Saint Dominic Loricatus — in Italian, San Domenico Loricato — (995–1060) was an Umbrian saint, born in the Italian village of Luceolis near Cantiano (then in Umbria, now in the Marche). His father, sensing social advancement, paid a bribe to have him ordained a priest when still a child. When he discovered the fact, he resolved on a life of penance and became a hermit in the woods near the abbey of S. Emiliano in Congiuntoli, then a Benedictine monk at the monastery of Fonte Avellana in 1040.
"By a fantastic arithmetic, a year of penance was taxed at three thousand lashes; and such was the skill and patience of a famous hermit, Saint Dominic of the iron Cuirass, that in six days he could discharge an entire century, by a whipping of three hundred thousand stripes. His example was followed by many penitents of both sexes; and, as a vicarious sacrifice was accepted, a sturdy disciplinarian might expiate on his own back the sins of his benefactors."
Saint Dominic is said to have performed these lashes while reciting the psalms, with 100 lashes for each psalm. 30 psalms (3000 strokes) made penance for one year of sin; the entire psalter redeemed 5 years, while 20 psalters (300,000 strokes) redeemed one hundred years - hence the 'One Hundred Years Penance' St. Dominic is said to have performed in six days, over Lent.
He owes his name Loricatus to his bodily mortification of wearing a coat of chain mail (Latin: lorica) next to his skin as a hairshirt. He died at the hermitage of S. Vicino. His feast is celebrated by Catholics on October 14.
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