Poor Lombards

POOR LOMBARDS. - Heretical sect, widespread in Lombardy, derived through separation from the Poor of Lyons, or Waldensians. Already in the earliest times of Valdo's evangelical-pauperistic movement, perhaps through his own work, groups of followers were formed in Lombardy, in doctrinal and hierarchical union with their co-religionists in France, under the direction of the founder himself. After the sects of the Poor of Lyons and of the Humiliati were condemned by Lucius III and Frederick I Barbarossa (Verona 1184), the extremist group of the latter influenced the Lombard Waldensians with its own forms of life, and these in turn communicated their own anticlericalism to the heterodox Humiliati. The two heretical factions merged to form the sect of the P. L.

Around 1205 the unlettered Waldensian "elder" Giovanni da Ronco (a locality in the Piacenza area near Corneliano) separated the congregatio or societas of the "fratres italici," who also called themselves "pauperes spiritu," from the "ultramontane" brethren, also called "pauperes de Lugduno" or "leonistae." Contributing to the schism, which was vainly implored to be avoided, were the increased efficiency of the Lombard group, which had also spread into Germany under the name Runcarli or Runcaroli (from the aforementioned locality of Ronco), and above all the diversity of doctrinal principles and organizational forms. While the members of the French community, democratically organized under the authority and directives of Valdo, renouncing wealth, abandoned wife and home, and leaving business and work behind, went on pilgrimage and begged, the P. L. gave themselves a head and a government of their own, and under the influence of the Humiliati practiced associated labor, owning houses and fields, preserving the marriage bond, and only by exception permitted the separation of spouses. Like the Waldensians of France, the P. L. believed that Jesus Christ forbade secular authorities in the New Testament to exercise coercive power, particularly as regards the death penalty for heretics and the use of oaths; they considered themselves the restorers of the true Church and accentuated their moral and doctrinal aversion to the Catholic Church, which they believed had deviated since the time of St. Sylvester and the emperor Constantine; they denied the Catholic priesthood the power to validly confer the Sacraments, to preach, to command; they asserted that it was lawful to rebel against it and to transgress ecclesiastical precepts, and they attributed to laymen of good conduct the faculty of consecrating the Eucharist; however, during a meeting in the territory of Milan, some of them, who subsequently 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 validly exercises his office. The French Waldensians too maintained for some time these sacramental ties with the Catholic Church.

In May 1218 an official meeting in the vicinity of Bergamo, between the French Waldensians and the P. L., in an attempt to return to unity of doctrine and organization, failed, and thereafter the doctrines of the two currents developed in an ever more heterodox direction. Around 1235 the P. L. 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"; to their priests, called "sandaliati," was reserved the power to consecrate; women too could preach.

Ilarino da Milano