The Waldensian Church in the valleys of Piedmont/Chapter 6
CHAPTER VI.
The Suffering Church
The first general persecutions in the Vaudois valleys in the fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth centuries—Exhaustion and decay of the Church.
IT is related of Saturus of Carthage, one of the martyrs of pagan persecution, A.D. 202, that, condemned to fight with wild beasts in the amphitheatre, a leopard attacked him with such ferocity as to bathe him in the copious streams of blood that issued from the wound inflicted by its fangs, whereupon one of the spectators cried out, in derision, “He is baptized in his blood.” This sorrowful baptism has been applied as a type of the sufferings of the Christian Church during her three centuries of pagan persecution; and it did not lose its significance as afterwards carried out by her protesting children.
For many hundred years the Vaudois Church bent beneath the cross, “baptized in her blood.” A worse than pagan persecution bowed down her head, though it never overthrew her strength. Let it ever be borne in mind that the Waldenses voluntarily took up the cross of their Divine Master, and bore it meekly over the thorny path His footsteps had hallowed. Recantation would at any time have made their peace with Rome; the favour of their temporal masters might at any time have been secured by renouncing their fidelity to their Master in heaven.
In resuming the thread of the history, it is necessary to go back somewhat in the chronology, since, to avoid any needless confusion or breaks in the narrative, the story of the colonies has been given in an unbroken series, in accordance with the classification of the different sections of the Vaudois Church by which, as landmarks, we have steered our course. Even with these helps we have found our task one of considerable difficulty, not from the absence of matter or proof, as the numerous Vaudois historians furnish both to superfluity; but in following the long, unvarying history of persecution and endurance, we fear, on the one hand, to weary, perplex, and perhaps disgust by a too minute detail; on the other, to pass by particulars essential to historical faithfulness.
At the period at which we now return to the valleys of Piedmont, the emissaries of the Inquisition were tracking the footprints of the reformers in every part of Europe, and extinguishing the light of the gospel by their too successful watchfulness. In Portugal and Spain we find the flames of its auto da fé illuminating every square of their large cities; in Italy, the martyr and the Bible alike feeding the fires; whilst Germany, Bohemia, Holland, and Switzerland are crowded by the homeless victims of a ruthless crusade. England, too, on whom “the day-star of the Reformation” arose about this time, had her share of trial. Wickliffe himself was persecuted and silenced; his followers, the Lollards, imprisoned and slain; and his invaluable labour, the translation of the Bible into English, denounced and suppressed.[1]
Although many detached instances are on record, we find no account of systematic and open persecution in all the Waldensian valleys until the Christmas of 1400. Not but that each successive Pope, emulous of the renown of the great crusader, Innocent III., had issued his bulls and called for new crusades against the heretics; but the thunders of the Vatican rolled off in vapour. The princes they invoked did not heed. They were either too merciful or too politic to undertake a war which promised little else than a miserable triumph over a few peaceful mountaineers. The valleys of Piedmont, beautiful and picturesque though they be, held out no golden lure like the rich cities of Languedoc and Provence; and the house of Savoy (at least it is thus their loyal Vaudois subjects like to believe), unless goaded on by foreign powers, have never been desirous of interfering with their religious belief. Thus the efforts of the Popes, John XXII., Gregory II., and Clement VII., failed to stir up any public demonstration of wrathful orthodoxy against the stray sheep of the wilderness. But the wolf was not entirely excluded, and the active agent of the Inquisition, Borelli, at whose instigation a hundred and fifty Vaudois, men, women, and children, were burned alive at Grenoble, is accused of being the leader of that first invasion of the Vaudois valleys to which we have alluded.
At Christmas, 1400, that holy season in which peace and salvation were proclaimed to man from heavenly harps, far other sounds broke on the ears of the shepherds of the Vaudois Alps of Pragela. The clang of trumpets and shout of war proclaimed the invasion of their peaceful valleys, whilst armed ruffians rushed through their villages, spreading terror and devastation. The snow lay deep on the mountains, but, in spite of this and the inclemency of the season, the inhabitants, taken by surprise, fled to them for refuge. The foe pursued, many fell beneath their swords, many were taken prisoners, and yet more perished from cold and hunger. The spot on which the fugitives first eluded the pursuit of the invaders still bears the name of Albergan (refuge). Here they passed the night without food or shelter, and on the following morning, sixty—some writers say eighty—little children were found dead in the arms of their mothers, many of whom had perished with their infants, and were enclosed in the same winding-sheet of snow.
The Popish troops passed the night in revelling in the deserted hamlets, and retired the next day laden with plunder. It is supposed that, in the ardour of their pursuit for “gold and blood,” the Inquisitor and his troops had occasionally acted on the principle of the Pope’s legate at Beziers, and confounded the Roman Catholics with the heretics: for the voice of indignation was so loud in Dauphiny and Piedmont against their proceedings, that the Pope advised his agent to “moderate his zeal” and thus the Church in the Wilderness had rest for a brief space.
