ular and had worn the canons' black cassock with white linen
rochet. But now a white woollen habit with a black cloak or mantle was
assumed. The Rule of St Augustine was supplemented by a body of
regulations, adopted mostly from those of the Premonstratensian canons.
At the head of the order was the master-general, elected for life until
recent times, when the term of office was limited to six and then to
twelve years; he enjoys supreme power over the entire order, both houses
and individuals, all of whom are directly subject to him. He dwells in
Rome and is assisted by a council. The order is divided into provinces
and over each is a provincial, elected for four years. Each friary has
its prior, elected by the community every four years. The friars belong
not to the house or province in which they make their profession, but to
the order; and it rests with the master-general to assign to each his
place of residence. The manner of life was very austere--midnight
office, perpetual abstinence from meat, frequent disciplines, prolonged
fasts and silence. At St Dominic's suggestion, and under his strong
pressure, but not without considerable opposition, the general chapter
determined that the poverty practised in the order should be not merely
individual, as in the monastic orders, but corporate, as among the
Franciscans; so that the order should have no possessions, except the
monastic buildings and churches, no property, no fixed income, but
should live on charity and by begging. Thus, doubtless in imitation of
the Franciscans, the Dominicans became a mendicant order.

The extraordinarily rapid propagation of the institute suffered no
diminution through the founder's death; this was mainly due to the fact
that his four immediate successors in the generalate were men of
conspicuous ability and high character. In a few years the Dominicans
penetrated into Denmark, Sweden, Russia, Prussia and Poland, preaching
and missionizing in the still pagan districts of these countries; and
soon they made their way to Greece and Palestine and thence to central
Asia. St Hyacinth, a Pole received by St Dominic, during missionary
journeys extending over thirty-five years travelled over the north and
east of Europe and into Tatary, Tibet and northern China. In 1252 the
pope addressed a letter to the Dominicans who were preaching "among the
Saracens, Greeks, Bulgarians, Kumans, Syrians, Goths, Jacobites,
Armenians, Jews, Tatars, Hungarians." F