Jordan of Saxony

Blessed Jordan of Saxony (Jordanus de Saxonia) was a German priest of the Order of Preachers and the second Master General of that order, succeeding its founder, Saint Dominic. He was born about 1190 into a noble family at Borgberge, near Dassel, in the Diocese of Paderborn in Westphalia, then part of the Duchy of Saxony in the Holy Roman Empire. After early studies he went to the University of Paris, where he became a Master of Arts and began theology. In 1220, drawn by the preaching and example of the early Dominicans in Paris, he received the habit from Reginald of Orleans; his friend Henry of Cologne entered with him. Their profession brought university men into the still-young order and helped set its later character as an order of learned preachers.

In 1221 Jordan was made provincial of Lombardy. After Dominic’s death in August 1221, the general chapter meeting in Paris in 1222 elected Jordan Master General, though he was still a relatively young man. Over some fifteen years he governed with energy, traveling in Italy, France, and the German lands, preaching, founding priories, and receiving vocations. He had a particular gift for drawing students and masters from Paris and Bologna into the Order of Preachers. Under his generalate the Dominicans spread through Germany and into northern and eastern Europe and maintained houses in the Crusader states. Contemporaries praised his cheerfulness, his eloquence in the pulpit, and his combination of personal poverty with care for the intellectual formation of the friars.

Jordan wrote the Libellus de principiis Ordinis Praedicatorum, the earliest surviving account of Saint Dominic and of the first years of the order, a work of lasting value to historians. He also wrote letters of spiritual direction, the best known of which are those addressed to Blessed Diana degli Andalò of Bologna, who under his guidance established the Dominican nuns of Sant’Agnese. The correspondence shows a director who was both demanding and affectionate. His own life was marked by the Dominican observances of study, preaching, and itinerancy.

In the mid-1230s he visited the Dominican communities in the Holy Land. On the return journey his ship was lost in a storm off the coast of Syria on 13 February 1237, and he perished by drowning. His body was recovered and interred in the Dominican church at Acre. Veneration of Jordan grew within the Order of Preachers. Pope Leo XII later confirmed his cult, and he is honored as Blessed Jordan of Saxony, with liturgical commemoration on 13 February. Among Dominicans he is remembered as a joyful superior and is invoked as a patron of vocations to the order.