VALDO and VALDESI. – The Valdesi derive from a certain Valdés (Valdesius or Valdensis, later Valdo), whose first significant records date to a period between 1170 and 1176.
I. VALDO
The name, in the French vernacular Valdés, probably derived from a village in the Dauphiné: Vaux-Milieu, from which came the wealthy merchant of the city of Lyon, who only belatedly, from 1368 onward, was known by the name of Pietro, placed before that of Valdo: Petrus Valdo o de Valdo. Because of a profound emotion which, in all probability, were aroused in his soul by the account of the legend of St Alessio and the devastation caused by the famine of 1173, Valdo decided to distribute all his possessions to the poor and to embrace poverty for the love of God. This “conversion” made an enormous impression in Lyon, and a first nucleus of disciples immediately formed around him.Their aim was to observe “apostolic poverty”; later, in 1177, the “poor men of Lyon” (as they were immediately called) considered that they ought to imitate the Apostles also in preaching, and had the Gospel and then other books of the New and Old Testaments translated into the vernacular: but, unprepared as they were, they alarmed the ecclesiastical authorities, to such an extent 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 way of life, but forbade them to preach without the request of the episcopal authority. The prohibition was subsequently repeated Humiliati (v.) or “poor Lombards.”
II. THE SCHISM
If the «poor of Lyons» and the «poor Lombards», now allied, had submitted to the Pope’s will, the Church would have surrounded them with esteem and admiration; unfortunately, however, they hardened themselves in disobedience. Upon returning to Lyons, Valdo began preaching again with his adherents and engaged in oral and also written polemics against the Cathars, considering himself in this task more effective than the ecclesiastical preachers. The bishop Giovanni Bellesmains (and not Blanchesmains [1182–93]), having vainly called them to order, denounced them to Pope Lucius III, who condemned them together with the Humiliati at the Council of Verona (bull Ad abolendum of 4 Nov. 1184; Jaffé-Wattenbach, 15109).III. THE «POOR LOMBARDS» SEPARATE FROM THE «POOR OF LYONS»
After the condemnation, an ever closer rapprochement took place between the Lombard Waldensians and those Humiliati who persisted in the schism; the latter influenced the ascetic form of the local Waldensians with their own characteristics. The principal center remained Milan, from which they spread in schism to Cremona, Bergamo, Pavia, Liguria, and also German territory, to Strasbourg, Trier, Magona, and Austria. Expelled from Lyons as early as 1181 and again thereafter, the poor of Lyons reached Provence, Languedoc, Lorraine, Flanders, and the territory of Liège, and finally Aragon and Catalonia. The repression directed against them, mild at first, became increasingly harsh, eventually leading to the confiscation of their property and condemnation to the stake.In 1205, separation took place between the «poor of Lyons», called «insabbatati», and the «poor Lombards» (v.), a separation that became definitive after the meeting at Bergamo in May 1218; nevertheless, both groups continued to be designated by the nicknames «sandalati», «insabbatati», «sabbatati», «sotulari», etc., after the form of their footwear. From their very beginnings, in fact, the poor had adopted, as a sign of poverty, sandals of wood or leather that adhered to the bare foot by means of laces drawn in the shape of a cross. The poor attached excessive and superstitious importance to them. Before entering the sect, a lengthy novitiate called nonellanus was required; upon becoming professed, the novice took the name sandalatus. He made the vow, as in a religious order, of «perfect poverty», that is, not to concern himself with the morrow and not to accept gold or silver except in the amount that could serve the daily necessities of food and clothing. Together with the vow of poverty, regarded as essential, the Waldensians made vows of chastity and obedience to their superiors. This organization, however, bound only the «masters» and «mistresses», also sometimes called «apostles». The sect also included the «friends» or adherents, who, while continuing to attend Catholic churches, avoided receiving communion from Catholic priests deemed unworthy because of their wealth.
The result of the repression was gradually to eliminate the «apostolic style» of the «masters», which betrayed them all too readily; to strengthen the ties between «masters» and «friends»; to distance the members of the sect still further from the Catholic Church; and also, very often, to bring into the Waldensian Church people desirous of escaping the repression but secretly hostile to the Catholic clergy.
IV. FROM SCHISM TO HERESY
From schism the sect did not take long to slide into heresy, first material and then formal. The principal error of the Waldensians originally had something in common with Donatism. While admitting the sacrament of Orders, the latter made the value and efficacy of the Sacraments depend on the holiness of the minister who conferred them. The Waldensians, however, went further, maintaining that holiness alone sufficed to confer the power to baptize, confirm, consecrate the Eucharist, and absolve from sins. Without having received the sacrament of Orders in the slightest degree, Valdo and his successors claimed to exercise all priestly powers and even episcopal ones. The Cistercian Alano di Lilla, a contemporary of Valdo, attributes this formula to them: «Magis operatur meritum ad consecrandum vel benedicendum, ligandum et solvendum, quam Ordo vel officium». The Waldensian error is made quite clear by the profession of faith imposed by Innocenzo III (around 1210) on those who converted: «We do not condemn the Sacraments celebrated among you (in the Church) through the cooperation and the inestimable and invisible power of the Holy Spirit, even if they are administered by a sinful priest, provided that he has been 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 a sincere heart, because the wickedness of a bishop or a priest does not harm the Baptism of a child, nor the consecration of the Eucharist, nor the celebration of the other ecclesiastical offices celebrated for the faithful» (Denz-U, 424).The error of the Waldensians in this matter was therefore twofold: 1) insofar as they made the efficacy of the Sacrament depend on the holiness of the minister; 2) insofar as they denied the necessity of the power of Orders, replacing it with holiness as they conceived II. Indeed, an even subtler and more hidden error lay in wait within their conception of holiness. In contrast with Catholic doctrine—which holds that only God is holy and that man becomes holy solely through love of him (a love that implies perfect obedience to his commandments and, consequently, total submission to the Church)—the Waldensians, through ignorance or perhaps because of an excessively literal interpretation of the Bible, made holiness consist solely in the outward practice of poverty.
