sb. pl. Eccl. Hist. Also (6 Waldensses), 7–9 Valdenses. [a. med.L. Waldensēs (Valdensēs), app. f. Waldensis, a variant form of the cognomen of Peter Waldo: see below. Cf. the Fr. form VAUDOIS.] The adherents of a religious sect that originated in the south of France about 1170 through the preaching of Peter Waldo, a rich merchant of Lyons. They were excommunicated in 1184, and eventually became a separately organized church, which associated itself with the Protestant Reformation of the 16th c., and still exists, chiefly in Northern Italy and the adjacent regions.
[c. 1449. Pecock, Repr., V. iii. 501. Also the sect of Waldensis.]
1537. Orig. & Sprynge of Sectes, Contents, Waldenses secte. Ibid., 48. The order of Waldenses or Picardes.
1579. Fulke, Confut. Sanders, 594. He adioyneth Anno Do. 1160. the Waldensses, whome hee calleth beggers of Lyons. Ibid. (1579), Heskins’s Parl., 29. Valdo … caused Bookes of scripture to be translated, and so beganne the sect of Valdenses, or Pauperes de Lugduno.
1649. Milton, Eikon., xvii. 159. If we may beleeve what the Papists themselves have writt’n of these Churches, which they call Waldenses.
1774. Fletcher, Hist. Ess., Wks. 1795, IV. 13. The true Quakers … made as firm a stand against the Antinomians, as the Valdenses did against the Papists.
1867. Western Daily Press, 27 Sept., 3/2. If there was a primitive and apostolic church under the sun it was the church of the Waldenses.
1888. Encycl. Brit., XXIV. 323. The Waldenses, under their more modern name of the Vaudois, have survived to the present day in the valleys of Piedmont.
