VALDO and the VAUDOIS. – The Vaudois derive from a certain Valdés (Valdesius or Valdesius, later Valdo), whose earliest important details date to a period between 1170 and 1176.
I. VALDO
The name, in Old French Valdés, probably derived from a village in the Dauphiné: Vaux-Milieu, from which came the wealthy merchant of the city of Lyon, who was only later, from 1368, known by the name of Peter, preferred to that of Valdo: Petrus Valdo or de Valdo. Because of a strong emotion that, most likely, the story of the legend of St. Alexis and the devastations of the famine of 1173 aroused in his soul, Valdo decided to distribute all his wealth to the poor and to embrace poverty for the love of God. This “conversion” made a huge impression in Lyon, and immediately around him a first nucleus of disciples formed.Their aim was to observe apostolic poverty; later, in 1177, the “Poor of Lyon” (as they were soon called) deemed it necessary to imitate the Apostles even in preaching, and had the Gospel and then other books of the New and Old Testaments translated into the vernacular. But as they were unprepared, they alarmed the ecclesiastical authority, so much so that the bishop of Lyon protested against these improvised lay preachers. Valdo then went to Rome during the Third Lateran Council of 1179. Alexander III approved their manner of life but forbade them to preach without the request of the episcopal authority. The prohibition was later repeated for the group of the Humiliati (v.) or “Poor Lombards.”
II. THE SCHISM
Had the “Poor of Lyon” and the “Poor Lombards,” now allied, yielded to the will of the Pope, the Church would have surrounded them with esteem and admiration, but unfortunately they hardened in disobedience. Returning to Lyon, Valdo resumed preaching with his followers and entered into oral and even written polemics against the Cathars, considering themselves more effective in this task than the ecclesiastical preachers. Bishop John Bellesminas (in 1182–93), recalled to order, denounced them to Pope Lucius III, who condemned them along with the Humiliati in the Council of Verona (bull Ad abolendam of 4 Nov. 1184; Jaffé-Wattenbach, 15109).III. THE “POOR LOMBARDS” SEPARATE FROM THE “POOR OF LYON.” – After the condemnation, an ever-closer rapprochement took place between the Vaudois Lombards and those Humiliati who persisted in the schism; these influenced with their characteristics the ascetic form of the local Vaudois. The principal center remained Milan, from which they spread to Cremona, Bergamo, Pavia, Liguria, and even into German territory, to Strasbourg, Trier, Mainz, and Austria. Excluded from Lyon already in 1181 and later again, the Poor of Lyon reached Provence, Languedoc, Lorraine, Flanders, and the territory of Liège, finally Aragon and Catalonia. The repression against them, mild at first, grew ever harsher, until the confiscation of goods and condemnation to the stake.
In 1205 there came the separation between the “Poor of Lyon,” called “Insabbatati,” and the “Poor Lombards” (v.), a separation that became definitive after the meeting in Bergamo in May 1218; nonetheless, both continued to be designated by nicknames such as “sandalati,” “insabbatati,” “sabbatati,” “sottulari,” etc., from the style of their footwear. From the very beginning, in fact, the Poor had adopted, as a sign of poverty, sandals of wood or leather that clung to the foot, swimming between the crosses of the forges. The Poor attached excessive and superstitious importance to them. Before entering the sect, a long novitiate called novellanus was required; the novice, upon becoming a professed member, took the name of sandalatus. He took the vow, as in a religious order, of “perfect poverty,” that is, not to worry about tomorrow and not to accept or give out anything beyond what was needed for daily food and clothing. Along with the vow of poverty, considered essential, the Vaudois took that of chastity and obedience to their superiors. This organization, however, only bound the “masters” and “mistresses,” sometimes also called “apostles.” To the sect, however, also belonged the “friends” or adherents, who, while continuing to attend Catholic churches, avoided receiving communion from Catholic priests whom they deemed unworthy because of their wealth.
The result of the repression was gradually to make the “apostolic style” of the “masters” disappear, as it too easily betrayed them, to strengthen the bonds between “masters” and “friends,” to distance the members of the sect further from the Catholic Church, and also, very often, to introduce into the Vaudois Church those who wished to escape repression but were secretly hostile to the Catholic clergy.
