Saint Dominic

I N beginning this Life of St Dominic it is impossible to ignore the difficulties presented by the undertaking. The founder of a religious order playing a great part in history, the saint has been the object of the extravagance of praise and of criticism alike. His admirers and disciples have not been content with. the infOiomation, sometimes vague or scanty, furnished by thirteenth century writers and in particular by his successor, Jordan of Saxony, and ever since the end of the fourteenth century legend has mingled with history. By Alain de la Roche it was profusely scattered throughout the pages of his biography, his zeal-as pious as ill-advised-only serving to render the life of his hero additionally obscure; Jean de Rechac, in the seventeenth century, in a biography overflowing with the marvellous and marked by an entire absence of criticism, followed in his steps; while on the other hand the enemies of the faith have too often seen in St Dominic the founder of the Inquisition alone, his figure appearing to them in the sinistelo light of the faggots. Thus Llorente displays him at Lagrasse, near Carcassonne, celebrating Mass upon a flattened hillock, "while at the four corners of the platform stakes had been erected and flames were devouring the victims."