The
Alberta Church

Among other faithful remnants whose names were changed to suit the soil were the Albigenses, from the city of Albi; the Pickards, from the French district of that name; the Vaudois, from the Alpine Valleys; or Bohemian brethren, from that distant land. They were also identified by their manner of life — they were known as the Tisserands, or Weavers; Insabbati, from their wooden shoes; Passagini, or Wanderers; Cave-dwellers; and Turlupini, or Wolves, from their out- cast life.

As already mentioned there were some others that bore the names of their leaders, such as Petrobrusians, from Peter deBruis, a converted priest, converted by reading the Scriptures, which is why the word of God is scarcely found in the atheistic wastelands of our society — namely, any government institution, most notably our schools. Peter deBruis made evangelistic tours through southern France for twenty years, until he was burnt at St. Giles.

Others were known by the familiar name of the Waldenses, probably derived from Peter Waldo, a rich burgher of Lyons. Waldo was so much affected at a banquet by the sudden death of a friend, that he sold his goods and gave to the poor, and then gathered about him a company of poor but pious men, known as the Good Men, or Poor Men of Lyons, who traversed the land as lay-preachers. These people, under these different names, thronged Lombardy with its powerful cities; Piedmont with its secluded valleys and inaccessible mountain fastnesses; and Provence with its independent estates of noble men. In Bohemia, far away from Rome, eighty thousand found a refuge. In the diocese of Padua, they had forty one schools; in two others, ten each; and throughout Italy no city was left unvisited by their preachers; even Rome, the heart of the Inquisition, was entered. Public education has never been needed, it has been expedient to a cause!

In France, the Waldenses constituted the ruling population of a thousand cities, and in the country the castles of the nobility were open to them. Their schools received the patronage of the rich; their industrial and commercial intercourse developed the Languedoc, the first modern language of Europe; and their domestic and knightly virtues furnished the theme that inspired the Troubadours. The Bishop of Carcassonne petitioned the Pope to recall him from his fruitless field. Bernard reported from his visit to these districts, that he found churches [Roman Catholic] without people, people without priests, priests without honour, the sacrament neglected, feast days unobserved, and children unbaptized. Hallam, a historian of the Middle Ages marveled at the growth of this community and gave evidence that they were yet a persecuted lot, "An inundation of heresy broke, in the 12th century, over the church [Rome], which no persecution was able thoroughly to repress, till it finally overspread half the surface of Europe." William Neubrigensis, a contemporary, said, "They were multiplied as the sands of the sea." The Papacy was then at the height of its power, holding all Europe as its fief; kings as its vassals, crowns as its gifts; and, conscious of its strength, was sending its chivalrous servants to wrest the Holy Land from the Saracens. At that moment, the Papacy found a foe, worse than the Turk, to contend with at home, and one that was undermining its influence, until it seemed on the point of dying from sheer popular neglect. It was only by proclaiming the same crusades against the heretics that had been raised against the infidels, and by laying waste the Eden of southern France, and depopulating her teeming cities, that the peril was escaped. To finish in detail the work of the extermination, the Dominican Friars were organized into bands of inquisitors, and armed with full powers of Church and State to detect and utterly destroy the heresy. Through their efforts hundreds of thousands of innocents perished.