POOR LOMBARDS. – A heretical sect, diffused in Lombardy, derived from a separation from the Poor of Lyon or Waldensians. Already in the early days of the evangelical-pauperistic movement of Valdo, perhaps through his own efforts, groups of followers were formed in Lombardy, in doctrinal and hierarchical union with their coreligionists in France, under the direction of the founder himself. Condemned by Lucius III and Frederick I Barbarossa (Verona 1184) along with the sects of the Poor of Lyon and the Humiliati, the extremist faction of the latter influenced the Lombard Waldensians with its own forms of life, who in turn communicated their anticlericalism to the heterodox Humiliati. The two heretical factions merged to form the sect of the Poor Lombards.
Around 1205, the illiterate “elder” Waldensian Giovanni da Ronco (a locality near Piacenza, close to Corneliano) separated the congregatio or societas of the “fratres italici,” who also called themselves “pauperes spiritu,” from the “ultramontane” brethren, also known as “pauperes de Lugduno” or “leonistae.” In the schism, which was vainly opposed, the growing influence of the Lombard group, which had spread even into Germany under the name of Runcarii or Runcaroli (from the aforementioned locality of Ronco), and above all the differences in doctrinal principles and organizational forms, played a role. While the members of the French community, organized democratically under the authority and directives of Valdo, renounced wealth, abandoned wife and home, and, leaving their affairs and work behind, wandered and begged, the Poor Lombards established their own leader and government, and under the influence of the Humiliati, they practiced associated labor, owning houses and fields, maintaining the marital bond, and only exceptionally permitting the separation of spouses. Like the Waldensians of France, the Poor Lombards believed that Jesus Christ in the New Testament had forbidden secular authorities from exercising coercive power, particularly with regard to the death penalty for heretics and the use of oaths; they considered themselves the restorers of the Church and emphasized their moral and doctrinal opposition to the Catholic Church, which they deemed to have deviated since the time of St. Sylvester and Emperor Constantine; they denied the Catholic priesthood the power to validly confer the Sacraments, to preach, or to command; they asserted that it was lawful to rebel against it and to transgress ecclesiastical precepts, and they attributed to laypeople of good conduct the faculty of consecrating the Eucharist. However, during a meeting in the Milanese territory, some, who later formed a secessionist faction called “de Prato,” refused the Eucharistic rite performed by Giovanni da Ronco with a jug of wine, reaffirming the Catholic principle that only a priest ordained by the Roman Church can perform sacramental actions, and that only the prelate or priest exercises his office validly.
In May 1218 an official meeting near Bergamo between French Waldensians and Poor Lombards, aimed at attempting a return to doctrinal and organizational unity, took place, but subsequently the doctrines of the two currents developed in an increasingly heterodox direction. Around 1235 the Poor Lombards imposed the observance of celibacy to the point of forcing husbands to separate from their wives even against their will. They had as their bishop a certain Andrea “de Gruara”; their priests, called “sandalati,” were reserved the power of consecration; women could also preach.