Domingo de Guzmán (1170-1221) was the son of the venerable Félix de Guzmán and Blessed Juana de Aza. He was born in Caleruega, Burgos, around 1170.
He studied humanities in Gumiel de Izán, and perhaps in La Vid or Silos, and then studied Arts and Theology in the General Study of Palencia, from 1185 to 1195.
There he cultivated dialectics and learned the trade of expositor and disputator, but above all he dedicated himself to the study, meditation, assimilation of the Word of God in the Bible. In this he had his delights. There also, during his theology courses, he was in total solidarity with the people who were going through times of economic distress, due to wars and bad harvests, he sold the books and codices he had acquired at a high price, and became clearly aware that “he could not study on dead skins, codices, while he saw the living ones, the men, dying”.
When he finished his theology studies, the Bishop of Burgo de Osma asked him to join his cathedral Chapter and he did so, taking the habit and professing as a Canon Regular. Ordained a priest, he dedicated himself to study, prayer, worship and preaching.
In 1203, he was part of the retinue that, on behalf of King Alfonso VIII of Castile, went to ask for the hand of a princess of Denmark for the king’s son; and on the way, passing through southern France with Bishop Diego de Acebes, he learned about the de-Christianization of those lands, because of the Cathar and Waldensian heresy, preached Christ and obtained the first conversions.
From 1205, with Diego de Acebes, and even more from 1207, after the death of the bishop, he assumed the responsibility of preaching among the heretics, and formed a group of apostles-missionaries who lived in poverty, obedience, at the service of the churches.
After several more years of ardent evangelization, he founded the Order of Friars Preachers, which was confirmed by Pope Honorius III on December 22, 1216. His first friars came to Spain in 1218.
