HISTORY

OF THE

CHRISTIAN CHURCH,

FROM THE

BIRTH OF CHRIST TO THE XVIII. CENTURY.

IN TWO VOLUMES.

VOL. II.

(307)

CHAPTER V.

THE HISTORY OF THE WALDENSES AND ALBIGENSES, FROM THE TIME OF peter waldo, a. D. 1160, TO THE DAYS of wickliffe, 1360.

SECTION I.

ORIGIN OF THE NAMES WALDENSES AND ALBIGENSES, WITH SOME ACCOUNT OF PETER WALDO OF LYONS, AND THE SANGUINARY EDICT OF POPE LUCIUS III. AGAINST THE DISCIPLES OF WALDO.

HAVING sketched the more prominent features of the Christian Church, for the first ten centuries, and arriving at that period in which we are to give the reader some account of the Waldenses, it will be proper to introduce the subject by an attempt to ascertain the origin of their distinguishing appellation. The learned Mosheim contends with considerable pertinacity that they derived their name from Peter Waldo, an opulent merchant of Lyons, whose history will presently come under our notice; but in this he is contradicted by his learned translator, and, I believe, I may truly add, by most writers of authority since his time. The most satisfactory definition that I have met with of the term Waldenses, is that given by Mr. Robinson, in his Ecclesiastical Researches; and, in the confidence that it is the true one, and that I may not unnecessarily trespass on the reader's time and patience, I submit it to his consideration.

From the Latin word VALLIS, came the English word valley, the French and Spanish valle, the Italian valdesi, the Low Dutch valleye, the Provençal vaux, vaudois, the ecclesiastical Valdenses, Ualdenses, and Waldenses. The words simply signify valleys, inhabitants of valleys, and no more. It happened that the inhabitants of the valleys of the Pyrenees did not profess the Catholic faith; it fell out also that the inhabitants of the valleys about the Alps did not embrace it; it happened, moreover, in the ninth century, that one Valdo, a friend and counsellor of Berengarius, and a man of eminence who had many followers, did not approve of the papal discipline and doctrine; and it came to pass about an hundred and thirty years after, that a rich merchant of Lyons, who was called Valdus, or Waldo, openly disavowed the Roman Catholic religion, supported many to teach the doctrines believed in the valleys, and became the instrument of the conversion of great numbers; ALL these people were called WaldenSES.* This view of the matter, which to myself appears indisputably the true one, is also supported by the authority of their own historians, Pierre Gilles, Perrin, Leger, Sir S. Morland, and Dr. Allix.

Ecclesiastical Researches, page 302, 303.

To the preceding account of the derivation of the term Waldenses, I shall now add the explanation given by these writers of various other appellations that were bestowed on this class of Christians, and particularly that of Albigenses.

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The names imposed on them in France by their adversaries, they say, have been intended to vilify and ridicule them, or to represent them as new and different sects. Being stripped of all their property, and reduced by persecution to extreme poverty, they have been called "the poor of Lyons.' From their mean and famished appearance in their exiled and destitute state, they have been called in provincial jargon "Siccan," or pickpockets. Because they would not observe saints' days, they were falsely supposed to neglect the Sabbath also, and called "Inzabbatati or Insabbathists." 91* As they denied transubstantiation, or the personal and divine presence of Jesus Christ in the host, or wafer exhibited in the mass, they were called "Arians." Their adversaries, premising that all power must be derived from God through his vicegerent the pope, or from an opposite and evil principle, inferred that the Waldenses were "Manichæans," because they denied the pope's supremacy over the emperors and kings of the earth.