IV. FROM SCHISM TO HERESY
The sect did not long remain in schism before sliding into heresy, first material, then formal. The principal error of the Vaudois originally had a common foundation with Donatism. This, while admitting the sacrament of Order, made the validity and efficacy of the Sacraments depend on the holiness of the minister who administered them. The Vaudois, however, went further, maintaining that holiness alone sufficed to confer the power to baptize, confirm, consecrate the Eucharist, and absolve from sins. Without having in the least received the sacrament of Order, Valdo and his successors claimed to exercise all priestly powers and even those of a bishop. The Cistercian Alan of Lille, a contemporary of Valdo, attributes to them this formula: “Magis operatur meritum ad consecrandum vel benedicendum, ligandum et solvendum, quam Ordo vel officium.” One can well understand the error of the Vaudois from the profession of faith imposed by Innocent III (c. 1210) on those who converted: “We do not reprove the Sacraments that are celebrated among you (in the Church) with the cooperation and inexpressible and invisible power of the Holy Spirit, even if administered by a sinful priest, provided he is approved by the Church; we reject none of the ecclesiastical offices and blessings imparted by such a priest, but accept them as those of a very holy priest, with sincere heart, because the malice of a bishop or priest does not harm the Baptism of a child nor the consecration of the Eucharist nor the celebration of the other ecclesiastical offices performed for the faithful” (Denz-U, 424).The error of the Vaudois, then, in this matter was twofold: 1) in that they made the efficacy of the Sacrament depend on the holiness of the minister; 2) in that they denied the necessity of the power of Order, substituting for it holiness, conceived in their own way. Indeed, an even subtler and hidden error insinuated itself into their conception of holiness. In contrast to Catholic doctrine, which holds that only God is holy, that man becomes holy only through love for Him (love that implies perfect obedience to His commandments and, consequently, total submission to the Church), the Vaudois, through ignorance or perhaps through too literal an interpretation of the Bible, made holiness consist solely in the external practice of poverty.
A body of doctrine with a regular Confession of Faith did not form among the Waldensians (their ignorance did not allow them to reach such a point), but rather a set of usages which, as they believed, were founded on Scripture. In this, the following elements can be distinguished: prohibition of any kind of oath; strict condemnation of lying, always considered a grave sin; prohibition of military service and of the death penalty even after sentence by a regular court; prohibition of Masses, prayers, and suffrages for the dead; abolition of indulgences; refusal to obey superiors deemed unworthy because they did not live like the Apostles; denial of the power of Order; right of preaching for laypeople, both men and women.
V. HISTORY OF THE WALDENSES
In the history of the Waldensians, three main periods can be distinguished:1. From their origins to their adhesion to Protestantism
The Waldensians, struck along with the Cathars, from whom they were nevertheless well distinguished, disappeared from many regions where they had spread widely. The documents of the Inquisition, around 1321, present them as follows: a) the dress of the 'apostles' and the 'sandals' were no longer considered too dangerous; b) the Waldensians disguised themselves under the most varied guises: pilgrims, penitents, barbers, shoemakers, peasants, above all itinerant peddlers; c) they had become bitter enemies of the Church, especially of the Catholic clergy, and claimed to be the only true representatives of the Church; d) they attributed special value to prayer said in secret, outside churches, to the Lord’s Prayer, excluding other prayers, the cult of the Virgin and of the Saints, and the Latin text of the Bible or, at least, of the New Testament, which they almost always knew by heart, though often without understanding II. In the face of repression by Catholic authorities, from the 13th century the Waldensians took refuge in the valleys of the Cottian Alps: Val Freissinière, Val Argentiera, Val Luisa, Val della Dora Riparia, Val Luserna, Val Angrogna, Val Perosa, Val San Martino, Val Pragelato, around the famous fortress of Pinerolo or around Torre Pellice. Waldensians were also found scattered in Apulia and Calabria. In other places, however, the Waldensians disappeared, either by blending into the predominant Catholic population or, more often, by joining dissident and heretical groups with which they came into contact (Cathars, the 'Usciati', Moravian Brethren, Lollards).In the Waldensian communities of the Alpine valleys, the 'masters' or 'apostles' took the name of 'barba' from the word *barba* = uncle. This is why the Waldensians of the Dauphiné and Piedmont and, later, the Calvinists of the same regions, were called 'barba'.
