§ 84. THE WALDENSES. 493
These sectaries were in part forerunners and contemporaries of other communities with a pious and benevolent design developed in Holland in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and with which German mysticism is closely associated.
§ 84. The Waldenses.
" O lady fair, I have yet a gem which a purer lustre flings Than the diamond flash of the jewelled crown on the lofty brow of kings ; A wonderful pearl of exceeding price, whose virtue shall not decay, Whose light shall be as a spell to thee and a blessing on thy way ! "
— WHITTIER, The Vaudois Teacher.
Distinct from the Cathari and other sects in origin and doctrine, but sharing with them the condemnation of the established Church, were the Waldenses. The Cathari lived completely apart from the Catholic Church. The Waldenses, leaning upon the Scriptures, sought to revive the simple precepts of the Apostolic age. They were the strictly bib lical sect of the Middle Ages. This fact, and the pitiless and protracted persecutions to which they were subjected, long ago won the sympathies of the Protestant churches. They present a rare spectacle of the survival of a body of believers which has come up out of great tribulation.
Southern France was their first home, but they were a small party as compared with the Albigenses in those parts. From France they spread into Piedmont, and also into Austria and Germany, as recent investigations have clearly brought out. In Italy, they continue to this day in their ancestral valleys and, since 1870, endowed with full rights of citizenship. In Austria, they kept their light burning as in a dark place for centuries, had a close historic con nection with the Hussites and Bohemian Brethren, and pre pared, in some measure, the way for the Anabaptists in the time of the Reformation.
The Waldenses derive their origin and name from Peter Waldus or Valdez,1 who died before 1218, as all the con-
1 Valdesius, Valdensius, or Waldunus. The name is given in these and other forms by writers of the thirteenth century. De Bourbon, p. 290 ; Guy, p. 244 ; Dollinger, II. 6, 300, etc. Bernard, abbot of Fontis Calidi, Migne,
494 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
temporary writers agree. They were also called Poor Men of Lyons, from the city on the Rhone where they originated, and the Sandalati or Sandalled, from the coarse shoes they wore.1
The name by which they were known among themselves was Brethren or the Poor of Christ,2 based probably upon Matt. 5: •>, ^ Blessed are the poor in spirit." According to the Anonymous writer of Passau, writing in the early years of the fourteenth century, some already in his day carried the origin of the sect back to the Apostles. Until recently all Waldensian writers have claimed for it Apostolic origin or gone at least as far back as the seventh century. Pro fessor Comba, of the Waldensian school in Florence, has definitely given up this theory in deference to the investi gations of Dieckhoff, Herzog, and other German scholars.
Of Waldo's life little is known. A prosperous merchant of Lyons, he was aroused to religious zeal by the sudden death of a leading citizen of the city, of which he was a witness, and by a ballad he heard sung by a minstrel on the public square. The song was about St. Alexis, the son of wealthy parents who no sooner returned from the marriage altar than, impressed by the claims of celibacy, he left his bride, to start on a pilgrimage to the East. On his return he called on his relatives and begged them to give him shelter, but they did not recognize who he was till they found him dead. The moral drawn from the tale was : life is short, the times are evil, prepare for heaven.
204. 793, allegorizes when he says they were called " Valdenses, as though they came from a dense valley and are involved in its deep thick darkness of errors.'1 Alanus de Insulis, Migne, 210, p. 377 sqq., says the " Waldenses are so called from their heresiarch Waldus, the founder of the new sect who presumed to preach without authority of prelate, without divine inspiration, knowledge, or letters. A philosopher without head, a prophet without vision, an apostle without mission, a teacher without instructor, whose disciples, or rather musciples (discipuli imo muscipuli), seduce the unwary in different parts of the world."
1 Pauperes de Lugduno, Leonistse, etc. Zabatati, or Insobbalati, because the shoe was cut in the shape of a shield. Guy, 245; Dollinger, II. 02, 233, etc.
2 Inter se vacant Fratres sen Pauperes Christi. Guy, p. 256.