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by Stephen G. Beus (Author)
In the 11th and 12th Centuries there was a great religious movement in Western Europe known as the vita apostolica, fueled by a desire of devout Christians to return to the simple faith of apostolic times. Originating in reaction to the greed, Simony and wealth of the Roman church, the movement's principal tenets were poverty of the clergy and the zeal for individual souls. The movement prompted reforms within the church but also precipitated a massive exodus from the church and the emergence of hundreds of religious movements. Over the next several centuries, the combined efforts of the Catholic Inquisition and the newly-formed mendicant orders succeeded in eliminating all of these dissident movements except one. The Vaudois or Waldenses, sequestered in the Alpine valleys of northern Italy, survived the Inquisition and 800 years of persecution, and remain an independent religious denomination today.
The book tells the Vaudois story in the context of the times, from the movement's 12th Century origins in the south of France, though the terrors of the Medieval Inquisition, its 16th Century encounter with the Protestant Reformation, its near annihilation in the 17th Century, its resurgence in the 18th Century to the ultimate achievement of religious freedom in 1848. The story is told with deference to the historical milieu in which they lived and probes the nature of the Vaudois people, the ebb and flow of their fate, the foundations of their faith and strengths and the conditions that contributed to their remarkable survival.
