persons in such a perplexity, who confess their error in hopes to escape."

Thus you see the subtleties of the monks inquisitors, which they formerly practised against the Waldenses throughout all Europe. It remains to lay open their practices in each respective kingdom and province, so far as they have come to our knowledge; and we will begin with Dauphiny, since that was the province into which Waldo and his followers retired at their departure from Lyons.

CHAPTER III.

The Churches of the Waldenses in Dauphiny, and the persecutions which they suffered.

THE Waldensian Churches in Dauphiny have been for these several hundred years dispersed into divers parts of the province. They had churches in Valentia, where there still remain places in which, time out of mind, the faith of the Waldenses hath been transmitted from father to son, in Faux and Bauregard in Valentinois, and la Baulme near Crest. Out of which places there have come to our hand certain processes against persons, who were accused by the inquisitors, as adherents to the faith of the Waldenses, A. D. 1300.

The most celebrated churches of that province are those of the valley of Fraissiniere near Ambrun, Argentiere and Loyse, which for the sake of reproaching the Waldenses was called Val-Pute, as if the said valley had been nothing but a brothel, and the receptacle of all manner of villany and debauchery. This was entirely destroyed. On the other side of the Alps there was a valley called Pragela, which they have inhabited, for a long period, in the dominion and jurisdiction of the Archbishop of Turin, peopled at present by those who are descended from the ancient Waldenses. The inhabitants of the said valley also peopled the Waldensian valleys of Piedmont, Perouse, St. Martin, Angrogne, and others. Those who inhabited in Provence and Calabria also came at first from the said places in Dauphiny and Piedmont. In the said valley of Pragela there are at present six fine churches, every one having its pastor; and every pastor has several villages, which appertain to each of those churches, all filled with the offspring of the ancient Waldenses.

They are churches truly reformed time out of mind; for though there are at this present time in the said valley, old people, and of those not a few, who draw near to, and some who exceed one hundred years; yet those good old men have never heard from their ancestors that mass hath been sung in their time in that country. Although the Archbishops of Turin may have caused it to be said in the said valley, unknown to the inhabitants, yet there is not one among them who hath made profession of any other faith, than the confession which is in the preceding book. All the books before mentioned have been received among the inhabitants of the said valley, which formerly was one of the securest retreats that the Waldenses had in Europe, environed on all sides with mountains almost inaccessible, into whose caverns they used to retire in the time of perse

cution.

Le Sieur de Vignaux, one of the first pastors who preached among those people, long before the exercise of the reformed religion was free in France, could never sufficiently mention the piety and integrity of those people, whom he found all disposed to receive the dispensation of the word of God, which their fathers had so much cherished, and in which they had instructed their posterity. And it is worthy our observation, though they were blocked up on all sides, and surrounded with the enemies of their faith, and in danger of being apprehended when they went out of their houses, yet no worldly consideration could divert them from their holy resolution, transmitted from father to son, of serving God, by taking his Word for the rule of their faith, and his law for the rule of their obedience. In that design, God hath blessed them above all other Christians of Europe for their children are no sooner weaned, than their parents take a singular delight to instruct them in the Christian faith and doctrine, till they are able to confound persons dwelling elsewhere, who are well stricken in years, and overwhelmed with ignorance. To that perfection of knowledge do their pastors bring them, who not contented with giving them exhortations upon the sabbath, do also go upon the week days to the villages and hamlets to instruct them.

Nor do they favour and indulge themselves, because of the sharpness of the rocks, the severity of the season, and the incommodiousness of the country, where they are forced to climb high and steep mountains to visit their flocks, and bring unto them the food of their souls, even when the said people in the heat of summer are keeping their cattle upon the top of the rocks: but there do they instruct and exhort them in the open field. There may one see people who hear the Word of God with reverence and attention. There discipline is exercised with success. There the people pray with fervour at their return from their labour, when they betake them to their rest; and in the morning before they enter upon any business, they beg God's direction and assistance in their thoughts, words, and actions, first in their houses, and afterwards in the church; and so go forth to their labour under the protection of the living God, whom they love, honour, and adore. There is to be found more zeal and simplicity, than in other places where riches and luxury abound. Neither are they so ignorant and illiterate, but that they have among them persons who know how to read and express themselves handsomely, and in good terms, especially those who travel with their commodities into the Low Countries. They have also schools, in which they educate and nurture their children, and they want nothing which they esteem necessary, to the advancement of God's glory among them.

