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First Persecutions of the Waldenses
The Waldenses stand apart and alone in the Christian world.
Their place on the surface of Europe is unique; their position in history is not
less unique; and the end appointed them to fulfil is one which has been assigned
to them alone, no other people being permitted to share it with them.
The Waldenses bear a twofold testimony. Like the snow-clad
peaks amid which their dwelling is placed, which look down upon the plains of
Italy on the one side, and the provinces of France on the other, this people
stand equally related to primitive ages and modern times, and give by no means
equivocal testimony respecting both Rome and the Reformation. If they are old,
then Rome is new; if they are pure, then Rome is corrupt; and if they have
retained the faith of the apostles, it follows incontestably that Rome has
departed from it. That the Waldensian faith and worship existed many centuries
before Protestantism arose is undeniable; the proofs and monuments of this fact
lie scattered over all the histories and all the lands of mediaeval Europe; but
the antiquity of the Waldenses is the antiquity of Protestantism. The Church of
the Reformation was in the loins of the Waldensian Church ages before the birth
of Luther; her first cradle was placed amid those terrors and sublimites, those
ice-clad peaks and great bulwarks of rock. In their dispersions over so many
lands—over France, the Low Countries, Germany, Poland, Bohemia, Moravia,
England, Calabria, Naples—the Waldenses sowed the seeds of that great spiritual
revival which, beginning in the days of Wicliffe, and advancing in the times of
Luther and Calvin, awaits its full consummation in the ages to come.
In the place which the Church of the Alps has held, and the
office she has discharged, we see the reason of that peculiar and bitter
hostility which Rome has ever borne this holy and venerable community. It was
natural that Rome should wish to efface so conclusive a proof of her apostasy,
and silence a witness whose testimony so emphatically corroborates the position
of Protestantism. The great bulwark of the Reformed Church is the Word of God;
but next to this is the pre-existence of a community spread throughout Western
Christendom, with doctrines and worship substantially one with those of the
Reformation.
The persecutions of this remarkable people form one of the
most heroic pages of the Church’s history. These persecutions, protracted
through many centuries, were endured with a patience, a constancy, a bravery,
honourable to the Gospel as well as to those simple people, whom the Gospel
converted into heroes and martyrs. Their resplendent virtues illumined the
darkness of their age; and we turn with no little relief from a Christendom sunk
in barbarism and superstition to this remnant of an ancient people, who here in
their mountain-engirdled territory practised the simplicity, the piety, and the
heroism of a better age. It is the main object of this work to deal with those
persecutions of the Waldenses which connect themselves with the Reformation and
which were, in fact, part of that mighty effort made by Rome to extinguish
Protestantism. But we must introduce ourselves to the great tragedy by a brief
notice of the attacks which led up to it.
That part of the Alpine chain which extends between Turin on
the east and Grenoble on the west is known as the Cottian Alps. This is the
dwelling-place of the Waldenses, the land of ancient Protestantism. On the west
the mountains slope towards the plains of France, and on the east they run down
to those of Piedmont. That line of glittering summits, conspicuous among which
is the lofty snow-clad peak of Monte Viso on the west, and the craggy
escarpments of Genevre on the east, forms the boundary between the Albigenses
and the Waldenses, the two bodies of these early witnesses. On the western slope
were the dwellings of the former people, and on the eastern those of the latter.
Not entirely so, however, for the Waldenses, crossing the summits, had taken
possession of the more elevated portion of the western declivities, and scarcely
was there a valley in which their villages and sanctuaries were not to be found.
But in the lower valleys, and more particularly in the vast and fertile plains
of Dauphine and Provence, spread out at the foot of the Alps, the inhabitants
were mainly of cis-Alpine or Gallic extraction, and are known in history as the
Albigenses. How flourishing they were, how numerous and opulent their towns, how
rich their corn-fields and vineyards, and how polished the manners and cultured
the genius of the people, we have already said. Innocent III. exacted a terrible
expiation of them for their attachment to a purer Christianity than that of
Rome. He launched his bull; he sent forth his inquisitors; and soon the
fertility and beauty of the region were swept away; city and sanctuary sank in
ruins; and the plains so recently covered with smiling fields were converted
into a desert. The work of destruction had been done with tolerable completeness
on the west of the Alps; and after a short pause it was commenced on the east,
it being resolved to pursue these confessors of a pure faith across the
mountains, and attack them in those grand valleys which open into Italy, where
they lay entrenched, as it were, amid dense chestnut forests and mighty
pinnacles of rock.
