IMC 2016: Sessions

The papal confirmation of Dominic's community of preachers in Toulouse 800 years ago in 1216 led to the expansion of the Friars Preachers within the Christian world and beyond. The panels want to shed new light on central topics of Dominican existence during the Middle Ages, namely Dominican identity and Dominican innovations. Other important themes like the order's contribution to scholasticism are touched briefly, too. The dark side of the Dominicans, namely the inquisition, is not to be neglected. Finally the 'reformation before the reformation' via the observant movement sheds again an interesting light on Dominican identity and the power of Dominican innovation.

The context of an important jubilee necessitates an historical and critical approach to the Middle Ages as the heyday of the Dominican order. The order is characterized by a function - preaching - and less by its founder Dominic.

The Dominican order is an apostolic order. True to its founder it focuses especially on the conversion of heretics. This was one reason for the preaching of the friars, but the order was soon commissioned with inquisitorial persecution, too. The 'consilium bonorum virorum' ultimately shows how inquisitions were more uncertain and collaborative than we might imagine, and how Dominican inquisitors belonged to an ambitious community complex of spiritual and legal jurisdiction, discernment, social relationships, and reflections of divine punishment. For Dominicans and non-Dominicans alike the inquisition became part of the Dominican identity.