THE time? The 12th century C.E.—200 years before Wycliffe and Huss and 300 years before Luther. The place? Southern France and the Alpine valleys of that country and northern Italy. The situation? The common people live in poverty and are purposely kept in ignorance by a rich and often profligate clergy class. In all Europe, the Roman Catholic Church reigns supreme, being powerful, opulent and worldly.
The Catholic Church would like us to forget that seeds of discontent were present within her midst many years before Waldo. For example, Bishop Agobard of Lyons, France (779-840 C.E.), came out strongly against image worship, churches dedicated to saints and church liturgy that was not in line with the Holy Scriptures.
Across the Alps, in Turin, Italy, a contemporary of Agobard, Bishop Claudius, took a similar stand. He condemned prayers to saints, the veneration of relics and the cross and, in general, rejected church tradition as being opposed to the Scriptures. Claudius of Turin has been called “the first Protestant reformer.” He died sometime between 827 and 839 C.E.
In the 11th century archdeacon Bérenger, or Berengarius, of Tours, France, said to be one of the most influential theologians of his time, opposed the dogma of transubstantiation, maintaining that the bread and wine used to commemorate Christ’s death are emblematic and not miraculously changed into the body and blood of Christ. He also upheld the superiority of the Bible over tradition. Bérenger was excommunicated as a heretic in 1050.
Very early in the 12th century two men stand out as prominent dissenters in France. They were Peter of Bruys and Henry of Lausanne. The former began his adult life as a priest in the Alps of southeast France. He soon gave up the priesthood because he disagreed with the church on such important doctrines as infant baptism, transubstantiation, prayers for the dead, worship of the cross and the need for church buildings. Banished from the dioceses of the southern Alps, he preached directly to the people throughout southern France, making many disciples. He was finally burned at the stake at St. Gilles, near Arles, in 1140.
The work of Peter of Bruys was continued by Henry of Lausanne, also called Henry of Cluny. He was a monk who, as early as 1101, had begun speaking out boldly against church liturgy, the corrupt clergy of his day and the religious hierarchy system. He maintained that the Bible is the sole rule of faith and worship. Henry of Lausanne started his preaching at Le Mans, in western France. Expelled from there, he continued his missionary work throughout southern France, eventually meeting up with Peter of Bruys. In 1148 he was arrested and thrown into prison for life. But the ideas of these men spread like wildfire from the southern Alps to the Mediterranean and right across southern France to the Bay of Biscay.
"He that will not swear, or speak evil, or lie, or commit injustice or theft, or give himself up to dissoluteness, or take vengeance on his enemies, is called Vaudois and the cry is 'Death to him'."
IN this poem, "La Nobla Leyczon", of 1100 A.D." we are introduced to the controversial and puzzling religious fraternity of the Vaudois or Waldenses. Traditionally the Waldenses have been considered as originating in the work of Peter Waldo, the merchant of Lyons who gave up a prosperous business career to become a "poor preacher". Yet the "Nobla Leyczon" precedes the birth of Waldo by thirty or forty years, and in libraries of Geneva and Cambridge are documents far earlier than Waldo, dating from early in the twelfth century, mentioning the Vaudois, and giving details from their sermons.
The origins of this interesting movement are uncertain, and scholarly discussion concerning them plagued by bias and controversy. Evidence is confusing and contradictory. Yet some definitive points seem to emerge, the first of which is that while in the 14th century they were found only in a number of remote mountain valleys in the Alps, originally they had been spread more widely in southern Europe. In keeping with the opening quotation, it may be as likely that Peter of Lyons was known as Vaudois or Waldo because of his views as that the church derived its name from him. Many medieval "heresies" were named after their founders but some -- the Albigenses, for example - were derived from particular localities or their manner of life.
It became the custom of later writers on the Vaudois, like Newman and Froom, to develop the theory of a continuous "succession" of evangelical and Biblical Christianity, unperverted by Romish "antichrist", from the apostolic age through them to the sixtcenth-century Reformation. Though in the form presented by these apologists sound evidence is often lacking, and there are important missing links, yet the theory has been, in the writer's opinion, too radically dismissed by some modern scholars. These have sought to connect all medieval "heresies", including that of the Vaudois, with Catharism and Manicheeism and similar "initiation" religions from Bulgaria and the Orient which undoubtedly had a hold on parts of southern Europe in the Middle Ages.(1) Yet, despite the paucity and dubious reliability of much of the evidence, since it derives from bitter enemies, it seems clear that the Vaudois' attitude to Christianity was not mystical and libertine, as with the Cathari for instance, but based on an essentially pious yet commonsense approach to the Bible.