We place ourselves at the foot of the eastern declivity,
about thirty miles to the west of Turin. Behind us is the vast sweep of the
plain of Piedmont. Above us in front tower the Alps, here forming a crescent of
grand mountains, extending from the escarped summit that leans over Pinerolo on
the right, to the pyramidal peak of Monte Viso, which cleaves the ebon like a
horn of silver, and marks the farthest limit of the Waldensian territory on the
left. In the bosom of that mountain crescent, shaded by its chestnut forests,
and encircled by its glittering peaks, are hung the famous valleys of that
people whose martyrdoms we are now to narrate.
In the centre of the picture, right before us, rises the
pillar-like Castelluzzo; behind it is the towering mass of the Vandalin; and in
front, as if to bar the way against the entrance of any hostile force into this
sacred territory, is drawn the long, low hill of Bricherasio, feathery with
woods, bristling with great rocks, and leaving open, between its rugged mass and
the spurs of Monte Friolante on the west, only a narrow avenue, shaded by walnut
and acacia trees, which leads up to the point where the valleys, spreading out
fan-like, bury themselves in the mountains that open their stony arms to receive
them. Historians have enumerated some thirty persecutions enacted on this little
spot.
One of the earliest dates in the martyr-history of this
people is 1332, or thereabouts, for the time is not distinctly marked. The
reigning Pope was John XXII. Desirous of resuming the work of Innocent III., he
ordered the inquisitors to repair to the Valleys of Lucerna and Perosa, and
execute the laws of the Vatican against the heretics that peopled them. What
success attended the expedition is not known, and we instance it chiefly on this
account, that the bull commanding it bears undesigned testimony to the then
flourishing condition of the Waldensian Church, inasmuch as it complains that
synods, which the Pope calls "chapters," were wont to assemble in the Valley of
Angrogna, attended by 500 delegates. [Compare Antoine Monastier, History of the
Vaudois Church, p. 121 (Lond., 1848), with Alexis Muston, Israel of the Alps, p.
8 (Lond., 1852).] This was before Wicliffe had begun his career in
England.
After this date scarcely was there a Pope who did not bear
unintentional testimony to their great numbers and wide diffusion. In 1352 we
find Pope Clement VI. charging the Bishop of Embrun, with whom he associates a
Francisan friar and inquisitor, to essay the purification of those parts
adjoining his diocese which were known to be infected with heresy. The
territorial lords and city syndies were invited to aid him. While providing for
the heretics of the Valleys, the Pope did not overlook those farther off. He
urged the Dauphin, Charles of France, and Louis, King of Naples, to seek out and
punish those of their subjects who had strayed from their faith. Clement
referred doubtless to the Vaudois colonies, which are known to have existed in
that age at Naples. The fact that the heresy of the Waldensian mountains
extended to the plains at their feet, is attested by the letter of the Pope to
Joanna, wife of the King of Naples, who owned lands in the Marquisate of
Saluzzo, near the Valleys, urging her to purge her territory of the heretics
that lived in it [Monastier, Hist. Vaudois Church p. 123].
