THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
with great success in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the last flowering, under mystical illumination, of the school of Giotto was s-en in the work of Giovanni da Fiesole, better known as Fra Angelico (d 1455),
The mendicant orders had at first stood together against the monks, the secular clergy, and the universities, but before the end of the thirteenth century jealousy brought discord. The partizans of Thomas Aquinas on one side and Duns Scotus on the other made the controversy between Thomists and Scotists traditional (see Immaculate Conception). The Dominicans themselves were divided in the great Western Schism (see Schism), and only reunited by Martin V in 1418. Worldliness made its inroads, and theological subtlety was pushed to absurd extremes The conflict of the humanist Reuchhn with the Cologne inquisitor Jakob von Iloogstraten and the Epistolce obscurorum virorum (q V.) show how the order had declined from its early zeal for learning by the beginning of the sixteenth century. The Counterreformation owed its results not to the Preacliing Friars, but to the new order of the Jesuits, whom the Dominicans steadily opposed on several questions of internal policy and belief. In the great controversy about grace (15SS-1611) they stood for a moderate Augustinianism against the Semi-Pelagianism of the Jesuit MoUna. In the moral controversy the two orders became theological parties, the Jesuits at the end of the sixteenth and beginning of the seventeenth centuries almost always defending Probabilism (q.v.), while the Dominicans adopted probabiliorism as their view. The most violent conflict, however, arose in the mission-field. The Jesuits had had it almost to themselves in the era of the Counterreformation, except in America, where the Preaching Friars had been active, and one of the noblest of missionaries, Las Casas (d. 1566), had not only sought the conversion of the Indians of Mexico, but protected them from the greed and cruelty of the Spaniards. They came to China after the Jesuits had already occupied the field; they opposed and soon denounced at Rome the " accommodation " (q.v.) of the rival order, and after a long struggle won the victory in 1782 — though the downfall of Christianity in China followed almost immediately.
The secularizing policy of Joseph II. (d. 1790) diminished still further the number of convents which the Reformation had spared; the same thing took place in Germany, and the Revolution suppressed the order in France, until it was restored by the eloquent advocacy of Lacordaire in 1840. Great progress was made under the generalship of Alexander Vincent Jandel, a Frenchman (d. 1872), who published a revised constitution in 1872, the
most important change being the 6. Present limitation of the general's term, which Condition. Pius VII. in ISO} fixed at six years
and Pius IX. in ]S(12 at twelve. The general has resided since 1272 at Santa Maria sopra Minerva in Pome. I'ifty-two provinces are named in the new constitutions, but several of these are merely nominal. There are about .'iOO houses, with some 3,000 members. Under Pope Leo XIII.,
a great admirer of Thomas Aquinas, the order once more assumed importance by its influence on theological learning. There have been four Dominican popes: Innocent V. (d. 1276), Benedict XL (d. 1304), St. Pius V. (d. 1572), and the learned Benedict XIII. (d. 1730).
Two houses of the female branch of the order, that of Prouille and San Sisto at Rome, arose in the founder's lifetime. Their rule prescribed confinement to the cloister, ascetic practises, the contemplative life, and employment of time as far as possible analogous to that of the brothers; the obligation of poverty was for obvious 7. The reasons not as strictly imposed on Sisters, them. New houses were at first founded wherever the order spread, and were under the direction of the provincial. As their number grew, this produced diflSculties and interfered with the work of the friars, who got themselves released from this charge in 1252, though they were obliged to reassume it two years later, as the female houses were suffering from the separation. Only a few remained under episcopal care. They followed in the main the fortunes of the friars. At first wholly contemplative, they devoted themselves later to the education of girls; and their rule was correspondingly mitigated. At present there are about ninety houses of the " second order," with some 1,500 inmates. For the " third order," composed of confraternities of people living in the world, see Tehtiaries; Confraternities, Religious. (G. GRtiTZMACHER.) Bibliography: Early lives of Dominic are collected in ASB, Aug., i. 358-658; some of the same, with others not included, are in J. Qu^tif, Scriptores ordinis prmdicatorum, ed. J. Echard, i. 1-56, Paris, 1719. The Vita by Dietrich of Apolda (0. 1296 a.d.), ed. A. Cur^, Paris, 1887. Consult : E. Caro, St. Dominique et lea Dominicains, Paris, 1853; J. B. H. Lacordaire, Vie de S. Dominique, ib. 1882, Eng. transl., London, 1883; A. T. Drane, Hist, of St. Dominic, ib. 1891; J. J. Berthier, Le Testament de S. Dominique, Freiburg, 1892; M. J. Rousset, Der heilige Dominicus, Freiburg, 1899; T. Alemany, Life of St. Dominic with Sketch of the Dominican Order, New York, n.d.
On the order, for sources consult: Monum^nta ordinis fratrum prcedicatorum historica, now in course of publication at Rome, 1896 sqq.; Acta capitulorum . prcedicatorum, ed. C. Douais, Toulouse, 1894. Further: W. G. D. Fletcher, Black Friars of Oxford, Oxford, 1882; C. F. R. Palmer, Notices of the Friar Preachers of the Eng. Province, London, 1884; Friar Preachers of Leicester, I«icester, 1884; A. T. Drane, Hist, of Catherine of Siena and her Companions, London, 1887; idem. Spirit of the Dominican Order, ib. 1896; B. M. Reichert, in Historische Jahrbucher, 1897, ii. 363-374; B. A. A. Wilberforce. Dominican Missions and Martyrs in Japan, London, 1897; M. D. Chapotin, Histoire des Dominicains de . France, Rouen, 1898; Franzisca Raphael, Der Geist des Dominicaner Ordens, Dulmen, 1901; J. Herkless, Frances and Dominic and the Mendicant Orders, New York, 1901; E. G. Gardner, Saint Catherine of Siena, London. 1907; Heimbucher, Orden und Kongregalionen, i. 540 sqq.; Currier, Religious Orders, pp. 271-283; Neander, Christian Church, vol. iv. passim (valuable); Schaff, Christian Church, V. 1., pp. 519 sqq.
DOMINICALE, do-min"i-ke'li: A white linen cloth used by women when receiving the Lord's Supper; either a napkin, upon which the bread was laid instead of upon the bare hand, or the veil which women generally wore in the house of God.
DOMINICAL LETTER: A letter used to indicate Sunday in ancient calendars, which marked