For centuries troops harried the Alpine valleys in their hunt for the outlawed Vaudois. In 1393, Val-Louise was depopulated completely and hundreds of infants suffocated in their cradles. At this date there were adherents scattered over a wide area from Geneva on the north to Arles on the south and from Avignon on the west as far as Venice on the east., But by the fifteenth century the greater number who remained were cooped up in the most inaccessible Alpine fastnesses. There were, however, in the lowlands many cells which persisted stubbornly.
No doubt in an endeavour to obtain protection from the incessant pressure of persecution two of the Vaudois leaders sought alliance with the Swiss national reformers and sections of the community merged into the general reformation movement. The "Valdensian" church which the author found in 1963 in Turin, Italy, appeared indistinguishable from the generality of evangelical Protestant sects. There were many others, however, who found a more amenable spiritual home within the community of Brethren, presently to be considered.
The Vaudois, handicapped by their unacceptable views on the nature of man, God, the church and the future, saw only in the instruction of their families any opportunity for perpetuation. To this end they prepared a "Catechism for the Instruction of Youth". Most significantly it began
Q. If one should demand of you, who you are, what would you answer?
A. A creature of God, reasonable and mortal.
Both words were highly significant. The first was by implication an assertion that their understanding of Christianity was based on common sense exegesis, on the exercise of a person's reasoning faculties, not on blind conformity to authoritarian ecclesiastical decrees. The second speaks for itseIf, its consequence will unfold in due course.
IN this poem, "La Nobla Leyczon", of 1100 A.D." we are introduced to the controversial and puzzling religious fraternity of the Vaudois or Waldenses. Traditionally the Waldenses have been considered as originating in the work of Peter Waldo, the merchant of Lyons who gave up a prosperous business career to become a "poor preacher". Yet the "Nobla Leyczon" precedes the birth of Waldo by thirty or forty years, and in libraries of Geneva and Cambridge are documents far earlier than Waldo, dating from early in the twelfth century, mentioning the Vaudois, and giving details from their sermons.
The origins of this interesting movement are uncertain, and scholarly discussion concerning them plagued by bias and controversy. Evidence is confusing and contradictory. Yet some definitive points seem to emerge, the first of which is that while in the 14th century they were found only in a number of remote mountain valleys in the Alps, originally they had been spread more widely in southern Europe. In keeping with the opening quotation, it may be as likely that Peter of Lyons was known as Vaudois or Waldo because of his views as that the church derived its name from him. Many medieval "heresies" were named after their founders but some -- the Albigenses, for example - were derived from particular localities or their manner of life.
It became the custom of later writers on the Vaudois, like Newman and Froom, to develop the theory of a continuous "succession" of evangelical and Biblical Christianity, unperverted by Romish "antichrist", from the apostolic age through them to the sixtcenth-century Reformation. Though in the form presented by these apologists sound evidence is often lacking, and there are important missing links, yet the theory has been, in the writer's opinion, too radically dismissed by some modern scholars. These have sought to connect all medieval "heresies", including that of the Vaudois, with Catharism and Manicheeism and similar "initiation" religions from Bulgaria and the Orient which undoubtedly had a hold on parts of southern Europe in the Middle Ages.(1) Yet, despite the paucity and dubious reliability of much of the evidence, since it derives from bitter enemies, it seems clear that the Vaudois' attitude to Christianity was not mystical and libertine, as with the Cathari for instance, but based on an essentially pious yet commonsense approach to the Bible.
For centuries troops harried the Alpine valleys in their hunt for the outlawed Vaudois. In 1393, Val-Louise was depopulated completely and hundreds of infants suffocated in their cradles. At this date there were adherents scattered over a wide area from Geneva on the north to Arles on the south and from Avignon on the west as far as Venice on the east., But by the fifteenth century the greater number who remained were cooped up in the most inaccessible Alpine fastnesses. There were, however, in the lowlands many cells which persisted stubbornly.
No doubt in an endeavour to obtain protection from the incessant pressure of persecution two of the Vaudois leaders sought alliance with the Swiss national reformers and sections of the community merged into the general reformation movement. The "Valdensian" church which the author found in 1963 in Turin, Italy, appeared indistinguishable from the generality of evangelical Protestant sects. There were many others, however, who found a more amenable spiritual home within the community of Brethren, presently to be considered.
The Vaudois, handicapped by their unacceptable views on the nature of man, God, the church and the future, saw only in the instruction of their families any opportunity for perpetuation. To this end they prepared a "Catechism for the Instruction of Youth". Most significantly it began
Q. If one should demand of you, who you are, what would you answer?
A. A creature of God, reasonable and mortal.
Both words were highly significant. The first was by implication an assertion that their understanding of Christianity was based on common sense exegesis, on the exercise of a person's reasoning faculties, not on blind conformity to authoritarian ecclesiastical decrees. The second speaks for itseIf, its consequence will unfold in due course.
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