In Languedoc, the Catholics affirmed that the origin of these heretics was recent, and that they derived their name of Vaudois, or Waldenses, from Peter Waldo, one of their barbes or preachers, whose immediate followers were called Waldenses; but this was rather the renovation of the name from a particular cause than its original: accordingly it extended over that district only, in France, where Peter Waldo preached; for in other districts the people who were branches of the same original sect, as in Dauphiné, were, from a noted preacher called Josephists-in Languedoc, they were called Henricians-and in other provinces, from Peter Bruys, they were called Petrobusians. Sometimes they received their name from their manners, as "Catharists,' (Puritans) and from the foreign country whence it was presumed they had been expelled, they were called "Bulgarians" or Bougres. In Italy they were commonly called Fratricelli, that is, "men of the brotherhood," because they cultivated brotherly love among themselves, acknowledging one another as brethren in Christ. Sometimes they were denominated "Paulicians," and, by corruption of the word, "Publicans," considering them as sprung from that ancient sect which, in the seventh century, spread over Armenia and Thrace,* and which, when persecuted by the Greek emperor might migrate into Europe, and mingle with the Waldenses in Piedmont. Sometimes they were named from the country or city in which they prevailed, as Lombardists, Toulousians, and Albigenses. All these branches, however, sprang

* Dr. Mosheim traces the derivation of this word to a kind of slipper which they wore, as a distinguishing badge of the sect, and Gibbon has adopted his opinion. But I agree with Mr. Robinson in thinking it very unlikely, that people who could not descend from their mountains into neighbouring states, without hazarding their lives through the furious zeal of inquisitors, should tempt danger by affixing a visible mark on their shoes. The above opinion, therefore, appears to me much more probable.

See vol. I. ch. iii. sect. 4.

Various names given to the Sect.

309

from one common stock, and were animated by the same religious and moral principles.

ALBIGENSES became latterly their common name in France, from the great number of them that inhabited the city of Alby, and the district of Albigeois, between the Garonne and the Rhone: but that name was not general and confirmed till after the council of Alby in the year Their number and preva1254, which condemned them as heretics. lence in that country are ascribed to the patronage and protection which they received from Roger, Count of Alby, after they had been persecuted in other countries. Some writers have laboured to prove that the Waldenses and Albigenses were quite different classes of Christians, and that they held different principles and opinions: but there seems no solid ground for maintaining such a distinction. When the popes issued their fulminations against the Albigenses, they expressly condemn them as Waldenses; their legates made war against them as professing the faith of the Waldenses; the monks of the inquisition formed their processes of indictment against them as being Waldenses; the people persecuted them as such; and they uniformly adopted the title when it was given them, and even thought themselves honoured by it. To this may be added, that historians do not trace their origin to any local causes in Albigeois, and about Toulouse, but represent them as emigrants from other regions. Neither do they represent their origin as recent before the council of Alby, but as strangers from adjacent countries about a hundred years before.

Farther, the provincial councils of Toulouse, in 1119, and of Lombez, in 1176, and the general councils of Lateran in 1139, and 1179, do not treat of them, nor condemn them as Albigenses but as heretics, and when they particularize them, they denominate them "bons hommet" (i. e. good men)" Cathari"" Paterini”—"Publicani," &c. which shows that they existed before they were generally known as Albigenses. It is also proved, from their books, that they existed as Waldenses, before the times of Peter Waldo, who preached about the year 1160. Perrin, who wrote their history, had in his possession a New Testament in the Vallese language, written on parchment, in a very ancient letter, and a book entitled in their language, "Qual cosa sia l'Antichrist"—that is, "What is Antichrist?" under date of the year 1120, which carries us back at least twenty years before Waldo. Another book entitled, "The Noble Lesson"-is dated A. D. 1100.

Their enemies confirm their great antiquity. Reinerius Saccho, an inquisitor, and one of their most implacable enemies, who lived only eighty years after Waldo, admits that the Waldenses flourished five hundred years before that preacher. Gretzer, the Jesuit, who also wrote against the Waldenses, and had examined the subject fully, not only admits their great antiquity, but declares his firm belief" that the Toulousians and Albigenses condemned in the years 1177, and 1178, were no other than Waldenses. In fact, their doctrine, discipline, government, manners, and even the errors with which they have been charged (by the Catholics,) show that the Albigenses and Waldenses