GLI ARNALDISTI

THE ARNALDISTS. — This was the name given to the followers of A. who, in the second half of the 12th century, formed a particular heretical sect in Lombardy; they are condemned by name in the constitution *Ad abolendam* of Lucius III and Frederick I Barbarossa (Verona, 1184). A. regarded as usurpers and stripped of authority those clergy who did not lead a life of poverty, without possessions or ostentation; his disciples lived by begging. It is not proven that he taught errors regarding the baptism of infants and the Eucharist. The Arnaldists considered the evangelical virtues as the foundation of the "ordo" of the priesthood and of the hierarchy; they rejected the Sacraments as ineffective, since they were administered by priests whom they deemed unworthy. They taught that it was a duty to resist the Church’s abuse of judicial and coercive power and that an austere and poor life gave the laity the right to preach without ecclesiastical approval. They pushed their evangelical pauperism to the point of doctrinal heterodoxy; because of the anti-hierarchical and anti-priestly character of their preaching, they influenced the heretical development of the Italian Waldensians (v.) and the Humiliati (v.). In the 13th century they are mentioned in lists condemning various sects, but they did not survive as a distinct group; their errors became a ferment for other heretical currents.