The popes tried sending preachers among the Cathari, but they were notoriously ineffective, at least until a Spaniard named Dominic Guzman (1170–1221) struck upon the reason. In 1206 Dominic was helping in efforts to convert the Albigenses when he realized that the papally assigned preachers were depending on their ecclesiastical pomp and dignity. The Albigenses considered such show a sure sign of false religion. Dominic believed that the heretics would listen if the preachers themselves were committed to poverty. To win the heretics, Dominic went forth among them as a poor man, barefoot and begging.
In 1220 the Dominican mission and lifestyle gained official approval. The new preaching order that we know as Dominicans was called mendicant, meaning “begging,” and the term friar (or brother) distinguished them from monks because, unlike monks, they went forth to live among people to preach and teach. Just as monastic houses had once arisen to minister in the countryside, so the mendicant friars now emerged to meet the spiritual needs of townspeople.