Dominic ‘the Inquisitor’.
Dominic ‘the Inquisitor’.
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Despite the fact that Dominic died in 1221, ten years before the office of the Inquisition was established in 1231, ‘Dominic the Inquisitor’ became one of the most famous figures in the infamous ‘Black Legend’ about Spain.
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Historians now agree that 16th- and 17th-century Protestant polemicists created and perpetuated the legend of Dominic the Inquisitor. 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.
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According to his biographer Guiraud, the real Dominic lived an austere life, “observed stated fasts and periods of silence”,” selected the worst accommodations and the meanest clothes”, and “never allowed himself the luxury of a bed”. “When travelling, he beguiled the journey with spiritual instruction and prayers” and “as soon as Dominic passed the limits of towns and villages, he took off his shoes, and, however sharp the stones or thorns, he trudged on his way barefooted” and that “rain and other discomforts elicited from his lips nothing but praises to God”.