The lull, however, was deceptive; it was but—
“The torrent’s stillness ere it dash below;”
yet endured by the suffering Waldensians.
Again the thunders of the Vatican resounded through every court of Europe; again the more seductive voice of plenary pardon and unrestrained licence penetrated every corner. Charles VII. of France, and the second Duke of Savoy of that name, promised their aid in the crusade raised by Pope Innocent VII. against heresy; and the idle, the profligate, and the sordid flocked in thousands to their banners. The army thus got together was divided into two battalions, and entrusted to the command of the Pope’s legate, Albert de Capitaneis, Archdeacon of Cremona. Whilst that portion of it which belonged to France was designed to invade Dauphiny, the Piedmontese were ordered to make the circle of the eastern valleys, destroying all the Protestant settlements which they encountered in their several ways, until the two streams met in the Vale of Luserna, to roll their united waves over the neighbouring country.
The French detachment, commanded by the Count de Varax, ascended the mountains of Dauphiny, filling the Vale of Loyse with the victims of their barbarity, and fortunately giving time to the neighbouring inhabitants of Argentière and Freissinières to guard their passes, and oblige their in vaders to retreat. But it is no part of our history to describe the course of these worse than barbarian assailants, until we behold them descend like a swollen torrent on the Valley of Pragela, the most northern of the Vaudois valleys, ravaging the towns, murdering the inhabitants, and laying waste the whole country. The natives fled, but, overtaken by the destroyer, suffered the same cruelties as had but recently been exercised in Dauphiny. Inflammable materials, collected before the caves in which the fugitives hoped to find shelter, were ignited, and a guard was placed to put to the sword, or throw back into the flames, all who fled from suffocation within. But though taken at first by sur prise, the Vaudois, with the courage of their race, soon rallied and succeeded in repulsing the enemy.
In the meantime, the troops collected by the efforts of de Capitaneis, assembled in great numbers, besides a vast multitude of followers attracted by the promise of pardon and plunder. The first sally of the united force was singularly defeated. A detachment of seven hundred men, hoping to surprise the Valley of San Martino, had reached the outskirts of the village of Pommiers, when they were attacked by the inhabitants with the resistless force imparted by despair, and every invader was cut off save one, an ensign, whose life was spared to return and tell his brethren-in-arms how the despised heretics could defend their hearths and altars. Roused by rumours of the coming foe, the Vaudois now hastened, with their wives and little ones, and such articles of food as they could carry, to their refuge amid the fastnesses of Pra del Tor and its adjacent bulwarks; and thither, breathing revenge and slaughter, their combined foe prepared to pursue and annihilate them. But this was of no easy accomplishment. Vast mountain barriers rose around them, forests of mighty trees sheltered them, foaming torrents and precipitous rocks kept back the foot of the destroyer.
On the side on which alone the Valley of Angrogna is accessible, the foe, ascending the gently sloping acclivities of San Giovanni, reached the upper plains and rock of Roccamanéot, their war-clang resounding amongst the everlasting hills. On these an army of another character awaited their
ROCCIAILLA, VAL ANGROGNA.
was prayer. Prostrate before the God of battles, they earnestly implored His assistance; the enemy scoffed as they beheld the little band on their knees, and cursed as the voice of their supplication reached their ears; but their triumph was of short duration. It is related that one of their chiefs, Le Noir, of Mondovi, foremost also in blasphemy and scorn, raised his vizor in contempt of the mountain bowmen, when an arrow, discharged from the bow of Peiret Revel, of Angrogna, struck him between his eyes, and he fell to the earth a corpse. The soldiers, terrified at the death of their principal leader, fled with precipitancy and heavy loss, leaving the Vaudois to celebrate their wonderful deliverance with hymns of praise and thanksgiving.
Burning with shame and revenge, the enemy reassembled their scattered forces, and soon returned to the attack. They once more “assailed the valley of Angrogna, and succeeded in making themselves masters of the plains and villages on the left side of the torrent as far as Rocciailla, a mass of rocks which descends abruptly from the neighbouring heights of La Vacherie, and confines the torrent of Angrogna at its outlet.”
To reach the Pra del Tor (in which, as we have already observed, the natives had taken refuge), it is necessary, advancing on the side of the lower valley, to proceed through a defile so narrowed by overhanging rocks as barely to leave room for a footpath beside the channel of the impetuous torrent. In this straitened gorge the passage of so large a body of men was naturally impeded; and, to add to their difficulties, just as those in advance had reached the Pra del Tor, and imagined themselves sure of their prey, a thick fog, gathering on the tops of their sheltering rocks, spreading over the plain, and rolling in volumes through the valley, hid the victims from their sight. Emboldened by what they deemed the interposition of Providence in their behalf, the Angrognians sprang from their retreats on the invaders, who, unable to advance and afraid to retreat, halted in perplexity. Whilst some of the Vaudois tore up large masses of rock to hurl down on the heads of their enemies, others hung on their retreat, as crowding together through the narrow defile they precipitated each other over the rocks into the foaming torrent. Thus the fog, the precipice, the rock, and the torrent—even the foe itself, were engines of punishment in the hand of a righteous Judge on the wicked, and of deliverance for His oppressed people.