Among the Waldensians there came into being not a genuine body of doctrine with a regular Confession of faith (ignorance did not enable them to go so far), but a set of practices believed to be founded on Scripture, in which the following elements can be distinguished: prohibition of every kind of oath; rigorous condemnation of lying, always regarded as a grave sin; prohibition of military service and of the death penalty, even after a regular court’s sentence; prohibition of Masses, prayers, and suffrages for the dead; abolition of indulgences; refusal to obey superiors considered unworthy because they did not live as the Apostles did; denial of the power of Orders; the right of laymen and laywomen to preach.
V. HISTORY OF THE WALDENSIANS
In the history of the Waldensians, three principal periods may be distinguished:1. From their origins to their adherence to Protestantism
The Waldensians, who were struck down together with the Cathars, from whom they nevertheless differed clearly, disappeared from many regions in which they had spread extensively. The documents of the Inquisition, around 1321, present them as follows: a) the manner of dress of the «apostles» and the «sandals» are no longer considered especially dangerous; b) the Waldensians disguise themselves in the most varied clothing: pilgrims, penitents, barbers, cobblers, peasants, and above all travelling tradesmen; c) they have become bitter enemies of the Church, especially of the Catholic clergy, and claim to be the sole representatives of the true Church; d) they attribute special value to prayer said in secret, outside the churches, and to the Lord’s Prayer, while excluding other prayers, devotion to the Virgin and the Saints, and the Latin text of the Bible or, at least, of the New Testament, which they almost always know by heart, though often without understanding II. In opposition to the repression of the Catholic authorities, from the thirteenth 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 scattered throughout Apulia and Calabria. In other places, however, the Waldensians disappeared, either by merging with the predominant Catholic population or, more often, by joining dissident and heretical groups with which they came into contact (Cathars, Hussites, Moravian Brethren, Lollards).In the Waldensian communities of the Alpine valleys, the «masters» or «apostles» took the name «barba» from the word barba = uncle. This is why the Waldensians of Dauphiné and Piedmont and, later, the Calvinists of those same regions were called «barba».
2. From adherence to Protestantism to the Edict of Toleration of 1848
One of the clearest proofs of the sect’s doctrinal insufficiency was the ease with which the Waldensians passed to Calvinism. Their first contacts with the Protestants took place before Calvin had become the spiritual head of Geneva and had given his name to a new branch of the Protestant «Reformation». FAREL, GUILLAUME (v.), a religious agitator who had belonged to the group of Meaux. In December 1526 he took refuge in Basel; in 1526, while he was in Switzerland, at l’Aigle in the canton of Valais, he was visited by a «barba», a certain Martino Gonin of Angrogna, who had gone there to ask for advice and books. Relations continued: in 1530 two other «barba», Giorgio Morel of Val Freissinière and Pietro Masson, went to Farel. Morel, being more educated than the others because he had read the works of Erasmus and knew how to speak and write in Latin (cf. Beza, Hist. eccl., in Corp. Ref., I, 53), held conversations with Farel, Haller, Ecolampadius, Bucer, and Capito, then returned to Mérindol, where together with Gonin he undertook to introduce the Waldensian spirit into the Protestant movement. In 1532 Farel, invited to preside over a «commune», that is, a general congress or chapter of the Waldensians, went there with Antonio Saunier and Roberto Olivétan, Calvin’s cousin. The «commune» met on 12 September 1532 at Chanforans in Val d’Angrogna; Olivétan was entrusted with translating the Bible for the Waldensians. All this took place in the greatest secrecy, so as not to fall into the hands of the police. Martino Gonin, the first «barba» to be initiated, died in prison at Grenoble in 1536; the sect honoured him as a martyr. At the conclusion of the «commune» of Chanforans, it was decided to abolish among the Waldensians the prohibition of taking oaths and that of capital punishment imposed by a regular tribunal, as well as the fasts, prayer, confession, the rite of consecrating the «barba» through the laying on of hands, the celibacy of the «barba», obligatory poverty and itinerant preaching, and the vow of virginity of nuns. The Waldensians nevertheless remained unyielding in their opposition to military service. They did, however, absorb the Protestants’ new doctrines: justification by faith alone and Zwinglian interpretation of the only two Sacraments retained (Baptism and the Lord’s Supper). They also accepted the quintessential Calvinist dogma, namely eternal election and absolute predestination. These decisions of Chanforans were reaffirmed, despite vigorous opposition encouraged by the Moravian Brethren, at the meeting held in Val S. Martino on 15 August 1533.The Waldensian movement thus ended by becoming a kind of appendage of Calvinism. It was inevitable that the Waldensians should become entangled in the Wars of Religion and suffer the rigours of the laws then enacted against dissenters, both against Catholics in Protestant countries and against Protestants in Catholic countries. Two episodes of violence should be recalled in the history of the Waldensians. In 1545, by order of the Court of the Parliament of Aix, a bloody expedition was undertaken against them in the French valley of the Durance, especially in the villages of Mérindol and Cabrières (22 hamlets destroyed, with an uncertain number of victims: from 800 to 4,000). In the Piedmontese valleys, at the instigation of Antonio Léger (1594–1661) and especially of Giovanni Léger, his nephew (1615–61), Waldensian pastors, an insurrectionary movement broke out and was harshly repressed (the Piedmontese Easter of 24 April 1655). Giovanni Léger, however, deliberately exaggerated and falsified its painful details in his account.