The Founding of the Dominican Order

The Dominican order was founded in 1217 by Dominic Guzman, a Spanish priest. He encountered the Albagentians or Cathars who believed in Gnostic ideology, considering the physical world evil and the God of the old testament as an evil deity. They embraced a purely spiritual world. Dominic started a preaching band to respond to them and lived a life of radical poverty to provide a counter witness to the materialistic clergy.