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The Waldensian Recourse to Violence

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Susanna K. Treesh
Susanna K. Treesh
Affiliation:
Doctoral candidate in the history department, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey.
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Extract

From their origins in the twelfth century to their support for and involvement in the Reformation in the sixteenth, the Waldensian heretics professed nonviolence as one of their beliefs. Later Protestant and Catholic polemicists equated the profession of nonviolence with a policy and bestowed upon the sect a reputation as one of the precursors of religious pacifism. More recent scholars have noted that the heretics at least occasionally employed violence. I will argue that lay Waldensian believers, called credentes, reacted violently to persecution and learned to employ aggression in pursuit of political goals. In the later Middle Ages, at least, Waldensians resorted to violence on enough occasions and in enough different locations to justify dropping the idea that they were a nonviolent group. Their use of violence did become more sophisticated—that is, more closely connected to political goals—during the fifteenth century as access to representatives of the state increased.

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Type
Research Article
Information
Church History , Volume 55 , Issue 3 , September 1986, pp. 294 - 306
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1986

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References

1. The Waldensian movement began with the evangelical activities of the merchant Waldes of Lyons. The year 1174 is celebrated as the year of origin; probably the movement took shape during the succeeding decade. It became the most widespread and long-lived of medieval heretical movements.

2. See the discussion of the intertwined political and aggressive reactions of the Dauphinois Waldensians to the crusade of Cattaneo, Albert in Cameron, Euan, The Reformation of the Heretics: The Waldenses of the Alps, 1480–1580 (Oxford, 1984), pp. 17–24.Google Scholar I disagree with Cameron's assertion that “Waldensian organization was, in short, very lay and very materialist; it was concerned with the defense of property, by litigation and by force.” If that were the case, there would have been no reason for Cattaneo's crusade. Rather, the Waldensians were willing at this point to use force to defend their beliefs. This had been the case in Germany and earlier in Piedmont and Dauphiné. I have tried to show the continuity and development of the Waldensians' willingness to employ violence.

3. Mullett, Michael, Radical Religious Movements in Early Modern Europe (London, 1980), p. 10.Google Scholar Although some authors (for example, Richard Kieckhefer, Repression of Heresy in Medieval Germany) recognize that the violence was not occasional or accidental, most have written on the assumption that the majority of Waldensians held to a principle of nonviolence. Howard Kaminsky states in A History of the Hussite Revolution that “At the same time there is much evidence to show that for at least a century before the Hussite revolt Central European Waldensians were occasionally capable of passing over to violent actions” (p. 177), but he assumes that in the normal course of events the Waldensian influence will be a pacifist one (pp. 320–321). Schneider, Martin, Europäische Waldensertum in 13 und 14 Jahrhundert (New York, 1981),CrossRefGoogle Scholar argues the opposite of what I propose in this paper: that the advocates of violent action were to be found chiefly among the inner religious leadership, with nonviolence as the layperson's belief (pp. 82–83). Merlo, Grado G., Eretici e inquisitori nella societá piemontese del Trecento (Turin, 1977),Google Scholar mentions “contrast between theory and practice in the [violent] Piedmontese episodes,” but attributes such actions to a chance convergence of causes, including errors in judgment by the Inquisition; pp. 151–152.

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18. Ibid., p. 321.

19. Chevalier, , Memoire historique, p. 52.Google Scholar A certain Daniel Griot was arrested on 1 September as he travelled from Val Pragalas to Val Freyssinieres to seek a barbe named Jeannet.

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25. Ibid.

26. Ibid.

27. Some who have considered Philip Regis to have been a sort of Cathar accepted him as a Waldensian even if some of his statements are not confirmed elsewhere; Weitzecker, Giacomo, “Processo di un Valdese nell' anno 1451,” La Rivista Cristiana 9 (1881): 363–367.Google Scholar

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31. Kurze, Dietrich, “Brief märkische Waldenser,” pp. 317–319.Google Scholar

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34. Chevalier, , Memoire historique, p. 81.Google Scholar

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36. Arnaud, , “Louis XI,” pp. 513–518.Google Scholar Charles VIII died in 1498. The Waldensians were deceived in their hopes for Louis XII. He may have been more favorably disposed, but little tangible result came of it.

37. “Errores Valdensium in Paeana Commorantium,” in Arturo, Pascal, “Margherita di Foix ed i Valdesi di Paesana,” Athenaeum 4 (1916): 64–65.Google Scholar

38. Printed in full in Vinay, Confessioni, pp. 36–51.

39. Ibid., p. 44.

40. Ibid., p. 66.

41. Ibid., p. 108.