St. Dominic of Silos

St. Dominic of Silos was born around the year 1000 to a peasant family in the region of Navarre, Spain, and died on 20 December 1073. As a youth he tended his father's flocks in the mountains, a solitude that nurtured a life of prayer, before he became a Benedictine monk and in time prior of the monastery of San Millán de la Cogolla; when he resisted the king of Navarre's demands upon the monastery's goods, he was driven into exile.

Welcomed by the king of Castile, he was set over the decayed abbey of Silos, which under his rule he restored to holiness and learning, making it a renowned center of monastic life, art, and the copying of manuscripts, and famous for the ransoming of Christian captives from the Moors. Miracles were attributed to his intercession both in life and after death, and a century later the mother of St. Dominic de Guzmán prayed at his shrine and named her son, the founder of the Order of Preachers, in his honor. He is commemorated on 20 December.