The zeal of the Pope, however, was but indifferently seconded
by that of the secular lords. The men they were enjoined to exterminate were the
most industrious and peaceable of their subjects; and willing as they no doubt
were to oblige the Pope, they were naturally averse to incur so great a loss as
would be caused by the destruction of the flower of their populations. Besides,
the princes of that age were often at war among themselves, and had not much
leisure or inclination to make war on the Pope’s behalf. Therefore the Papal
thunder sometimes rolled harmlessly over the Valleys, and the mountain-home of
these confessors was wonderfully shielded till very nearly the era of the
Reformation. We find Gregory XI., in 1373, writing to Charles V. of France, to
complain that his officers thwarted his inquisitors in Dauphine; that the Papal
judges were not permitted to institute proceedings against the suspected without
the consent of the civil judge; and that the disrespect to the spiritual
tribunal was sometimes carried so far as to release condemned heretics from
prison [Monastier, p. 123]. Notwithstanding this leniency—so culpable in the
eyes of Rome—on the part of princes and magistrates, the inquisitors were able
to make not a few victims. These acts of violence provoked reprisals at times on
the part of the Waldenses. On one occasion (1375) the Popish city of Susa was
attacked, the Dominican convent forced, and the inquisitor put to death. Other
Dominicans were called to expiate their rigour against the Vaudois with the
penalty of their lives. An obnoxious inquisitor of Turin is said to have been
slain on the highway near Bricherasio [Ibid.].
There came evil days to the Popes themselves. First, they
were chased to Avignon; next, the yet greater calamity of the "schism" befel
them; but their own afflictions had not the effect of softening their hearts
towards the confessors of the Alps. During the clouded era of their "captivity,"
and the tempestuous days of the schism, they pursued with the same inflexible
rigour their policy of extermination. They were ever and anon fulminating their
persecuting edicts, and their inquisitors were scouring the Valleys in pursuit
of victims. An inquisitor of the name of Borelli had 150 Vaudois men, besides a
great number of women, girls, and even young children, brought to Grenoble and
burned alive [Monastier, p. 123].
The closing days of the year 1400 witnessed a terrible
tragedy, the memory of which has not been obliterated by the many greater which
have followed it. The scene of this catastrophe was the Valley of Pragelas, one
of the higher reaches of Perosa, which opens near Pinerolo, and is watered by
the Clusone. It was the Christmas of 1400, and the inhabitants dreaded no
attack, believing themselves sufficiently protected by the snows which then lay
deep on their mountains. They were destined to experience the bitter fact that
the rigours of the season had not quenched the fire of their persecutor’s
malice. Borelli, at the head of an armed troop, broke suddenly into Pragelas,
meditating the entire extinction of its population. The miserable inhabitants
fled in haste to the mountains, carrying on their shoulders their old men, their
sick, and their infants, knowing what fate awaited them should they leave them
behind. In their flight a great many were overtaken and slain. Nightfall brought
them deliverance from the pursuit, but no deliverance from horrors not less
dreadful. The main body of the fugitives wandered in the direction of Macel, in
the storm-swept and now ice-clad valley of San Martino, where they encamped on a
summit which has ever since, in memory of the event, borne the name of the
Alberge or Refuge. Without shelter, without food, the frozen snow around them,
the winter’s sky overhead, their sufferings were inexpressibly great. When
morning broke what a heartrending spectacle did day disclose! Some of the
miserable group lost their hands and feet from frostbite; while others were
stretched out on the snow, stiffened corpses. Fifty young children, some say
eighty, were found dead with cold, some lying on the bare ice, others locked in
the frozen arms of their mothers, who had perished on that dreadful night along
with their babes.* In the Valley of Pragelas, to this day, sire recites to son
the tale of that Christmas tragedy. [Histoire Generale des Eglises Evangeliques
des Vallees de Piedmont, ou Vaudoises. Par Jean Leger. Part ii., pp. 6,7.
Leyden, 1669. Monastier, pp. 123,124].
It was the year 1487. A great blow was meditated. The process
of purging the Valleys languished. Pope Innocent VIII., who then filled the
Papal chair, remembered how his renowned namesake, Innocent III., by an act of
summary vengeance, had swept the Albigensian heresy from the south of France.
Imitating the vigour of his predecessor, he would purge the Valleys as
effectually and as speedily as Innocent III. had done the plains of Dauphine and
Provence.
