Dominic was born around 1170 at Caleruega, in Old Castile. As a canon of the cathedral of Osma he spent nine years in prayer, scarcely leaving the chapter house, until his bishop, Diego, chose him as his companion on an embassy. In southern France he established a convent at Prouille in 1206, and on April 25, 1215, the first house of his preaching brothers was founded at Toulouse. The Order of Preachers received papal confirmation on December 22, 1216.
In Rome the Order received the church of St. Sixtus from Honorius III in 1218, and Dominic was afterward given the basilica of Santa Sabina. He called the Order's first general chapter to meet at Bologna at Pentecost, and it was in Bologna, soon after returning there, that he fell ill and died on August 6, 1221. Gregory IX signed the bull of his canonization on July 13, 1234.
A centuries-old tradition holds that Our Lady entrusted the Rosary to St. Dominic in southern France, and popes including Leo XIII repeated it. It should be called a tradition: according to the Catholic Encyclopedia, the early lives of St. Dominic never mention the Rosary, and its familiar form took shape in the fifteenth century. What is certain is who carried it. Benedict XVI credited Dominic's spiritual sons with the great merit of spreading the prayer of the Holy Rosary, which is why Rosary shrines so often show Mary handing the beads to him.