The first persecution which is come to our knowledge, is that which was set on foot by a monk inquisitor, of the order of the Friar-minors, named Francis Borelli, being commissioned in the year 1380 to make inquiry into, and give information concerning the sect of the Waldenses in the dioceses of Aix, Arles, Ambrun, Vienne, Geneva, Aubonne, Savoy, the country of Venice, Dyois, Forests, the principality of Orange, the city of Avignon, and Selon: as he was authorized by his bull given him by Pope Clement VII., who then kept his residence at Avignon. By reason of the proximity of his court to the dwellings of the said Waldenses, the Pope thought to rid Dauphiny of all those who counted him Antichrist.

1 This bull was taken out of the chamber of the country of Grenoble.

To that purpose he commanded the prelates of Dauphiny, Provence, and other places within the extent of his power and jurisdiction, for there was then a schism and division in Europe, part for Pope Urban VI., residing at Rome, and partly for the said Clement, enjoining them to have so vigilant an eye over their flocks, that not one of the sect of the Waldenses might dwell there.

That monk summoned all the inhabitants of Fraissiniere, l'Argentiere, and Val-Pute, to appear before him at Ambrun, under pain of excommunication. They neither appeared themselves, nor any for them, and were therefore condemned for contumacy, and at length cut of from the Romish Church by a final and most dreadful excommunication. In the space of thirteen years, he delivered by sentence to the secular power, to be burned at Grenoble, of Val-Pute, William Mary of Villar, Peter Long Chastan, John Long Fruchi, Albert Vincens, Johanna the wife of Stephen Vincens, and others, to the number of one hundred and fifty men, several women, and a great many of their children of both sexes.

He delivered also to the secular power in the valley of l'Argentiere and Fraissiniere, Astune, Berarde, Agnessonne the wife of John Bresson, Barthelmie the wife of John Porte, and others of both sexes, to the number of eighty, all of whom were condemned; and when any one of them was apprehended, he was immediately carried to Grenoble, and there, without any other form of law and process, instantly burned alive.

This last sentence was pronounced in the cathedral of Ambrun, in the year 1593, to the great profit and advantage of the monks inquisitors, who adjudged one moiety of the goods of the said persons condemned to themselves, and the rest to the temporal lords. Then they forbad all their neighbours to aid or assist them in any way whatsoever; to receive, visit, or defend them; to give them any sustenance, or to have any manner of communication or dealing with them; or to afford them any counsel or favour, under the pain of being attainted and convicted for favourers of heretics. They declared them unworthy of all places and public offices, prohibiting others to make use of their evidence, judging them unfit to bear witness, or to succeed in an inheritance. And if they were judges, that their sentences should be null and ineffectual, and that no causes should be tried before them-if advocates, that their defence and pleas should not be taken-if notaries, that their instruments should be void, cancelled and defaced-if priests, that they should be deprived of all offices and benefices; interdicting all ecclesiastical persons to administer the sacraments to them, or to afford them burial, or to receive any alms or oblations of them, under pain of deposition from their functions, and deprivation of their benefices.

That monk reserved to himself, by the said sentence, the review and examination of the process of a dozen whom he particularized therein, whom he would fain have escape through the Golden Gate, or by bribery. For in the processes which have come to our hands, we find several complaining that they would never have been entangled with the snares of the Inquisition, had it not been for their wealth; it being evident that they had never been acquainted with the religion of the Waldenses. As to the Waldenses of the valley of Pragela, they were assaulted by their enemies, on the side of Susa, a town in Piedmont, about the year 1400; and forasmuch, as they had often attempted them in vain, it being at a season when they could make their retreat to the high mountains, and caves thereof, where they might do much mischief and damage to

those who should come there to attack them; their enemies set upon the Waldenses about Christmas, at a time when those poor people never dreamed that any would have dared to pass the mountains covered with snow. Seeing their caves possessed by their enemies, they betook themselves to one of the highest mountains of the Alps, called l'Albergam, or a mountain of retreat, flocking thither with their wives and children; the mothers carrying the cradles, and leading their little children by the hand, who were able to go. The enemy pursued them till night, and slew a great number of them before they could reach the mountain. Those who were then put to death, had the better portion; for night having surprised that poor people, who were in the snow, destitute of any means of kindling a fire to warm their little children, the greatest part of them were benumbed with cold. In the morning they found four score little children dead in their cradles; and the greatest part of their mothers died after them. The enemies retiring in the night to the houses of the said poor people, plundered and pillaged all that they could convey away with them to Susa; and to complete their cruelty, they hung upon a tree a Waldensian woman, whom they met upon the mountain of Meane, named Margaret Athode.2

The inhabitants of that valley look upon this persecution to be the most violent, that in their time, or in the time of their forefathers, they *had ever suffered. They speak of it to this day, as if the thing were but lately transacted, and fresh in their memory; so often have they from generation to generation made mention of that sudden surprise, which was the occasion of so many miseries amongst them.

