jesus demonstrated in his earthly ministry becomes the most significant way to feel and have knowledge of God.

[103] Pope Pius XI stated: "The Rosary of Mary is the principle and foundation on which the very Order of Saint Dominic rests for making perfect the life of its members and obtaining the salvation of others.