The first step of the Pope was to issue a bull, denouncing as
heretical those whom he delivered over to slaughter. This bull, after the manner
of all such documents, was expressed in terms as sanctimonious as its spirit was
inexorably cruel. It brings no charge against these men, as lawless, idle,
dishonest, or disorderly; their fault was that they did not worship as Innocent
worshipped, and that they practised a "simulated sanctity," which had the effect
of seducing the sheep of the true fold, therefore he orders "that malicious and
abominable sect of malignants," if they "refuse to abjure, to be crushed like
venomous snakes." [The bull is given in full in Leger, who also says that he had
made a faithful copy of it, and lodged it with other documents in the University
Library of Cambridge. (Hist. Gen. des Eglises Vaud., part ii., pp.
7-15.)]
To carry out his bull, Innocent VIII. appointed Albert
Cataneo, Archdeacon of Cremona, his legate, entrusting to him the chief conduct
of the enterprise. He fortified him, moreover, with Papal missives to all
princes, dukes, and powers, within whose dominions any Vaudois were to be found.
The Pope especially accredited him to Charles VIII. of France and Charles II. of
Savoy, commanding them to support him with the whole power of their arms. The
bull invited all Catholics to take up the cross against the heretics; and to
stimulate them in this pious work it "absolved from all ecclesiastical pains and
penalties, general and particular; it released all who joined the crusade from
any oaths they might have taken; it legitimatised their title to any property
they might have illegally acquired; and promised remission of all their sins to
such as should kill any heretic. It annulled all contracts made in favour of
Vaudois, ordered their domestics to abandon them, forbade all persons to give
them any aid whatever, and empowered all persons to take possession of their
property."
These were powerful incentives—plenary pardon and
unrestrained licence. They were hardly needed to awaken the zeal of the
neighbouring populations, always too ready to show their devotion to Rome by
spilling the blood and making a booty of the goods of the Waldenses. The King of
France and the Duke of Savoy lent a willing ear to the summons from the Vatican.
They made haste to unfurl their banners, and enlist soldiers in this holy cause,
and soon a numerous army was on its march to sweep from the mountains where they
had dwelt from immemorial time, these confessors of the Gospel faith pure and
undefiled. In the train of this armed host came a motley crowd of volunteers,
"vagabond adventurers," says Muston, "ambitious fanatics, reckless pillagers,
merciless assassins, assembled from all parts of Italy"*--a horde of brigands in
short, the worthy tools of the man whose bloody work they were assembled to do
[Muston, Israel of the Alps, p. 10].
Before all these arrangements were finished it was the month
of June of 1488. The Pope’s bull was talked of in all countries: and the din of
preparation rung far and near, for it was not only on the Waldensian mountains,
but on the Waldensian race, wherever dispersed, in Germany, in Calabria, and in
other countries, that this terrible blow was to fall [Leger, Livr. ii., p. 7].
All kings were invited to gird on the sword, and come to the help of the Church
in the execution of her purpose of effecting an extermination of her enemies
that should never need to be repeated. Wherever a Vaudois foot trod, the soil
was polluted, and had to be cleansed; wherever a Vaudois breathed, the air was
tainted, and must be purified; wherever Vaudois psalm or prayer ascended, there
was the infection of heresy, and around the spot a cordon must be drawn to
protect the spiritual health of the district. The Pope’s bull was thus universal
in its application, and almost the only people left ignorant of the commotion it
had excited, and the bustle of preparation it had called forth, were those poor
men on whom this terrible tempest was about to burst.
The joint army numbered about 18,000 regular soldiers. This
force was swelled by the thousands of ruffians, already mentioned, drawn
together by the spiritual and temporal rewards to be earned in this work of
combined piety and pillage [Leger, livr. ii., p. 26]. The Piedmontese division
of this host directed their course towards the "Valleys" proper, on the Italian
side of the Alps. The French division, marching from the north, advanced to
attack the inhabitants of the Dauphinese Alps, where the Albigensian heresy,
recovering somewhat its terrible excision by Innocent III., had begun again to
take root. Two storms, from opposite points, or rather from all points, were
approaching those mighty mountains, the sanctuary and citadel of the primitive
faith. That lamp is about to be extinguished at last, which has burned here
during so many ages, and survived so many tempests. The mailed hand of the Pope
is uplifted, and we wait to see the blow fall.
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