2. From their adhesion to Protestantism to the Edict of Tolerance of 1848
One of the clearest proofs of the doctrinal insufficiency of the Waldensians was the ease with which they embraced Calvinism. Their first contacts with Protestants occurred before Calvin had become the spiritual leader of Geneva and given his name to a new branch of the Protestant 'Reformation.' FAREL, GUILLAUME (v.), a religious agitator who had belonged to the Meaux group. In December 1526 he took refuge in Basel; in 1526, while in Switzerland, at Aigle in the canton of Valais, he was visited by a 'barba,' a certain Martino Gonin of Angrogna, who had come to seek advice and books. Relations continued: in 1530 two other 'barba,' Giorgio Morel of Val Freissinière and Pietro Masson, went to see Farel. Morel, being more educated than the others (he had read the works of Erasmus and could speak and write Latin—cf. Beza, *Hist. eccl.*, in *Corp. Ref.*, I, 53), had discussions with Farel, Haller, Oecolampadius, Bucer, and Capito, then returned to Merindol where, with Gonin, he set about infusing Waldensian spirit into the Protestant movement. In 1532 Farel, invited to preside over a 'commune,' i.e., a general congress or chapter of the Waldensians, went there with Antonio Saunier and Robert Olivétan, Calvin’s cousin. The 'commune' met on 12 September 1532 at Chanforan in the Val d’Angrogna; Olivétan was entrusted with translating the Bible for the Waldensians. All this took place in the greatest secrecy to avoid the police. Martino Gonin, the first 'barba' to be indicted, died in prison in Grenoble in 1536; the sect honored him as a martyr.At the conclusion of the Chanforan 'commune,' it was decided to abolish among the Waldensians the prohibition of oaths and of the death penalty imposed by a regular court, fasting, prayer, confession, the rite of consecration of 'barba' by the laying on of hands, the celibacy of the 'barba,' compulsory poverty, and itinerant preaching, as well as the vow of virginity for nuns. The Waldensians, however, remained steadfast in their opposition to military service. Instead, they absorbed the new doctrines of the Protestants: justification by faith alone, the Zwinglian interpretation of the two Sacraments retained (Baptism and the Lord’s Supper). They also accepted the Calvinist dogma par excellence, namely eternal election and absolute predestination. These decisions of Chanforan were confirmed anew, despite strong opposition fostered by the Moravian Brethren, at a meeting held in Val San Martino on 15 August 1533.
In this way, the Waldensian movement ended up as a kind of appendix to Calvinism. It was inevitable that the Waldensians would become entangled in the religious wars and suffer the rigors of laws then enacted against dissenters, whether against Catholics in Protestant lands or against Protestants in Catholic lands. Two episodes of violence are worth recalling in Waldensian history. In 1545, by order of the Parliament of Aix, a bloody expedition was launched against them in the French valley of the Durance, especially in the villages of Mérindol and Cabrières (22 hamlets destroyed, number of victims uncertain: from 800 to 4,000). In the Piedmontese valleys, at the instigation of Antoine Léger (1594–1661) and especially of his nephew Jean Léger (1615–61), Waldensian pastors, an insurrectionary movement broke out which was harshly repressed (the Piedmontese Easters of 24 April 1655). Jean Léger, however, deliberately exaggerated and falsified the painful details in his account.
3. From 1848 to the present day
After the French Revolution, the Waldensians benefited from the religious tolerance that became widespread in Europe, until with the emancipation act of 17 February 1848 they achieved full equality with Catholics in all civil respects. At the same time, they found a powerful protector in the English general John Charles Beckwith, of Canadian origin, who was fired with enthusiasm for their historical plight and believed he had found in them the renewers of Christianity in Italy. He obtained substantial financial aid for them, opened schools, founded a Waldensian seminary at Torre Pellice, built churches, supported various publications and Bible translations. But he failed to realize his desire to link them to Anglican liturgy, detaching them from Calvinism. The Waldensians showed no less enthusiasm for his favorite idea: 'the evangelization of Italy.' Their activity then focused on the Waldensian 'Table,' which replaced the ancient 'commune' as their supreme religious authority. In 1866 the theological school of Torre Pellice, transformed into the Waldensian University, moved to the Palazzo Salviati in Florence, where it remained until 1922, when it transferred to Rome. Its professors included J. P. Revel, P. Geymonat, and especially the apostate priest Luigi De Sanctis. General conferences were held in Florence, Genoa, Turin, and Milan. 'The evangelization of Italy' was divided into five districts: Piedmont-Liguria, Lombardy-Venetia, Tuscany, Rome-Naples, Sicily.VI. Present situation
However, contrary to the fanciful hopes entertained, the number of adherents to the Waldensian Church has increased only insignificantly. Today they have 5 areas of “evangelization”: the Alpine valleys; Piedmont-Lombardy-Veneto; Nice-Liguria-Tuscany; Rome; southern Italy-Sicily; the Rio de la Plata and neighboring regions. It is estimated that in 60 years of free “evangelization” and with the aid of substantial American financial resources, the Waldensians have managed to gain only 6,297 new adherents. Worldwide, they do not exceed 30,000 in number. As for hostility toward the Catholic Church, it must be noted that among them, as indeed in most Protestant churches, there has been a profound change since the rise of ecumenism (q.v.); many Waldensians, perhaps the majority, now display respect and admiration for the Roman Church, while the rest remain openly and irreverently opposed.At the Congress of Cañas (Val Pellice) in 1943, Carlo Gay, a staunch Waldensian, uttered these words: “To deny the social value of the Roman Church, as of the universal Church before and after the ‘Reformation,’ would be to amputate history of many of its most brilliant chapters; and to attribute its work to maneuvers of political propaganda would be a sign of petty-mindedness on the part of the unbeliever and a sign of distrust in the spirit of Christ’s charity on the part of the believer” (I. Giordani, *L’umanesimo cattolico*, in *Fides*, 43 [1943], pp. 155–56).