''Nos attendentes'' is the
incipit
The incipit () of a text is the first few words of the text, employed as an identifying label. In a musical composition, an incipit is an initial sequence of notes, having the same purpose. The word ''incipit'' comes from Latin and means "it beg ...
designating a
Papal bull apparently issued in January 1217 by
Pope Honorius III. Its genuineness has been suspected.
[The French historian of the Preachers, Vicaire, said that this papal bull is a fantastic composition of the 14th century. Cf. M.-H. Vicaire, ''Histoire de saint Dominique'', 2: ''Au coeur de l'Eglise'', Les Editions du Cerf, Paris 1982, p. 67, note 17.] If genuine, it is the second of the two bulls that established the
Dominican Order (for the first, see ''
Religiosam vitam
is the incipit designating a papal bull issued on 22 December 1216 by Pope Honorius III. It gave universal recognition to the Dominican Order. The order already had monasteries in Rome, Paris and Boulogne and had already been locally recognize ...
''). In it, the Pope describes the brothers of the order as ''pugiles fidei et vera mundi lumina'': "fighters for the faith and true lights of the world".
The original bull was kept at the convent of
Prouille,
Saint Dominic
Saint Dominic ( es, Santo Domingo; 8 August 1170 – 6 August 1221), also known as Dominic de Guzmán (), was a Castilian Catholic priest, mystic, the founder of the Dominican Order and is the patron saint of astronomers and natural scientis ...
's first foundation, and it was from this source that the Latin text was published in 1504 by Albert de Castillo. Later editions derive from this one. The documents of the convent were scattered during the
French Revolution; the original was then lost. The convent's cartulary containing a 17th-century transcript was recovered, but was not shown to enquirers.
References
{{reflist
Bibliography
*Albert de Castillo, ''Privilegia maiora et principaliora''. Venice: apud Lazarum de Soardis, 1504.
*M. Bihl in ''Archivum Franciscanum historicum'' vol. 27 (1934) pp. 262-263.
*
Pierre Mandonnet, M.-H. Vicaire, ''Saint Dominique: l'idée, l'homme et l'oeuvre'' (Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, 1938) vol. 1 p. 55 note 50.
Dominican Order
1217 works
13th-century papal bulls
Documents of Pope Honorius III