The slaughter of the enemy was very great on that eventful day. One of them has been singled out as an object of unenviable celebrity, and the traveller is still shown the spot on which the just vengeance of Heaven, as we believe, overtook him. It lies in the channel of the torrent, in one of those deep basins hollowed out by the falling stream, and is called in the patois of the country a Tompie, from the peculiar sound made by the waters as they rush through it, first filling, and then rising in dark eddies to the surface. The Piedmontese captain who has given his name to one of these dark abysses of the turbulent stream, is represented as a man of gigantic stature, and history further informs us that whilst, like Goliath of old, he was pouring forth blasphemies against the army of the living God, a stone flung by another champion from the sheepfold hurled him into the whirlpool, which to this day retains his name. On the brink of the “Tompie Saquet” there is a rock to which tradition with her mystic finger points as the melancholy mountain morgue, on which the unwieldy corpse was laid when drawn from the eddying waves.
We lately visited that spot, on a day of uncommon brilliancy, with a Vaudois pastor, who drew our attention to the mist rising over the opposite heights, and creeping slowly down their sides “the same everlasting curtain,” he observed, “which had covered the heads of our forefathers so often in the day of battle.”
We now proceed with the sequel of that remarkable contest from which we have made this little digression, trusting that our readers will think with ourselves that there are no illustrations of the past more interesting than those drawn from a comparison with the present.
It is to be lamented that particulars have not been preserved of many other signal deliverances, which marked the course of the devastating warfare that continued, for the space of a whole year, to harass the poor men of the valleys. Though often triumphant, they were always suffering, and must have entirely failed had it not pleased One, in whose hand are the hearts of princes, to incline that of Charles II., Duke of Savoy, to put an end to the cruel conflict. This prince, then only twenty years of age, repentant, we should hope, of his guilty acquiescence in the unjust designs of the Pope and his legate, sent proposals of peace to his injured and ever-forgiving subjects. They were entrusted to a bishop who came to Angrogna to confer with the Vaudois, and finally persuaded them to send a deputation to the court. Twelve of their principal men were graciously admitted to an audience of their sovereign at Pinerolo, when, after listening to their defence, he candidly confessed he had been unjustly incited against them.
Another deputation of rather an unusual kind was, at the duke’s desire, sent from the valleys a lovely band of young diplomatists, who did more to destroy his prejudices than the arguments of the most experienced statesmen could effect. It must have been a pleasing sight to behold the young sovereign in the midst of his children-subjects, reading in their bright eyes and pearly smiles a refutation of the calumny, which had represented the children of heretics “as monsters with eyes in the middle of their foreheads, and three rows of black teeth.” Princes are now better informed, even in countries where heretics, so called, are still held in abhorrence ; but that some of their subjects are kept in the same miserable ignorance we have the means of proving.
A young Vaudois peasant informed the writer that, having business to transact in some village of Piedmont, he could not persuade an old woman, whom he there fell in with, that he was not a Roman Catholic. “No, no,” said she, looking closely at him, “you can’t deceive me; I know the heretics have all got one eye in the middle of their forehead, and three rows of black teeth.”
Such, then, is the history of the first general persecution within the immediate boundaries of the Vaudois valleys; how often will it be our lot to repeat the same afflicting history ere our labours are finished!
For a brief space the suffering church had a little cessation from outward attack, and enjoyed the restoration of her former limited freedom; and yet this transient peace could not heal her wounds or dry her tears. Her children had been slain, her lands laid waste; the heathen had trodden down her sanctuaries, and made her pleasant places desolate, Nor was it the least amongst her griefs to fear that the faith of some of her children had begun to waver, or at least that the constant espionage carried on by the emissaries of the Inquisition had induced some to make concessions unworthy their high calling; and that amongst those who had stood firmest in the hour of warfare were some whose courage sank amid the lull of peace. The bow had been too tightly strung, and strength, almost supernaturally exerted, had sunk into weakness. Never was there an occasion in which the Vaudois Church more required to be reminded of her first love, to stand fast by first principles; never did her members need so much the counsel and support of sympathizing and able advisers; and in this her moment of lowest depression her faithful God did not desert her, but raised up mighty and efficient friends, in the persons of those great and good men whom it was His pleasure to honour as His chief instruments of the Reformation.
- ↑ Besides the colonies of Calabria and Provence, there was that of Bohemia, where, as we have seen, Peter Waldo and his followers took refuge in the twelfth century. In the fourteenth century persecution again drove the Waldenses to that land, and they were the means of a spiritual revival there.