beliefs to those of the rising Protestantism. Already there were scattered bodies of Waldenses in Germany who had influenced, and afterwards joined, the Hussites and the Bohemian Brethren.
The last step in the development of the Waldensian body was taken in 1530, when two deputies of the Vaudois in Dauphiné and Provence, Georges Morel and Pierre Masson, were sent to confer with the German and Swiss Reformers. A letter addressed to Oecolompadius[1] gives an account of their practices and beliefs at that time, and shows us a simple and unlettered community, which was the survival of an attempt to form an esoteric religious society within the medieval church. It would appear that its members received the sacraments of baptism and the holy communion from the regular priesthood, at all events sometimes, but maintained a discipline of their own and held services for their own edification. Their ministers were called barba, a Provençal word meaning guide. They were chosen from among labouring men, who at the age of twenty-five might ask the body of ministers to be admitted as candidates. If their character was approved they were taught during the winter months, when work was slack, for a space of three or four years; after that they were sent for two years to serve as menial assistants at a nunnery for women, which curiously enough existed in a recess of the valleys. Then they were admitted to office, after receiving the communion, by the imposition of hands of all ministers present. They went out to preach two by two, and the junior was bound absolutely to obey the senior. Clerical celibacy was their rule, but they admit that it created grave disorders. The ministers received food and clothing from the contributions of the people, but also worked with their hands; the result of this was that they were very ignorant, and also were grasping after bequests from the dying. The affairs of the church were managed by a general synod held every year. The duties of the barbas were to visit all within their district once a year, hear their confessions, advise and admonish them; in all services the two ministers sat side by side, and one spoke after the other. In point of doctrine they acknowledged the seven sacraments, but gave them a symbolical meaning; they prayed to the Virgin and saints, and admitted auricular confession, but they denied purgatory and the sacrifice of the mass, and did not observe fasts or festivals. After giving this account of themselves they ask for information about several points in a way which shows the exigencies of a rude and isolated society; and finally they say that they have been much disturbed by the Lutheran teaching about freewill and predestination, for they had held that men did good works through natural virtue stimulated by God's grace, and they thought of predestination in no other way than as a part of God's foreknowledge.
Oecolampadius gave them further instruction, especially emphasizing the wrongfulness of their outward submission to the ordinances of the church: “God,” he said, “is a jealous God, and does not permit His elect to put themselves under the yoke of Antichrist.” The result of this intercourse was an alliance between the Vaudois and the Swiss and German Reformers. A synod was held in 1532 at Chanforans in the valley of the Angrogne, where a new confession of faith was adopted, which recognized the doctrine of election, assimilated the practices of the Vaudois to those of the Swiss congregations, renounced for the future all recognition of the Roman communion, and established their own worship no longer as secret meetings of a faithful few but as public assemblies for the glory of God.
Thus the Vaudois ceased to be relics of the past, and became absorbed in the general movement of Protestantism. This was not, however, a source of quiet or security. In France and Italy alike they were marked out as special objects of persecution, and the Vaudois church has many records of martyrdom. The most severe trial to which the Vaudois of Piedmont were subjected occurred in 1655. The Congregation de Propaganda Fide established, in 1650, a local council in Turin, which exercised a powerful influence on Duke Charles Emmanuel II., who ordered that the Vaudois should be reduced within the limits of their ancient territory. Fanaticism took advantage of this order; and an army, composed partly of French troops of Louis XIV., partly of Irish soldiers who had fled before Cromwell, entered the Vaudois valleys and spread destruction on every side. They treated the people with horrible barbarity, so that the conscience of Europe was aroused, and England under Cromwell called on the Protestant powers to join in remonstrance to the duke of Savoy and the French king. The pen of Milton was employed for this purpose, and his famous sonnet is but the condensation of his state papers. Sir Samuel Morland was sent on a special mission to Turin, and to him were confided by the Vaudois leaders copies of their religious books, which he brought back to England, and ultimately gave to the university library at Cambridge. Large sums of money were contributed in England and elsewhere, and were sent to the suffering Vaudois.
By this demonstration of opinion peace was made for a time between the Vaudois and their persecutors; but it was a treacherous peace, and left the Vaudois with a hostile garrison established among them. Their worship was prohibited, and their chief pastor, Leger, was obliged to flee, and in his exile at Leiden wrote his Histoire générale des églises vaudoises (1684). The revocation of the edict of Nantes in 1685 began a new period of persecution, which aimed at entire extermination. This was found so difficult that the remnant of the Vaudois, to the number of 2600, were at last allowed to withdraw to Geneva. But the love of their native valleys was strong among the exiles, and in 1689 one of their pastors, Henri Arnaud, led a band of 800 men to the reconquest of their country. His first attempts against the French were successful; and the rupture between Victor Amadeus, duke of Savoy, and Louis XIV. brought a sudden change of fortune to the Vaudois. They were recognized once more as citizens of Savoy, and in the war against France which broke out in 1696 the Vaudois regiment did good service for its duke. The peace of Utrecht saw the greater part of the French territory occupied by the Vaudois annexed to Savoy, and, though there were frequent threatenings of persecution, the idea of toleration slowly prevailed in the policy of the house of Savoy. The Vaudois, who had undergone all these vicissitudes, were naturally reduced to poverty, and their ministers were partially maintained by a subsidy from England, which was granted by Queen Anne. The 18th century, however, was a time of religious decadence even among the Alpine valleys, and the outbreak of the French Revolution saw the Vaudois made subjects of France. This led to a loss of the English subsidy, and they applied to Napoleon for an equivalent. This was granted, and their church was organized by the state. On the restoration of the house of Savoy in 1816 English influence was used on behalf of the Vaudois, who received a limited toleration. From that time onwards the Vaudois became the objects of much interest in Protestant countries. Large sums of money were collected to build hospitals and churches among their valleys, and they were looked upon as the possible centre of a Protestant church in Italy. Especially from England did they receive sympathy and help. An English clergyman, Dr Gilly, visited the valleys in 1823, and by his writings on the Vaudois church attracted considerable attention, so that he was enabled to build a college at La Torre. Moreover, Dr Gilly's book (A Visit to the Valleys of Piedmont), chancing to fall into the hands of an officer who had lost his leg at Waterloo, Colonel Beckwith, suggested an object for the energies of one who was loth at the age of twenty-six to sink into enforced idleness. Beckwith visited the valleys, and was painfully struck by the squalor and ignorance of a people who had so glorious a past. He settled among them, and for thirty-five years devoted himself to promote their welfare. During this period he established no fewer than 120 schools; moreover he brought back the Italian language which had been displaced by the French in the services of the Vaudois church, and in 1849 built a church for them in Turin. He lived in La Torre till his death in 1862, and the name of the English benefactor is still revered by the simple folk of the valleys. (M. C.)
The parent church in the valleys is ecclesiastically governed by a court for internal affairs called the “Table,” after the old
- ↑ Scultetus, Annales, ii. 294, &c.
