The Dominican Order, or more precisely the Ordo Fratrum Praedicatorum, was born in the particular historical circumstances, political and ecclesiastical, which characterized the first decades of the thirteenth century. These circumstances reveal a great need for reform in the Church which involved both reformers who discarded an almost radical ecclesiastical structure (Peter Valdo, and especially the Cathars) and reformers who accepted the ecclesiastical structure, but still wanted to purify the experience of life (as St. Francis and St. Dominic).