Ninth International Conference on Religion & Spirituality in Society

Abstract

In the midst of the religious effervescence of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, a series of new groups dedicated to the cura animarum established themselves, often counting with the papal endorsement. Among them are the Friars Preachers, who are led by regular canons, and as so perceiving themselves. The process that leads these men to convert from canon to friar is relatively fast (taking about thirty years), and is guided by the search for an institutional identity that perpasses the way they govern. In order to understand this process, we choose here one of its original aspects: the dialogical relationship between the representativeness of the collective and the authority of the hierarchically superior members, which is expressed in the ordination of the General Chapters of the Preachers in their first decades of existence.