The story is told that before his birth his barren mother made a pilgrimage to the Abbey at Silos, and dreamt that a dog leapt from her womb carrying a flaming torch in its mouth, and seemed to set the earth on fire.

At fourteen years of age, Dominic was sent to the Premonstratensian monastery of Santa María de La Vid and subsequently transferred for further studies in the schools of Palencia.

[7] In 1191, when Spain was desolated by famine,[8] young Dominic gave away his money and sold his clothes, furniture, and even precious manuscripts to feed the hungry.

In 1203 or 1204, Dominic accompanied Diego on a diplomatic mission for Alfonso VIII, King of Castile, to secure a bride in Denmark for crown prince Ferdinand.

[13] During their return journey, they met with Cistercian monks who had been sent by Pope Innocent III to preach against the Cathars, a religious sect with gnostic and dualistic beliefs which the Catholic Church deemed heretical.

Dominic and Diego de Acebo attributed the Cistercians' lack of success to their extravagance and pomp compared to the asceticism of the Cathars.

[15] Ordered by the Pope to return to his diocese, Diego de Acebo died at Osma in December 1207, leaving Dominic alone in his mission.

[10] Based on a Dominican tradition, in 1208 Dominic experienced a vision of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the church at Prouille, during which she gave him a rosary.

Pope Pius XI stated, that the rosary is "the principle and foundation on which the Order of St. Dominic rests for perfecting the lives of its members and obtaining the salvation of others.

[21] Dominic saw the need for a new type of organization to address the spiritual needs of the growing cities of the era, one that would combine dedication and systematic education, with more organizational flexibility than either monastic orders or the secular clergy.

He subjected himself and his companions to the monastic rules of prayer and penance; Bishop Foulques gave them written authority to preach throughout the territory of Toulouse.

Dominic returned to Rome a year later and was finally granted written authority in December 1216 by the new pope, Honorius III, for him to form the Ordo Praedicatorum ("Order of Preachers").

[26] 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.

[31] According to Guiraud, Dominic abstained from meat,[32] "observed stated fasts and periods of silence",[33] "selected the worst accommodations and the meanest clothes", and "never allowed himself the luxury of a bed".

[37] Guiraud states that Dominic "made the monks lay him on some sacking stretched upon the ground"[37] and that "the brief time that remained to him was spent in exhorting his followers to have charity, to guard their humility, and to make their treasure out of poverty".

[43] Canon 27 of the Third Council of the Lateran of 1179 stressed the duty of princes to repress heresy and condemned "the Brabantians, Aragonese, Basques, Navarrese, and others who practice such cruelty toward Christians that they respect neither churches nor monasteries, spare neither widows nor orphans, neither age nor sex, but after the manner of pagans, destroy and lay waste everything".

Practices and procedures of episcopal inquisitions could vary from one diocese to another, depending on the resources available to individual bishops and their relative interest or disinterest.

This tribunal or court functioned in France, Italy and parts of Germany and had virtually ceased operation by the early fourteenth century.

[46] In the 15th century, the Spanish Inquisition commissioned the artist Pedro Berruguete to depict Dominic presiding at an auto da fé.

[48] This image gave German Protestant critics of the Catholic Church an argument against the Dominican Order whose preaching had proven to be a formidable opponent in the lands of the Reformation.