Waldenses

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Waldenses, also Vaudois. Since the 12th cent. the name ‘Waldenses’ has been applied to several groups of heretics. In the 16th cent. one group adopted Calvinism and formed a ‘Waldensian’ Protestant Church, the ‘Chiesa Evangelica Valdese’.

The earliest sources attribute the foundation of the ‘Waldensian’ heresy to one Valdes; the form Waldo and the addition of Peter to his name are later. Valdes was a rich citizen of Lyons; c.1170–3 he underwent a conversion, gave his wealth to the poor and began to live on alms and preach. His way of life was approved by Alexander III in 1179, so long as he and his followers refrained from preaching except at the invitation of the clergy. In 1180 Valdes subscribed a profession of orthodox belief, but soon afterwards he and his followers broke the Church's ban on unofficial preaching and in 1182/3 they were excommunicated and expelled from Lyons. At the Council of Verona (1184) they were included with the Cathars and others in the general condemnation of heretics. At this stage the movement was characterized by itinerant lay preaching, voluntary poverty, and works of charity.

The movement was split by a series of schisms. One group, known as ‘Poor Lombards’, established in and around Milan and Piacenza, in 1205 broke with the group centred in Lyons. The ‘Lyonnais’ themselves split in 1207 when Valdes' former follower Durand of Osca led some of them back to Catholic obedience. Others returned to Catholicism in 1210. By the 1220s there were Waldenses in what is now Germany. It seems that they confined their preaching to known sympathizers, distrusted the Catholic clergy and the sacraments offered by them, had doubts about prayer for the dead and purgatory, and insisted on their right to preach. By the 1290s there were Waldenses in the SW Alps, Austria, and elsewhere. From the 14th cent. a more attenuated form of heresy characterized the various groups: they entertained doubts about the Church's rites but in many cases continued to participate in them. Soon after the outbreak of the Hussite schism in Bohemia, contact was established between the German Waldenses and the Bohemian heretics.

The Waldenses of the SW Alps, who had by 1500 spread to parts of Provence, Calabria, and Apulia, quickly took an interest in the Protestant Reformation, but not until between c.1555 and c.1564 did they form distinct Protestant Churches with settled pastors sent by J. Calvin from Geneva, a Genevan confession and ordinance. With the advent of Protestantism, the Waldenses lost their separate identity except in the parts of the Alpine valleys which fell under the Dukes of Savoy. From 1561 they were usually tolerated but sometimes persecuted. In 1848 the Chiesa Evangelica Valdese was given full civil rights in Piedmont-Savoy. Its worship is still based on 16th cent. Genevan Protestantism.

Waldenses or Waldensians, Protestant religious group of medieval origin, called in French Vaudois. They originated in the late 12th cent. as the Poor Men of Lyons, a band organized by Peter Waldo, a wealthy merchant of Lyons, who gave away his property (c.1176) and went about preaching apostolic poverty as the way to perfection. Being laymen, they were forbidden to preach. They went to Rome, where Pope Alexander III blessed their life but forbade preaching (1179) without authorization from the local clergy. They disobeyed and began to teach unorthodox doctrines; they were formally declared heretics by Pope Lucius III in 1184 and by the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215. In 1211 more than 80 were burned as heretics at Strasbourg, beginning several centuries of persecution.

The Waldenses proclaimed the Bible as the sole rule of life and faith. They rejected the papacy, purgatory, indulgences, and the mass, and laid great stress on gospel simplicity. Worship services consisted of readings from the Bible, the Lord's Prayer, and sermons, which they believed could be preached by all Christians as depositaries of the Holy Spirit. Their distinctive pre-Reformation doctrines are set forth in the Waldensian Catechism (c.1489). They had contact with other similar groups, especially the Humiliati .

The Waldenses were most successful in Dauphiné and Piedmont and had permanent communities in the Cottian Alps SW of Turin. In 1487 at the instance of Pope Innocent VIII a persecution overwhelmed the Dauphiné Waldenses, but those in Piedmont defended themselves successfully. In 1532 they met with German and Swiss Protestants and ultimately adapted their beliefs to those of the Reformed Church. In 1655 the French and Charles Emmanuel II of Savoy began a campaign against them. Oliver Cromwell sent a mission of protest; that occasion also prompted John Milton's famous poem on the Waldenses. At the time of the revocation of the Edict of Nantes (1685), the Waldensian leader, Henri Arnaud , led a band into Switzerland; he later led them back to their valleys.

After the French Revolution the Waldenses of Piedmont were assured liberty of conscience, and in 1848, King Charles Albert of Savoy granted them full religious and civil rights. A group of Waldensians settled in the United States at Valdese, N.C. The Waldensian Church is included in the Alliance of Reformed Churches of the Presbyterian Order. The principal Waldensian writer was Arnaud.

Bibliography: See study by E. Cameron (1984).

Waldenses/Waldensians or Vaudois. Adherents of a reforming movement which began in the 12th cent., in the Roman Catholic Church and became a Protestant Church. It originated with a Frenchman, Pierre Valdès ( Peter Waldo), when he obeyed the command of Christ to sell all that he had and give it to the poor (Matthew 19. 21), and set out (much as, in different ways, did Francis and Dominic) to recover the Church as Christ intended. When the small group who gathered around him (‘the poor men of Lyons’) were banned by Pope Lucius III (at the Council of Verona) from unauthorized preaching in 1184, they organized an alternative Church. They continued to be victims of persecution (including the massacre in 1655 which evoked Milton's Sonnet, ‘On the Late Massacre in Piedmont’), but survived long enough to be granted religious freedom in 1848. They number now about 20,000.

Waldenses Small Christian sect founded in the 12th century. It had its origins in the ‘Poor Men of Lyons’, the followers of Peter Waldo of Lyons. The Waldenses renounced private property and led an ascetic life. They repudiated many Roman Catholic doctrines and practices, such as indulgences, purgatory, and Mass for the dead, and denied the validity of sacraments administered by unworthy priests. The movement flourished briefly in the 13th century, but active persecution extinguished it except in the French and Italian Alps. Persecution continued until the Waldenses received full civil rights in 1848. In the later 19th century, many Waldenses emigrated to the Americas.

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