With the french Valdenses, however, we are not at present quite immediately concerned. Our object just now is simply to connect the

successisse creduntur. Conrad. Abbat. Ursperg. Chron. in A. D. 1212. apud Gretser. Proleg. in Script. cont. Valdens. c. v. in Bibl. Patr. vol. xiii. p. 291.

In point of habits and character, the Abbot, like Pope Lucius III. before him in the year 1184, appears to have somewhat confounded the Humiliated with the Poor Men properly so called. For he describes the Minor Friars, as being specially opposed to the Poor Men of Lyons; whom we positively know to have been a body of missionaries: while he exhibits the Preaching Friars, as being specially opposed to the Humiliated; who, though (as he speaks) they may sometimes have thrust their sickle into another man's harvest, do not seem, at least before the time of Peter Valdo, to have been distinguished by the characteristic of extensively bearing the Gospel beyond the limits of their native Valleys. The important part of his testimony, however, is this. He explicitly tells us that, In point of ultimate origination, the two sects, into which the Valdenses were divided, sprang up, at a remote period, in Italy. OLIM duæ sectæ IN ITALIA exortæ. This statement at once agrees with, and confirms, my own view of the matter. The Poor Men of Lyons, through the active proselytism of Peter Valdo, sprang up in France; but then Peter himself was one of the Humiliated of Italy: so that the ultimate theological pedigree of each branch alike was Italian, not French.

Such an account of the matter, thus happily preserved by Conrad, will explain what Reinerius meant; when, in one breath (as it were), he speaks of the Leonists as being the oldest of all heretical sects; and yet, under the name of the Poor Men of Lyons, asserts them to have had for their founder an individual who flourished not more than seventy years before himself. It will also account for the singular fact recorded by him: that

disciples of Peter the Valdo with the italian Valdenses; that is to say, the modern Leonists (as Reinerius speaks) with the ancient Leonists: and the testimony of the Abbot of Ursperg fully accomplishes that object.

For the matter stands thus.

That the Poor Men of Lyons were the proselytes and disciples of Peter the Valdo, we all know.

Yet Conrad of Lichtenau, we see, distinctly tells us that these Poor Men or Leonists or Valdenses, when viewed as a sect and when consi

the Poor Men of Lyons, or the French Valdenses, were wont to journey into Lombardy, and there visit their Bishops.

Item peregrinantur: et ita, Lombardiam intrantes, visitant Episcopos suos. Reiner. de hæret. c. v. in Bibl. Patr. vol. xiii. p. 301.

The distinction, in short, between the French and the Italian Valdenses, is specifically drawn by himself in his Summa.

Nunc dicendum est de hæresi Leonistarum, seu Pauperum de Lugduno. Dividitur autem hæresis in duas partes. Prima pars vocatur Pauperes Ultramontani; secunda vero, Pauperes Lombardi: et isti descenderunt ab illis. Reiner. Summ. de Cath. et Leon. in Marten. Thesaur. Anecdot. vol. i. col. 1775.

By the Lombard or Cismontane Valdenses, Reinerius can only mean, as our modern geography speaks, the Valdenses of Piedmont. He uses, I apprehend, the term Lombard, in its ancient and larger and proper sense. The Kingdom of Lombardy extended, from the Adriatic Sea, to the Cottian Alps: thus including both Turin and the still more westerly country of the Vallenses. See Gibbon's Hist. of Decline, chap. xlv. vol. viii. p. 147, 148.

dered in reference to their ultimate theological

origin, had already sprung up and had long existed in Italy, previous to their becoming celebrated in France under the auspices and tutelage of the piedmontese merchant Peter.

III. Thus, I am willing to hope, the Vallenses, in their present settlements through the valleys of the Cottian Alps, have been clearly traced, from the very times of the Primitive Church, down to an age when their existence can no longer be doubtful.

CHAPTER IX.

THE THEOLOGY OF THE VALLENSES DURING THE PERIOD OF THE TWELFTH CENTURY.

I Now turn to the vitally important point of the Theology of the Vallenses.

In order, then, that we may have a full and distinct view of their Doctrinal System, it will be proper to exhibit it, as maintained at three several periods: the period of the twelfth century; the period of the thirteenth century; and the period either at or immediately after the Reformation. For, if we ascertain the Doctrinal System of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and if we find it the same as the Doctrinal System at the time of the Reformation, we may fairly infer the agreement of all the intermediate centuries.

Respecting the yet earlier period which preceded all the three periods thus marked out; a period, which may be viewed, as taking in the times of Jerome on the one hand and the times of Rodolph of St. Trudon on the other hand; a period, therefore, extending from the commencement of the fifth century down to the earlier part

of the twelfth century: respecting this earlier period, nothing more needs here to be said; because every requisite statement has, in truth, been anticipated. During this lengthened term, there can be no reasonable doubt, that the opinions of Vigilantius and the opinions of Claude, as they stood at the beginning of the fifth century and at the beginning of the ninth century, were, universally and invariably, the doctrinal opinions of the Alpine Vallenses.

Such matters having thus been already dispatched, I proceed to inquire into the Doctrinal System of the Vallenses during the evolution of the period comprehended within the twelfth century.

To the very beginning of this age, or rather indeed to the last year of the preceding age, certainly one of the Valdensic Documents, which have come down to us, is to be referred: and, that another of them belongs to the latter half of the same twelfth age, there is at least very strong internal evidence.

Before this testimony is adduced, it may be necessary to make some preparatory observations.

In the year 1658, Sir Samuel Morland brought, from Piedmont to England, several manuscripts, which purported to be Works of the ancient Vaudois of the Cottian Alps. These he deposited in the University Library at Cambridge: whence,