“However Many Priests Instructed in Latin and Arabic of Good Reputation and Letters You May Find”: Dominican Traditions About Language Acquisition and Missionary Preaching, c. 1190–1250

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article investigates the long history of language training and missionary preaching in the Order of Preachers (Dominicans) from the early training of Domingo de Caleruega, the Order’s founder, to the short-lived “language schools” in the mid-thirteenth century. It demonstrates that attitudes about language acquisition and training in the Order were shaped by the multilingual backgrounds of many of its early members, especially Domingo, which fostered value-positive attitudes toward learning languages – especially Arabic and Hebrew. These attitudes were codified in the early Order’s General Chapters, were supported vigorously by both the Order’s leadership and contemporary Church figures, and were part of a broader missionary vocation within the Order. The article demonstrates that the missionising of the early Dominicans was shaped by Domingo’s own example, amplifiing and institutionalising it, showing how the early Order’s ideas about language as a barrier to conversion developed and they crafted strategies to overcome it.