CHAPTER IV.

RENEWED PERSECUTIONS.

Settlements in Italy-Attack on Pragela-Massacre in Calabria --Present and former state of Pragela-Proceedings in France -Ecclesiastical assailants-Waldensian retreats-Females of high rank protect the followers of the truth.

FROM the close of the fourteenth century, the inhabitants of the Alpine valleys seem to have been continually exposed to persecution, though at times with short intervals of comparative repose, when it might be said the churches had rest, and were edified. These intervals never were of long continuance, and tales of suffering and martyrdom, as in the times of the early Christians, must constantly have been handed down from father to son. They now reckon that thirty-two invasions from enemies were suffered by their ancestors; but it was not till the last of these, in 1686, that they were actually expelled from their native valleys. Of many of these attacks the notices are brief, and not distinctly preserved in history; nor is it possible to present a regular account of them. Others are more marked and better known. It should be observed, that the valleys of Piedmont became subject to the duke of Savoy, in consequence of some victories in the crusade of the thirteenth century. And to the princes of

that state they have ever been loyal and obedient subjects, though sometimes protected, and sometimes persecuted, according to the characters or political interests of their rulers.

During the fifteenth century, the Vaudois being assaulted in Provence and the south of France, many withdrew to Italy, and joined others who had settled as far south as Naples. They had teachers at Florence, Genoa, and Venice, and some of their followers lived in concealment, even in the city of Rome. But the crusades against the Albigenses, or inhabitants of the Pyrenees, have not fallen under notice in these pages; though they engaged the attention of most of the nations in Europe throughout the thirteenth century, being called crusades, and encouraged by the same promises that were held out to those who made war against the Mohammedans in Asia. They were undertaken even at the time when peaceable conferences were proposed to be held with Arnold, and other teachers of the Albigenses.

There is no authenticated record of the Vaudois in Piedmont being persecuted till the year 1400, when, about Christmas time, in the valley of Pragela, their enemies took possession of the caves or caverns which they had already frequently used, when they were assaulted. Being thus surprised at a season when they least expected it, they betook themselves to one of the highest mountains of the Alps, named the Albergam, that is to say, the mountain of retreat; and running together in troops with

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their wives and children, the mothers carrying their cradles, and leading their infants by the hand that were able to go, the enemy followed and slew many of them. Night coming on, these poor people were in the snow, without any means to make fires to warm their little infants, so that there were found in the morning fourscore small infants dead in their cradles, and most of their mothers died after them. Meanwhile their enemies pillaged the houses of these poor people, and hanged upon a tree a Waldensian woman, named Margaret Athode. The remembrance of this persecution formed a frequent subject of family discourse, in the valleys.

Yet the inhabitants of Pragela were as inoffensive and correct in their lives as the Waldenses elsewhere. What those lives were may be inferred from a narration respecting some of their number, who, on account of their increasing population, in 1370, had settled in Calabria, where we read they found "certain waste and untilled land, but very fertile, fit to bring forth corn, wine, oil of olives, and chestnuts, and hills fit for the breeding and nourishing of cattle, and to furnish them with fuel, and timber fit for building. The lords of the said countries thought themselves happy in that they had met with so good subjects as had peopled their lands, and made them to abound with all manner of fruits, but principally because they found them to be honest men, and of a good conscience, yielding unto them all those duties

and honours that they could expect from the best subjects in the world. Only their parsons and priests complained, that they lived not touching matters of religion as other people did, they made none of their children priests, nor nuns, they loved no chanting, tapers, lamps, bells, no, nor masses for their dead; they had built certain temples, not adorning them with images; they went not on pilgrimage."

Such is the simple language of the historian, and contrasting their temperate habits with the vices that generally prevailed, he adds, "They were as precious stones in a common sink." We may here terminate the history of these Calabrian Waldenses. They were extirpated in the year 1560, as the same author relates. "Some fled to the high rocks and died with famine. The inquisitor Panza cut the throats of fourscore, as a butcher doth his muttons; afterwards he caused them to be divided into four quarters, and commanded that the highways should be set with stakes for thirty miles, and caused a quarter to be fastened to every stake. Threescore women were brought to the rack, and used with violence." Some were cast from a high tower, others beaten with rods of iron, or otherwise tortured.

The above account is taken from Lennard's translation of Perrin, published in 1624, at which time it could be said of the valley of Pragela, "There are at this day six goodly churches, every one having their pastor, and every pastor having divers villages, all filled

with those that have descended from the ancient Waldenses. For although in the said valley there are, at this present, old people, and not a small number that draw near, yea, and some that are above a hundred years old, yet these good old men have never heard of their fathers or grandfathers, that mass was ever sung in their times, in that country." This cannot be now asserted, for the whole population of Pragela are, at this time, professed Roman Catholics, the Protestant faith having been rooted out there by the persecutions of the French and Sardinian rulers, in the year 1727, although this was a breach of a treaty made with the English court. Many families, however, are of Protestant descent, and preserve their old ancestral Bibles as heirlooms. About three years ago, says Dr. Henderson, (in 1845,) the priests discovered the fact, and having taken their Bibles by force, to the number of forty or fifty, burned them publicly in one of the villages. One of the Catholics, however, with a loaded musket in his hand, declared he would on no consideration part with his Bible, and would shoot the first man, be he priest or otherwise, that should set his foot over the threshold. Seeing him resolute, the party desisted, and left him in possession of the Scriptures. Soon after, a fire broke out in the same village, and consumed all the houses; to collect money for rebuilding which, the priests made the tour of the Protestant valleys. One female asked them, if the fire had originated in a spark from that