In the meantime the Waldenses of the valley of Fraissiniere, who escaped the former persecution, were again cruelly handled by John, archbishop of Ambrun, their neighbour, in the year 1460; in the time of Pope Pius II. and Louis XI., King of France.

That archbishop gave commission to a monk of the order of the Friar Minors, named John Veyleti, to prosecute the said Waldenses; who proceeded therein with such diligence and violence, that there were hardly any persons in the valleys of Fraissiniere, l'Argentiere, and Loyse, who could escape the seizure of that inquisitor; but they were apprehended either as heretics, or else as favourers of them. Those therefore, who were unacquainted with the faith of the Waldenses, had recourse to King Louis XI., beseeching him, by his authority, to put a stop to the course of such persecutions. The king granted them his letters, and by them the design of the inquisitors may easily be discovered, who involved several Romanists in their process, under colour of the inquisition against the Waldenses.

Letter of King Louis XI.

Louis, by the grace of God, King of France, Dauphin de Viennois, Count de Valentinois and Dioys, to our well-beloved and faithful governor of Dauphiny. Health and dilection.

Touching the inhabitants of the valleys of Loyse, Fraissiniere, l'Argentiere, and others belonging to our country of Dauphiny, we have been certainly informed,―That notwithstanding they have, and will still live,

2 Vignaux Memorials, fol. 6.

as becomes good Christians, without holding, believing or maintaining any superstitious tenet, but only such as is agreeable to the ordinance and discipline of the Church-nevertheless, certain religious mendicants styling themselves Inquisitors of the Faith, and others, thinking by vexations and persecution to force and extort their goods from them, and by other ways to molest them in their persons, have been, and still are desirous, falsely to lay to their charge, that they hold and believe certain heresie sand superstitions contrary to the Catholic faith; and under that colour and pretence, do trouble and annoy them with process upon process, both in our court of parliament of Dauphiny, and several other countries of our dominions.

"And for the confiscation of the goods of those whom they charge with the said crimes, several of the judges, and even of the inquisitors of the faith, who for the most part are religious mendicants, under the colour of the office of inquisitors, have and daily do continue to send out process against several poor people, without any just or reasonable cause; have put some upon the rack, called them to question, without any preceding information, and have condemned them for crimes which they were not guilty of, as hath been afterwards found out; and of others they have taken and exacted great sums of money to set them at liberty, and molested and troubled them by divers unjust and illegal means, to the prejudice and damage not only of the said supplicants, but also of us, and* the whole republic of our country of Dauphiny.

"Wherefore, we being willing to provide against this mischief, and not to suffer our people to be troubled by such unjust and illegal methods; especially the inhabitants of the said places affirming, that they always have, and will still continue to live, as becomes good Christians, and professors of the Catholic religion, without holding or believing any other faith than what is allowed by the Church; neither have maintained, or will maintain or believe anything contrary thereto; and that it is unreasonable, that any person should be condemned for the crime of heresy, except those who stubbornly, obstinately and contumaciously maintain and affirm things contrary to the sincerity of our faith; have with great and mature deliberation, and to put a stop to such frauds and abuses, unjust vexations, and illegal extortions, granted to the said supplicants, and do grant, and with our certain knowledge and special consent, full power and authority, royal and delphinal, we have willed and ordained, and do will and ordain by these presents, that the said supplicants, and others of our country of Dauphiny, be freed from the court and suits, and whatsoever suit any of them shall have commenced against them for the causes above-mentioned; we have of our certain knowledge, full power and authority, royal and delphinal, abolished and do abolish, made void and do make void by these presents. And our will and pleasure is, that from the beginning of the world to this day, there be nothing exacted of them, or injury offered to them in their body, goods, or good name. Except, nevertheless, there be any who obstinately, stubbornly, and contumaciously will hold and affirm any points contrary to the holy Catholic faith. "Moreover, we have willed and ordained, and do will and ordain, that the goods of the said inhabitants our supplicants, and others of our country of Dauphiny, which, for the cause above-mentioned, have been taken and exacted of any person, in what manner soever, by execution or otherwise, by the order and demand of our court of parliament of Dauphiny, or any other whatsoever; as likewise all bonds and obligations, that they have